Wesley’s Field Preaching Challenge

By John Townley

Preaching in the open air, or field preaching, was the vehicle that God used in the 18th century to bring tens of thousands of people to faith in Jesus Christ. The extraordinary thing is that John Wesley hated the very thought of field preaching, and he strongly disliked the practice of it. But he did it because, as he preached in the fields, God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, did amazing things.

In these vast crowds, people experienced a deep conviction of sin. They encountered God just where they stood or knelt. There were dramatic deliverances from demons. The Holy Spirit did the work without anyone leading them through a process. As they surrendered to Jesus Christ, they were powerfully set free through the work of the Holy Spirit.

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“These men’s lives were totally transformed through the power of the Holy Spirit.”

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My wife, Becky, and I have the privilege of living two miles from Hanham Mount, one of John Wesley’s most significant field preaching sites. It was here that he preached to the infamous Kingswood miners. They were some of the roughest and toughest men in the land. When they went into the city, the army retreated back to their barracks. Imagine 1,500 of these miners crowded on the hillside at Hanham Mount. John Wesley, this little skinny Oxford don whom they could have beaten to a pulp, stood up and preached the gospel. As he preached, tears began to flow down their faces — cutting a channel in the coal dust on their checks. These men’s lives were totally transformed through the power of the Holy Spirit. They were set free, to live free and to bring freedom to others.

Despite the incredible fruitfulness of the activity of God that Wesley witnessed through field preaching, he continued to hate this activity for decades. Let’s examine Wesley’s journey in relationship to preaching outdoors.

George Whitefield invited John Wesley to come to Bristol to take over from him in preaching in the open air as he was going to America. Charles Wesley was very much against the idea, and there was nothing in the method of field preaching that appealed to John Wesley. It caused dispute among his brethren as to whether he should go or not. On Wednesday, March 28, 1739, it was decided by a lot that John should go. The following excerpts from his diary reveal how he embarked on field preaching:

Thursday, 29 (March 1739). — I left London and in the evening expounded to a small company at Basingstoke, Saturday, 31. In the evening I reached Bristol and met Mr. Whitefield there. I could scarcely reconcile myself at first to this strange way of preaching in the fields, of which he set me an example on Sunday; I had been all my life (till very lately) so tenacious of every point relating to decency and order that I should have thought the saving of souls almost a sin if it had not been done in a church. 

April 1. — In the evening (Mr. Whitefield being gone) I began expounding our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount (one pretty remarkable precedent of field-preaching, though I suppose there were churches at that time also), to a little society which was accustomed to meet once or twice a week in Nicholas Street.

Monday, 2. — At four in the afternoon, I submitted to be more vile and proclaimed in the highways the glad tidings of salvation, speaking from a little eminence in a ground adjoining to the city, to about three thousand people. The Scripture on which I spoke was this (is it possible anyone should be ignorant that it is fulfilled in every true minister of Christ?): “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord” [see Isa. 61:1, 2; Luke 4:18, 19].

Sunday, 8. — At seven in the morning I preached to about a thousand persons at Bristol, and afterward to about fifteen hundred on the top of Hanham Mount in Kingswood. I called to them, in the words of the evangelical prophet, “Ho! every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters; … come, and buy wine and milk without money and without price” [Isa. 55:1].

So began John Wesley’s practice of field preaching. He was 35 years of age when he stood up and, in his own words, “submitted to be more vile and proclaim in the highways the glad tidings of salvation.” Let’s fast-forward 21 years to discover how he felt about field preaching at this point in his life.

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“What marvel the devil does not love field-preaching? Neither do I.” – John Wesley

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Journal entry for June 25 & 26, 1759 (age 56): “On Monday and Tuesday evening I preached abroad, near the Keelmen’s Hospital, to twice the people we should have had at the house. What marvel the devil does not love field-preaching? Neither do I. I love a commodious room, a soft cushion, a handsome pulpit. But where is my zeal, if I do not trample all these under foot, in order to save one more soul?”

And even 13 years later, he writes in his journal on September 6, 1772 (age 69): “I preached on the quay, at Kingswood, and near King’s Square. To this day field-preaching is a cross to me. But I know my commission and see no other way of “preaching the gospel to every creature.”

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“You have nothing to do but to save souls. Therefore, spend and be spent in this work.” – John Wesley

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I find this deeply thought-provoking as I ask myself, what is there that I hate as a method of preaching the gospel, and could that be the very means of people coming to faith in Jesus Christ? John Wesley’s example of being way outside his comfort zone, for decades, in order to “save one more soul” is extremely challenging. Wesley said, “You have nothing to do but to save souls. Therefore, spend and be spent in this work.”

I leave you with one question: Do we place such a high value on the saving of souls?

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