This monument marks the approximate location of John Wesley's "Aldersgate experience", in London. It features Wesley's account of the experience, taken from his journal.[1]
Type
Christianity
Significance
Commemorates the founding of John Wesley's ministry and the Methodist movement
Aldersgate Day, or Wesley Day,[2] is an anniversary observed by Methodist Christians on 24 May. It recalls the day in 1738 when Church of England priest John Wesley attended a group meeting in Aldersgate, London, where he received an experience of assurance of his New Birth.[3][4] This was the pivotal event in Wesley's life that ultimately led to the development of the Methodist movement in Britain and America.[5]
According to his journal,[8] Wesley found that his enthusiastic gospel message had been rejected by his Anglican brothers. Heavy-hearted, he reluctantly attended a group meeting that evening in a Moravian meeting house (the Fetter Lane Society) on Aldersgate Street in London.[9] It was there, while someone was reading from Martin Luther's Preface to the Epistle to the Romans, that he felt that his heart was "strangely warmed".[8] He describes it as:
I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.[3][8]
Daniel L. Burnett called this event Wesley's "Evangelical Conversion", even though he was already a priest.[5] In 1739 Wesley broke with the Moravians and founded a new society, which would become the Methodist movement.[10]
Methodists may privately commemorate the event on 24 May; churches will also mark it with services. The United Methodist Church has produced a special liturgy to be used for Aldersgate Day.[3] The United Methodist Church also celebrates Heritage Sunday on Aldersgate Day or the preceding Sunday.[11] Previously Heritage Sunday was held on 23 April (the date in 1968 of the church union which created the United Methodist Church) or the Sunday following that date,[12] but in 2004 the United Methodist General Conference moved Heritage Day to coincide with Aldersgate Day.[6] In Britain, Wesley's Aldersgate experience is celebrated publicly on the Sunday preceding 24 May if that day is not a Sunday.[7][13]
John Wesley was a priest of the Church of England. In that church's Common Worship service book, published in 2000, Aldersgate Day was included in the calendar as a commemoration of both John Wesley and his brother, Charles.[14]
Shirley Murray's hymn "How Small a Spark Has Lit a Living Fire!" celebrates Wesley's Aldersgate experience and was written in 1988 for the 250th anniversary of the event.[15]
^UMC General Commission on Archives and History, Heritage Sunday 2017. Accessed 24 May 2017.
^United Methodist Church, Glossary: Heritage Sunday, from A Dictionary for United Methodists, Alan K. Waltz, Copyright 1991, Abingdon Press. Accessed 24 May 2017.
^Murray, Shirley. "How Small a Spark Has Lit a Living Fire! (StF 408)". Singing the Faith. Retrieved 24 May 2021. The hymn alludes to a number of aspects of the life of John and Charles Wesley and to Methodist tradition in general.
