Aldersgate or Fetter Lane

43
instantaneous conversions, and in revelations by dreams and visions.” 152 It is time for us
to once again be Methodists of a very old-fashioned kind!
Just like Wesley prior to Aldersgate, local churches and their pastors can work
hard and even point to a number of successes. This includes people who have come to a
saving relationship with Jesus Christ, like Wesley at Aldersgate (assuming for sake of
argument that this event for Wesley included salvation in Christ and assurance of faith).
However, what would these local churches and their pastors look like with the
Pentecostal power shown forth in Wesley and his ministry starting with the Fetter Lane
society meeting of January 1, 1739?
In the examples of the Methodist Revival and the New Testament Pentecost of
Acts 2, the Pentecostal moment occurs first in the leaders. John Wesley received his on
January 1, 1739 at an overnight love feast. The disciples “received power when the Holy
Spirit came upon them” (Acts 1:8) as the Spirit descended upon them in that upper room
(Acts 2:1-12). After this, the revival spread as the Holy Spirit continued to show forth
with signs and wonders. Those who want to lead revival must receive (or remember) their
Pentecostal moment and then let the Holy Spirit work. The supernatural work of the Holy
Spirit must be fully welcomed in the leader’s life. In turn, those who follow can also
increase their understanding, practice, and ministry in the supernatural.
152
George Eliot, Adam Bede (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1996), 38. Referred to in
Robert Webster, Methodism and the Miraculous: John Wesley’s Idea of the Supernatural and the
Identification of Methodists in the Eighteenth Century (Lexington, KY: Emeth Press, 2013), 133.