John Wesley

Born in Epworth, England, in 1703, John Wesley was educated at Charterhouse and Christ Church, Oxford, and was ordained in the Church of England. At Oxford he took part in the small religious group that critics nicknamed the “Methodists,” a label that later became the name of the movement he helped lead.

Wesley is best known for his open-air preaching, relentless travel, and organizing gifts. Rather than breaking away at first, he worked to renew Christian life through disciplined prayer, Bible study, charity, and preaching that reached ordinary people far beyond parish churches. His religious awakening in 1738 became a defining moment in his ministry, and over the decades he built networks of societies and preachers that gave Methodism its lasting shape.

He was also a prolific writer whose sermons, journals, letters, and devotional works reached a wide audience. By the time of his death in London in 1791, his influence had spread across Britain and into North America, and his work had laid the foundations for one of the most important movements in modern Protestant history.