A couple of years ago we visited Savannah, Ga. for the happy occasion of our eldest son’s wedding at the historic Oglethorpe town square. Knowing that this beautiful city was the destiny of John Wesley’s first missionary trip to America in 1735, we visited the Anglican Church that was his first pastoral charge in the former British colony. We know that after Wesley had come in contact with a group of Moravian immigrants who were traveling in the same ship from Britain, he felt they had something he was lacking in his Christian experience. Back in England in 1737 he found the Moravian church in Aldersgate Street where for the first time he understood salvation and forgiveness of sins. After listening to a reading of Luther’s commentary of the book of Romans, he felt “a strange warmth in his heart” that caused peace indescribable and faith in his life.
I was particularly interested in tracing Wesley’s steps in the city since on his second visit to Savannah we found he preached in what was going to be the first Methodist church in the American colonies and the first parochial school adjacent to it. His brother Charles kept busy writing hymns, teaching and serving as chief of staff for the governor of the Georgia colony.
Sitting in the Wesley Square overlooking his monument, we met two fellow Methodists from California who were just as thrilled as us to remember his legacy. During a time of silence and meditation under the shadow of majestic trees, I thanked the Lord God in tears because He gave the ladies of the Methodist Women Societies in New York the heart and the resources to send the first missionaries to my native land of Mexico right after the Civil War. The first pastor assigned to my country was a young man, John Wesley Butler, named in honor of our founder, who led the challenge to open congregations and schools throughout our nation. General Ulysses S. Grant attended the inaugural service of the first Methodist church in downtown Mexico City. Today, we have around 800 churches all over Mexico supervised by a College of Bishops in charge of seven ministerial conferences; I am proud of the fact that we are the only mainline Protestant denomination there that has not splintered because of our adherence to the Holy Scriptures and to the Doctrine and Social Principles of our Book of Discipline. I also thanked God because as the vision and strategy of John Wesley and his brother Charles took hold, in America, my country, and those around the world, millions have been able to know the Gospel, sing the Gospel, and thus repent and follow the Lord Jesus Christ. My ancestors, my siblings, yours truly, and our three boys were all educated at my beloved Iglesia Metodista de Mexico’s
churches and schools.
May our sense of identity as Christian Methodists be deepened in this sacred season of Lent.
Prayer:
Thank You Father for the missionary efforts of Methodist women around the world. Amen.
Contributed by Victor Orozco
