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John Wesley (/ˈwɛsli/; 28 June  [O.S. 17 June] 1703 – 2 March 1791) was an English cleric, theologian, and evangelist who founded the Methodist movement within the Church of England. The societies he founded became the dominant form of the independent Methodist movement that continues to this day.

Educated at Charterhouse and Christ Church, Oxford, Wesley was elected a fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, in 1726 and ordained as an Anglican priest two years later. At Oxford, he led the "Holy Club", a society formed for the purpose of the study and the pursuit of a devout Christian life. After an unsuccessful two year ministry in Savannah, Georgia, he returned to London and joined a religious society led by Moravian Christians. On 24 May 1738, he experienced what has come to be called his evangelical conversion. He subsequently left the Moravians and began his own ministry.

A key step in the development of Wesley's ministry was to travel and preach outdoors. Moving across Great Britain and Ireland, he helped form and organize small Christian groups (societies) that developed intensive and personal accountability, discipleship, and religious instruction. He appointed itinerant, unordained evangelists—both women and men—to care for these groups of people. Under Wesley's direction, Methodists became leaders in many social issues of the day, including the abolition of slavery and support for women preachers.

Although he was not a systematic theologian, Wesley argued for the notion of Christian perfection and against Calvinism. His evangelicalism, firmly grounded in sacramental theology, maintained that means of grace sometimes had a role in sanctification of the believer; however, he taught that it was by faith a believer was transformed into the likeness of Christ. He held that, in this life, Christians could achieve a state where the love of God "reigned supreme in their hearts", giving them not only outward but inward holiness. Wesley's teachings, collectively known as Wesleyan theology, continue to inform the doctrine of Methodist churches.

Throughout his life, Wesley remained within the established Church of England, insisting that the Methodist movement lay well within its tradition. In his early ministry years, Wesley was barred from preaching in many parish churches and the Methodists were persecuted; he later became widely respected, and by the end of his life, was described as "the best-loved man in England".

Wesley’s Inner Turmoil

After leaving Georgia, Wesley was dealing with much inner turmoil. While on his voyage home to England, he had the opportunity to think about his own faith and spiritual state. He found that although he had committed to the life of following Christ, he was dissatisfied with his spiritual soundness and felt inadequate to preach, especially after seeing the spiritual state of the Moravians. This is when Wesley met Peter Böhler, a Moravian, who Wesley discussed his issues with. Böhler encouraged Wesley to “preach faith until you have it”. Wesley started preaching with a new doctrine which many churches were unaccustomed, and many churches asked Wesley to not come back. The doctrines that Wesley preached were old ones that both Luther and Calvin revived. This marked the next chapter of his career as an evangelist.

Wesley's Oxford friend, the evangelist George Whitefield, was also excluded from the churches of Bristol upon his return from America. When Wesley reached Bristol, the city was booming with new industrial and commercial development. Trade was growing rapidly, and it led to new roads and coal mining. Because of this, there were social uproars with riots and religious troubles. Going to the neighbouring village of Kingswood, in February 1739, Whitefield preached in the open air to a company of miners. Later he preached in Whitefield's Tabernacle. Wesley hesitated to accept Whitefield's call to copy this bold step. Overcoming his scruples, he preached the first time at Whitefield's invitation a sermon in the open air, near Bristol, in April 1739. Wesley wrote,

I could scarce reconcile myself to this strange way of preaching in the fields, of which he [Whitefield] set me an example on Sunday; having been all my life till very lately so tenacious of every point relating to decency and order, that I should have thought the saving of souls almost a sin if it had not been done in a church.

Wesley was unhappy about the idea of field preaching as he believed Anglican liturgy had much to offer in its practice. Earlier in his life he would have thought that such a method of saving souls was "almost a sin." He recognised the open-air services were successful in reaching men and women who would not enter most churches. From then on he took the opportunities to preach wherever an assembly could be brought together, more than once using his father's tombstone at Epworth as a pulpit. Wesley preached to create repentance, prayed for conversion, dealt with hysterical behavior, and preached to upwards of thousands through field preaching. Wesley continued for fifty years—entering churches when he was invited, and taking his stand in the fields, in halls, cottages, and chapels, when the churches would not receive him.

Late in 1739 Wesley broke with the Moravians in London. Wesley had helped them organise the Fetter Lane Society, and those converted by his preaching and that of his brother and Whitefield had become members of their bands. But he believed they fell into heresy by supporting quietism, so he decided to form his own followers into a separate society. "Thus," he wrote, "without any previous plan, began the Methodist Society in England." He soon formed similar societies in Bristol and Kingswood, and Wesley and his friends made converts wherever they went.

Wesley traveled to Ireland for the first time in 1747 and continued through 1789. He rejected the Ireland Catholic Church, so he worked to convert the people of Ireland to Methodism. Overall, the numbers grew to over 15,000 by 1795.

Marriage & Romance

Wesley was known to be wed to his work and didn’t find much time for women and romance in his life. After deciding to not marry Sophia Hopkey, it wasn’t until 1748, when he met Grace Murray, that he took any interest in marriage again. One of Wesley’s preachers, John Bennet fell ill and was nursed by Grace. He fell in love with her during his 6 month recovery. Wesley similarly fell in love with Grace and told her that she would be a great help-mate, but she was engaged to Bennet at the time. After many times of Grace being with Bennet, then Wesley, and at times both, ended up marrying Bennet from persuasion of Charles Wesley. Once John Wesley found this out, his relationship with Charles stayed strained, and he fell into a lonely and depressed state. Later in life, Wesley decided that marriage would be beneficial to his work and life. He met Molly Vazeille in 1749 and married her in 1751. The marriage continued, but was a broken marriage. Molly did not fit the life of Wesley because she complained of the traveling and constant watch from on-lookers. Molly ended up leaving Wesley in 1758 because of correspondence he was having with Sarah Ryan where Molly suspected infidelity. Molly ended up passing away in 1781.