Celebrating the Spirit-Empowered Women Who Helped Shape the Methodist Movement
The story of early Methodism is filled with familiar names.
John Wesley.
Charles Wesley.
George Whitefield.
Francis Asbury.
They deserve their places in Methodist history.
But if we tell the story of the Methodist Revival only through its famous men, we tell an incomplete story.
Women prayed.
Women led class meetings.
Women organized ministries.
Women taught the faith.
Women cared for the poor and sick.
Women offered spiritual counsel.
Women testified publicly to the work of God’s grace.
And eventually, women preached.
Their leadership was not merely a footnote to the Methodist Revival. Women helped create the communities in which Methodism grew and through which its vision of disciplined discipleship and holy love became a lived reality.
Their story also raises a deeply Wesleyan question:
What happens when the Holy Spirit gives gifts to people whom society does not expect to lead?
Early Methodism discovered that sometimes the church has to catch up with what the Spirit is already doing.
It Begins With Susanna Wesley
Any discussion of women in early Methodism should begin before Methodism itself, in the Wesley family home.
Susanna Wesley was the mother of John and Charles Wesley, but simply calling her “the mother of the Wesleys” can unintentionally minimize her significance.
She was a remarkable Christian thinker, educator, and spiritual influence in her own right.
Susanna took the education of her children seriously, developing an intentional pattern for their intellectual and spiritual formation. She also set aside individual time to speak with her children about their spiritual lives.
During a period when her husband Samuel was away from the Epworth parish, Susanna began holding gatherings in the rectory where Scripture and sermons were read and discussed. Attendance grew significantly.
These meetings created some tension precisely because a woman was exercising considerable spiritual influence.
Susanna defended what she was doing on pastoral grounds. People were seeking Christian instruction, and she believed she had a responsibility to respond faithfully.
It is difficult to miss the connection with what her son would later do.
Gather people.
Teach the faith.
Encourage holiness.
Create structures for spiritual formation.
Susanna was practicing something remarkably Methodist before there was a Methodist movement.
Pentecost Had Already Settled the Question of Spiritual Gifts
The participation of women in Christian ministry did not begin with Methodism.
It begins in Scripture.
At Pentecost, Peter interprets the outpouring of the Holy Spirit through the prophet Joel:
“Your sons and daughters will prophesy… Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy” (Acts 2:17-18, NIV).
The Spirit is poured out upon women and men.
The New Testament itself bears witness to women serving prominently within the earliest Christian communities.
Priscilla helps instruct Apollos more accurately in the way of God.
Phoebe is commended by Paul to the church in Rome.
Women labor alongside Paul in the work of the gospel.
Women pray and prophesy.
Long before the Methodist Revival, the church had to wrestle with what it meant that the Holy Spirit gives gifts without always respecting the boundaries human societies construct.
Early Methodism inherited that same question.
Methodism Created Space for Women’s Leadership
One reason women became so important to early Methodism was the structure of the movement itself.
Methodism was not built around Sunday worship alone.
People gathered in societies.
Societies were divided into classes.
Some participated in bands.
There were prayer meetings, love feasts, works of mercy, correspondence networks, and other forms of spiritual community.
All of these required leadership.
Women became essential to that leadership.
They served as class leaders and band leaders. They offered spiritual guidance. They cared for the sick. They visited the poor. They encouraged other Methodists in their pursuit of holiness.
This is important because leadership does not begin when someone steps behind a pulpit.
Leadership happens whenever someone helps another person follow Jesus faithfully.
Early Methodist women were doing precisely that.
The Class Meeting Opened Doors
The class meeting was particularly significant.
Methodists gathered in small groups for spiritual accountability, encouragement, prayer, and practical care.
The basic concern was deeply pastoral:
How is your life with God?
Where are you experiencing grace?
Where are you struggling?
How can this community help you continue toward holiness?
Women served as leaders within these communities.
That meant women were entrusted with significant spiritual responsibility for other Christians.
They listened.
They encouraged.
They corrected.
They prayed.
They watched over others in love.
Kevin Watson, in The Class Meeting, emphasizes how important these gatherings were to early Methodist discipleship. They were not optional social gatherings on the margins of the movement. They were central to how Methodists were formed.
If women were leading class meetings, women were helping form Methodists.
That is significant.
Mary Bosanquet Fletcher and the Call to Preach
One of the most important women in early Methodism was Mary Bosanquet Fletcher.
Mary was deeply committed to Christian discipleship and ministry to the poor. She established a Christian household and orphanage at Cross Hall and became an influential Methodist leader.
She also became convinced that God was calling her to preach.
This created a problem.
John Wesley was initially cautious about women preaching. He did not begin the Methodist movement with a plan to create women preachers.
