Wesley Bros: Holy Club
The Holy Club mission to Georgia was full of expectation. John and Charles Wesley travelled with fellow Oxford Methodists Benjamin Ingham and Charles Delamotte to serve as missionaries in the early years of the Georgia social experiment. They expected to convert the Native Americans, and to lead the British Americans into a revival of holiness. With a parish spread across over 200 miles, John was responsible for the overall spiritual well-being of the colony. This made it difficult for him to sustain the sort of transformative ministry he had hoped for. Charles served as Governor Oglethorpe’s chief secretary, and ministered to a small settlement on St. Simon’s Island. Their hopes of converting Native Americans were quickly dashed, and the brothers found that the transformation they expected to see would not come easily.
The four men worked to transfer their own experiment in holiness to a new group of people. Ingham and Delamotte seemed to have had more responsibilities providing education in the community, with Ingham going so far as to begin translating scripture for the Native Americans. Charles Wesley had begun the adventure in a deep depression, hated the monotony of working for Oglethorpe, and experienced hostility and disappointment regularly in his own congregation, and would quickly return to England wondering whether he belonged in the ministry at all. Charles may have still had expectations that the gospel could make a difference, but for now, he was not able to trust that he could be part of that.
John experienced plenty of his own disappointment in ministry. He described his congregation as “half-awake,” and struggled with their indifference to his message of holy living. But John remained plugged into the local Moravian church, joining them for evening worship, and finding himself regularly renewed by their heartfelt and meaningful religion. This sustained him through disappointments and encouraged him to trust in his expectations that the gospel really can make a difference. With Ingham’s help, John was able to nurture small gatherings of teenagers who wanted to go deeper in their faith. After the lead of the Moravians, he led his congregation in singing hymns and psalms, a practice we take for granted now, but was relatively unique in his time. Over time, John built rapport in his community, and his Savannah church began to grow. John stayed in Georgia for almost two years, long enough to see that while it was difficult to sustain small group ministry without key leadership, it was not impossible. His relationship with the Moravians took off in Georgia, and he saw in them proof that his expectations about the Gospel could be realized in this world.
Next week, we’ll begin to explore the more popular saga of John’s downfall in the Georgia experiment, as he begins to fall for a young congregant named Sophy Hopkey. But until then, I challenge you to reflect on your own expectations with the Gospel. What difference do you expect the Gospel of Jesus Christ to make in this world here and now? What do you expect your role to be in that? And whether you see yourself as a success or failure in this Gospel movement, are you able to trust that God’s love for you never fails? Do you believe that God can transform even your most devastating failures into something beautiful?
When not drawing the Wesley Bros cartoon, the Rev. Charlie Baber, a United Methodist deacon, serves as minister of discipleship for youth and families at Highland United Methodist Church in Raleigh, N.C. His cartoon appears on United Methodist Insight by special arrangement.