From the Pulpit
Aldersgate Sunday
Today is a special one for Methodists, a day known as Aldersgate Sunday ~ Pete Greig shares the story ...
‘It was on this day in 1738, that John Wesley’s ‘heart was strangely warmed’, at a Moravian meeting in Aldersgate, London. It is no exaggeration to say that this was the spark that lit ten thousand fires, the moment that launched a movement for
profound societal transformation.
Wesley would ride hundreds of thousands of miles preaching the gospel. Methodism was about to be born. The working classes were going to be trained to read and to lead without the need for institutional ordination. Churches would soon proliferate in homes and eventually in humble chapels. Some historians argue that, unlike France at the same time, England avoided a bloody revolution because of Wesley’s work transforming the predicament of the poor.
This encounter was the beginning of the first microfinance schemes for the poor, of free education for all, of the Salvation Army, of the movement to abolish slavery.
As Wesley’s heart was strangely warmed on this night all those years ago the Great Awakening was sparked’
... may our hearts be warmed once more as we journey with God into a new awakening of faith, of social action and of being church, in the power of the Holy Spirit.
