John Wesley Sites in London:

One of the highlights of the trip for me was to see some of the places where John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, went to.

This is Aldersgate Street where John Wesley's heart was strangely warmed and he had his conversion experience. Obviously London has changed much over the hundreds of years since but there is a church now where the street would have existed.



Nearby was this large metal piece (20 feet tall by 10 feet wide) of John Wesley's journal entry when he understood that Christ saved him personally.

We went to John Wesley's house which was near his church Wesley chapel. This site became his home base of operations where daily services were held, often at 5 or 6am before work, and traveling preachers came.

This is what is known as the powerhouse of Methodism. It was a small room where Wesley prayed every morning beginning at 4 am. This was his ritual and his place. He would kneel for prayer. They say all great people of God were people who prayed very early in the morning.

John's brother Charles wrote many of the great hymns of the faith such as "O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing", "And Can it Be", "Love Divine, All Love's Excelling". This was his organ and it is still in working order.
This pulpit is from one of Wesley's first churhes, the Foundry, soon after his conversion. All of us preachers had to get a picture in it.

This is his chapel. It was beautiful. They were practicing for a BBC broadcast when we came so we didn't get to see much of the chapel. It was a shame. The picture below shows a remarkable design. In our churches today when we have lots of people come we bring in metal, portable chairs. This church had these wooden pieces which extended from the pew when they needed more seating. It was very creative and I have never seen that at any other church.

This statue of Wesley is placed in a courtyard. Behind me is the church he constructed, to my left is the house where he lived.

This is where Wesley is buried, in back of the church. The monument was erected and people come here regularly to visit. The structure behind it is Reuters News Service Building. The church was in much financial trouble in the 1970's and had to sell off some of the land.
Wesley went to school at Oxford and was ordained there. Nearby is this church called St. Mary's. It is a very old historic church. It used to be the church of the University and held many important meetings here. For example Thomas Crammner who wrote the Book of Common Prayer was tried here as a heritic and was led out to be burned at the stake. It was in this pulpit (or one like it), that John Wesley preached his famous sermon "Salvation by Faith", the first after he was converted and began to articulate his conversion. Today it would be like going to the richest, most culturally elite church of your city and preaching in it. If I'm not mistaken he only preached here once more.