And so we mark Aldersgate Sunday. The Sunday when Methodists the world over remember John & Charles Wesley. (The Church of England, generous as ever, will also remember them - on the 24th, which is the actual anniversary of the insight at Aldersgate Street.
John, of course, was a prolific hymn-writer - famous for several hymns and many translations, although his translation "O God, thou bottomless abyss" could probably do with some re-working these days.
And Charles. What a great preacher he was. An immensely powerful and affecting speaker, whose preaching style was so dramatic and took such a toll on his frame that he had to give up and write a few hymns to make ends meet.
But of course, the thing that makes the Wesley's name so famous was John's organising skill. Without the classes, without the fellowships, without the chapels - he'd never have been heard of again. And Methodism would have been a strange half-remembered group that had met at Oxford - like the Bullingdon, but without the restaurant-trashing.
Aren't gifts fantastic things? And unexpected with it.
Don't forget that John was also a theologian. It was his friend George Whitfield who eventuaqlly forced him to 'become more vile', and go out field preaching, to people the church had failed to reach. John developed a new theology, saying that all might be saved 'to the uttermost', which has pretty much replaced the old Calvinist nonsense about salvation being restricted to the elect.
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