What makes John Wesley to convert from Anglican to Wesley?

Answer 1

John Wesley never left the Church of England. He started the Methodist movement within that church out of a belief that the Church was not reaching the working class and that true Christianity required a heartfelt faith, not just adherence to creeds and rituals.

Answer 2

John Wesley was an Anglican priest to the day he died. He departed from Anglican Church policy (and British law at the time) by preaching to the working classes in locations other than church buildings, including out of doors. However, he never intended to start a separate church - that was something that his followers did after he died, partly because the Anglican Church became unpopular in the United States after the Revolution.

Answer 3

John Wesley started Methodism because the Anglican church kicked him out. He wanted to make the Word accessible to all people, but some of his methods were not approved by the Anglican church. He also believed that the church should support the poor more strongly than the Anglican church did.

Another Answer:

John Wesley did not mean to start something called "Methodism". He helped his younger brother Charles start a "holy club" at Oxford University. The members would study together, read The Bible, and do good works especially with people who were poor and imprisoned. They were seen as over-the-top religious by their fellow students and got several derogatory nicknames. One of those nicknames was "Methodists" because of their methodical way of being religious. That name stuck and came to be accepted as the movement grew.

After a major failure at being a missionary in the colony of Georgia (before it was a state), Wesley went back to England and had a "heart-warming" experience and a new sense of assurance of God's grace in his life.

John Wesley remained an Anglican priest his whole life, but was often forbidden from speaking in Anglican Churches. So he preached wherever people would come to hear him, usually public squares in towns. This type of preaching was becoming very popular at the time.

What set John Wesley apart from the other traveling preachers was his ability to organize people. Many of the people who came to hear him speak would be converted to a deeper faith and wanted to take steps to grow in their faith. Wesley organized them into societies (large groups, based on city), classes (12 people each, based on location of members), and bands (6 people each, based on an even deeper desire to grow in faith). He also trained many other preachers, both clergy and lay, who did the same thing. These preachers and various size spiritual formation groups made up the early Methodist movement, and grew very rapidly as people found deeper spirituality than they were getting in the Anglican church of the time. People were encouraged to continue attending Anglican services for communion, however.

The first Methodist churches didn't come about until Francis Asbury preached in the newly independent United States and started them there. The British Methodist Church only formed after Wesley had died.

So John Wesley started the movement called Methodism because there was a need for a deeper expression of the Christian faith in England at the time, and because he was able to organize people into a system that worked.

Another View:

I would challenge the premise that John Wesley founded Methodism.

He indeed, founded "Wesleyan" Methodism. Dallimore's excellent biography of George Whitefield gives credible evidence that the Methodist movement had its initial thrust through Whitefield (also a member of the " Holy Club ") -- while John Wesley was still laboring in America -- and before he was actually saved by the grace of God through the ministry of the Moravian, Peter Boehler.

Methodism cannot be regarded as being solely Wesleyan (Arminian) in doctrine; for the Calvinistic Methodists probably had equal followers, notably in the Bristol area and throughout southern Wales.

Answer 4

John Wesley saw many forms of corruption within the Anglican church. Some of these include nepotism, corruption, and other problems that he considered sins.