Today was spent in Bristol - back in John Wesley's day, it was the second largest city in England, coming in at 40,000 people (today, it is the fifth largest by population at 420,556 according to the 2001 census). It is also known as the "Cradle of Methodism" because it is in Bristol that the first Methodist Chapel, built in 1739 and later enlarged to handle more people in 1748. Now, there were Methodist Chapels later erected in Wesley's day - the other two being in London and then up north in Newcastle, but it was the Bristol one that John Wesley spent the most time at (a total of 6 years, which is actually a lot of time considering that John Wesley never seemed to get off his horse).
Being in the New Room (as it is referred to) was a neat experience. It was here that Methodist preachers were taught how to preach as well as Wesleyan theology. The architecture of this meeting space was very Quaker (because a Quaker designed it...) with a gallery along the second story and it had a double pulpit - the one below for the liturgist / scripture reading and the top one for the sermon. Above the actual meeting space was living quarters for preachers, one of these rooms being reserved for John Wesley himself. From this living quarter space there are two windows - one looking towards the back of the meeting space and the other looking down towards the pulpit. It is well believed that when John was in Bristol, he would sit in the common area of the living space upstairs and critique the sermon being presented. No doubt, if I had seen John Wesley from that window above, sitting or standing there and listening to me preach, I would get very nervous...
After being in the New Room, we went out to the city's edge to where a plaque is, taking notice that it was immediately around there that Wesley first preached "in the open air." Imagining that it was then a brickyard compared to today, where it was the edge of a parking lot for new office buildings was an interesting stretch of the imagination. We were also able to visit Charles Wesley's home. He settled down with a Welsh woman in Bristol, and the house that we visited (which the family only stayed at for about 6 years) was centered around this tall and skinny staircase... There were 5 stories to this house with the kitchen and storage area at the bottom in the basement, the main receiving room on the entrance floor, the main bedroom with another room on the second, the third floor was a couple more rooms - bedrooms no doubt - and the top floor was Charles' study where he very well penned many of his thousands of hymns.
The last bit of our Wesley tour in Bristol ended between St. James Cathedral and St. Mark's Church, which are across a courtyard from one another. England finally decided to be its rainy self today, so our guide was telling us about John Wesley's confrontation with the bishop who was telling Wesley to leave Bristol, and Wesley telling the bishop that he was not going to leave because he believed that, "The world is my parish" and that the only way he was going to leave Bristol is if God told him that he was needed elsewhere instead. Near the end of his life, John was invited to preach at St. Mark's, the Lord Mayor's church, where his sermon was calling out the leadership of Bristol. John Wesley seemed to be an equal opportunity critiquer, and that no one was safe from being held accountable by John.
When it comes to Johnn Wesley's open air preaching (which George Whitefield encouraged him to do), it began to show Wesley really flexing himself. Up until now, John was convinced that the only proper way to preach was to do so inside of a church. Those few individuals who were preaching outside on a market square or in the fields were completely inappropriate. Eventually, however, after seeing the need for the citizens in Bristol to know Jesus, John recognized what he had to do. So, according to his journal, he "submitted myself to be more vile" and went out to the city's edge (so as not to technically step on the Bristol diocese' authority) and began to preach the word, where as many as 3 to 4 thousand showed up to hear him according to Wesley's figures.
We were not able to really explore Bristol much. A large group of us actually found a tea and coffee shop and hunkered down there. It was a good opportunity to talk with the district superintendent of the the East district in my conference. It has been a lot of fun getting to know Dave Byrum better on this trip. In the short amount of time we spent in Bristol, though, I had seen more homeless people than my entire stay in England so far. Granted, this likely means that I was not in the right place in London to see many who were in need, but I still felt myself disconcerted. As we were walking out to Charles Wesleys' family's graveside I gave the remains of my sack lunch to one man. It wasn't much and I found myself wishing there was more than a piece of fruit and some candy in it. About an hour later we passed 3 or 4 more in a different area of the city and half of the group I was with immediately began to do the same for them. It was certainly one of those moments where I recognized just how fortunate I was. Not only do I have enough and then some but I'm travelling the world for the sake of learning more.
We came back to Sarum College in Salisbury for a late dinner. Compline was earlier tonight to give us time to pack. This is our last night in Salisbury. In the morning we board the coach with all our things and head to London for the next two nights until the end of our pilgrimage. Salisbury's been a nice home base for us - and you can't really beat being right across the courtyard from Salisbury Cathedral! Thank you, Salisbury, for all that you've done for us here.
Posted with Blogsy
No comments:
Post a Comment