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John Wesley

John Wesley

1703 CE–1791 CE · Modern · Epworth, Lincolnshire

John Wesley (1703–1791) was an Anglican clergyman and evangelist who, together with his brother Charles, founded the Methodist movement within the Church of England. Educated at Christ Church, Oxford, he later served as Fellow of Lincoln College and formed the disciplined "Holy Club" there before serving briefly and unsuccessfully as a missionary in the Georgia colony (1735–1737). His Aldersgate Street experience in London in May 1738—where he felt his heart "strangely warmed"—marked the turning point of his evangelical ministry, after which he adopted open-air field preaching and itinerant evangelism across Britain and Ireland. Wesley's doctrine of entire sanctification, or Christian perfection, became one of Methodism's most distinctive and debated contributions to Protestant theology. He remained legally Anglican throughout his life, though the movement he shaped eventually became independent denominations with tens of millions of adherents worldwide.

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Stop 1 of 61703–1714Born

Epworth, LincolnshireUnited Kingdom

What they did here

Born 17 June 1703 in the Epworth rectory to Samuel and Susanna Wesley; famously rescued from a rectory fire in 1709, an event he later described as being 'a brand plucked from the burning.'

About Epworth, Lincolnshire

Epworth, a village in Lincolnshire, England. John Wesley and his brother Charles, founders of Methodism, were born there in the rectory where their father Samuel was the Anglican incumbent.

In Epworth, Lincolnshire at the same time

Charles Wesley

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In the same place & time

Sages whose lives overlapped with John Wesley’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.

Across the traditions

The world in their lifetime

Thinkers, teachers, and rulers whose lives overlapped with John Wesley’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

Works

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