Francis Asbury

..."Upon the whole, I believe we were speaking about four hours besides nearly two hours spent in prayer."




That's an excerpt from the journal of Francis Asbury in January of 1790. I am reading his biography by L.C. Rudolph (1966 Abingdon Press).

I am pretty amazed at the spiritual- and physical stamina of this frontier circuit rider.

His horseback mileage amounted to around four to six thousand miles a year and he said that he seldom mounted his horse when he did not travel twenty miles or more.


Through rain and in muddy ruts, through creeks and rocky paths, Asbury traveled.


He followed the pattern set forth by the founder of Methodism, John Wesley, and the circuit system of evangelism grew what later become the Methodist church in America exponentially.


I have long been curious about these rough and ready gospel-teers for some time by that interest has grown in recent years.


My Granddad, who I have spoken of before in this forum, was a "street preacher" in the early to mid 1900's and his ilk was modeled after the circuit riders. He traveled throughout the Southeast - not on horseback - but in a Greyhound (bus) or a train or by thumb... but mostly on foot.

Granddad was part of a movement that strongly advocated people setting themselves apart to God. And he preached anywhere an audience would stop a moment and listen.

He stayed in the homes of folks that would have him; some of his "regular" hosts would arrange prayer meetings in their homes for him to address. Sometimes though, he slept in barns or in tents; he might wash out his white shirt in a nearby creek and leave it hanging on a bush to dry overnight, so that it would be cleaned - if not pressed- for services the next day.

These conditions were harsh by my standards but not nearly as destitute as the conditions faced by Asbury and his crowd.

There have been a couple of things that troubled me about Asbury - and Wesley too for that matter.

One, they were strong adherents to the statist, Anglican Church of England. State run religion is very foreign to me, I would have thought it to be foreign to these fundamentalist but it wasn't. In fact, neither Wesley nor Asbury were comfortable with non-Anglican clergy administering the Sacraments.

My second discomfort with these fellows is the fact that they were not pro-American during the Revolutionary War.

I marvel.

I have this romantic vision of folks like Wesley and Asbury jumping on board with the rebellion as soon as its initial fires were kindled. In fact, as the war heated up, Wesley returned to England and encouraged all his ministers to do the same.

Asbury was the only one that remained.

He became a leader - maybe even a father-figure to the young American preachers that had recently taken up the call.

He stayed because he had a love for the people of this country, or because God had locked him into his call. But he never did endorse the Revolution, in fact he was considered a Tory by many and wasn't to be trusted.

Yet when the War was over and the Methodists returned they found a much larger and stronger congregation. Their numbers in fact had about tripled.

This disconcerting feeling I have had toward Asbury and Wesley has made me think and perhaps it is teaching me something about how God uses people in various stages of their walk and people that believe some things that are quite different from my own beliefs.

This point was driven home a few weekends ago.

Our church had set aside a weekend for "blessing"various ministries in our town. So on a Saturday, a large number of folks descended upon those ministries armed with a willingness to help in some way.

R. and I thought it a great opportunity for us to get involved outside the "four walls" of a church - and some great exposure for our children. So we were assigned to a ministry that provides food, shelter, clothing and support to people in crisis situations ... single moms, the homeless, people underneath whom life has pulled out the rug.

We were assigned to a mountain of donated clothing. There was an intricate system of sorting: first by age (adult or children) and then by gender, then by season (cold or warm) and by positioning (top or bottom). Similar items were then folded and packed into boxes.

Those things that weren't needed immediately were taken to a storage facility in another part of town.

This was where the lesson was taught, because I was immediately let down.

You see I have pretty strong ideas about the role of Christians and the role of government. And I think (as you probably already know that the government is carving out too big of a piece of the pie when it comes to "helping" folks.

Yes, I was somewhat "let down when I saw that to be transported, the boxes of clothing were loaded into a van with a prominent "Obama" bumper sticker proudly displayed on the back.