From the library shelves ...
Wesley: A Heart Transformed Can Change the World
Library category: DVD
This movie is based on John and Charles Wesley’s personal journals and traces the life of John Wesley’s and the journey he took that ultimately led to the founding of the Methodist movement.
From a very young age, Wesley earnestly sought to do God’s work, relying on his own self discipline and doing good works that he thought would be pleasing to God. For example, while he was at Oxford he regularly visited prisoners to distribute food to them. He did all this in the belief that he could earn his way into God’s favour and escape the fires of Hell. This belief was to change when God made use of the lowest point of his life to teach him the true meaning of faith and to raise him to become one of the greatest English evangelists of his generation.
In 1735, he set sail for the British colony of Georgia to serve as a minister in Savannah. He went there with expectation that he would bring the Gospel message to the “noble Savages”, which is how he thought of the Native Americans. He arrived full of hope that he would gain even more favour in God’s eyes. Instead he left Savannah a broken man; he was forced to sneak back to England to escape a defamation suit for refusing to serve communion to a woman he had become romantically involved in. In addition he did not have much success in converting the Native Americans. Back in England, he felt that he had failed God and the church and he started to doubt his faith. Feeling abandoned by God, he felt like a hypocrite, having to preach about faith when he himself had none. It was during this time that he became friends with a Moravian missionary, Peter Boehler. Boehler encouraged him and told him that he needed to truly trust in God in his heart. His relationship with the Moravians was to be an important turning point in Wesley’s journey of faith.
One day in 1738, Wesley reluctantly attended a Moravian meeting in Aldersgate Street, London. During the reading of Martin Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans, he was struck by an encounter with God that left him ecstatic and, in his words, “Strangely warmed.” This encounter gave him new strength and with renewed vigour, he went about preaching fearlessly the word of God. Often he reminded his listeners that “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” which did not go down well with people of high standing who were in the church. As a result, he found himself banned from many Church of England pulpits including the pulpit of his father’s former parish in Epsworth. In a poignant scene in the movie, barred from the Epsworth parish church, he climbed onto his father’s grave to give his sermon to the people who had eagerly assembled to hear him.
From a person who questioned his own faith to one whose spiritual legacy includes over 70 million Christians of the Wesleyan/Methodist tradition, the movie shows the power of a transformed heart that has been touched by God. This is a wonderfully written movie that balances the need to highlight the key moments in John Wesley’s life without over being overly dramatic.
The DVD is available for loan at the church library (located at level 2 next to the church office) for duration of 2 weeks. For membership enquiries, please ask at the library or email: kkmc.library@gmail.com
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