31 Southwest Texans return from 10-day Wesley Heritage Tour

John Wesley

By Gerald L. Harvey
Commission on Communications
Thirty-one Southwest Texas United Methodists returned in early August from a 10-day Wesley Heritage Tour through England.
Bishop Joel N. Martinez and his wife, Raquel, led the pastors and spouses on the trip.
Following a nine-hour flight from Dallas July 25, the group arrived in London and visited St. Paul's Cathedral, where John Wesley often worshiped.
Wesley, who launched the worldwide Methodist movement in the early 1700s, came to the cathedral in 1739 for an afternoon service and was reportedly deeply touched by the hymn, "Out of the Deep Have I Called Unto Thee, O Lord."
The group went to Aldersgate Street, where Wesley had his heart-warming experience of salvation May 24, 1739.
The Southwest Texans visited City Road Chapel, where Wesley once lived, and Bunhill Fields Cemetery, where his mother, Susanna Wesley, is buried.
The Rev. George Bradley, associate pastor of St. Andrew's UMC, San Antonio, preached July 31 in Epworth at Wesley Memorial Church.
Wesley's father was rector of the nearby St. Andrew's Church in Epworth.
Wesley and his siblings were baptized there.
The Southwest Texas group visited the old St. Andrew's rectory to see where Wesley and his brother, Charles, had grown up.
In Oxford Martinez arranged for the group to worship in the historic Christ Church-where John and Charles Wesley were ordained as Anglican priests-and to hear excerpts read from the four Wesley sermons originally preached there.
The traveling United Methodists also saw:
> The New Room in Bristol, the oldest Methodist building in the world.
> Charles Wesley's home in Bristol.
> Francis Asbury's home in Coventry. In 1784 he became the first elected bishop of the newly formed Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States.
> St. Mary de Crypt in Gloucester, church home of George Whitfield, an associate of Wesley's. The church was home to the first Women's Society.
> Stratford-upon-Avon, home of William Shakespeare.