But Mary Bosanquet made a theological and experiential case for women’s preaching. In correspondence with Wesley, she defended the legitimacy of women speaking publicly when extraordinarily called by God.
Eventually, Wesley recognized her ministry.
This is one of the most fascinating features of early Methodist history.
Practice pushed theology.
The question was not merely theoretical:
Could God call a woman to preach?
Women were already preaching, and people were responding to their ministry.
The evidence of grace demanded attention.
Wesley and the “Extraordinary Call”
Wesley’s approach to women preaching developed gradually.
He remained a man of the eighteenth century, and we should not pretend he held every conviction contemporary Christians might wish to place upon him.
History deserves more respect than that.
Yet Wesley increasingly made room for women who demonstrated what he regarded as an extraordinary call from God.
Sarah Crosby became another important example. After circumstances led her to speak to a large gathering, Wesley gave guidance that allowed her ministry to continue while carefully distinguishing what she was doing from conventional preaching.
Over time, those distinctions became harder to maintain.
Women were exhorting.
Women were testifying.
Women were expounding Scripture.
Women were calling people to repentance and holiness.
At some point, everyone had to admit what was happening.
They were preaching.
Wesley did not arrive at this position through abstract theorizing alone. He watched the fruit of ministry.
The Spirit appeared to be at work.
And Wesley was forced to reckon with it.
Grace Has a Way of Disrupting Our Categories
There is something profoundly Wesleyan about this development.
Wesley’s theology begins with grace.
Grace goes before us.
Grace awakens.
Grace calls.
Grace gives gifts.
Grace transforms.
And grace frequently refuses to remain inside the boundaries we construct for it.
Paul writes:
“Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good” (1 Corinthians 12:7, NIV).
Notice the purpose of spiritual gifts.
They are given for the common good.
The church therefore has a responsibility to discern where the Spirit has given gifts and to make room for those gifts to serve the body of Christ.
That does not mean every claim to spiritual authority should be accepted without discernment.
Early Methodism certainly believed in accountability.
But discernment must also be willing to recognize grace when grace appears somewhere unexpected.
Women Did More Than Preach
Focusing exclusively on women preachers can actually cause us to miss the broader story.
The Methodist movement depended upon many forms of ministry.
Women provided hospitality.
Women organized charitable work.
Women formed other Christians.
Women corresponded with Methodist leaders.
Women cared for vulnerable children.
Women visited the sick and poor.
Women hosted Methodist gatherings.
Women led classes and bands.
Women prayed for revival.
Women financially supported ministries.
Some women preached publicly, but countless others exercised forms of leadership that never placed them before large crowds.
That matters because the kingdom of God has never depended solely upon the people holding microphones.
Much of the church’s most important ministry happens quietly.
A class leader listening to someone who is struggling.
A woman teaching a child the Scriptures.
A Christian opening her home.
A believer visiting someone who is sick.
A mature disciple encouraging another person toward holiness.
These acts may never appear in a history textbook.
They still matter in the kingdom of God.
Phoebe Palmer and the Continuing Wesleyan Story
The influence of women within the Wesleyan tradition did not end with John Wesley’s death.
In nineteenth-century American Methodism, Phoebe Palmer became one of the most influential voices in the holiness movement.
Palmer led meetings, taught, wrote, and preached. Her Tuesday Meeting for the Promotion of Holiness became an important center for spiritual renewal and the spread of holiness teaching.
Her ministry reached women and men, clergy and laity.
Whatever conclusions one reaches about particular aspects of Palmer’s holiness theology, her historical significance is difficult to dispute.
The Wesleyan emphasis on the Holy Spirit’s sanctifying work created space for women to testify publicly about what God had done and to call others toward entire devotion to Christ.
The conviction that God pours out the Spirit upon sons and daughters continued bearing fruit.
Holiness Gives People a Voice
There is another important connection between women and Wesleyan theology.
Methodism expected people to testify.
People were encouraged to speak about the grace of God.
They testified about conversion.
They testified about assurance.
They testified about sanctification.
They spoke about what God was doing in their lives.
That expectation could have surprising consequences.
Once a woman publicly testified that the Holy Spirit had transformed her life, the distance between testimony and proclamation could become rather small.
If she could tell the church what God had done, could she also exhort others to seek that same grace?
If she could lead a class meeting, could she teach Scripture?
If the Spirit had given her wisdom, courage, and gifts for ministry, should those gifts remain unused?
The logic of grace kept opening doors.
The Revival Needed the Whole Body
The Methodist Revival spread because ministry multiplied.
John Wesley could not personally preach in every village.
He could not lead every class meeting.
He could not visit every prisoner.
He could not care for every sick person.
He could not teach every child.
The movement required the body of Christ.
Paul writes:
“Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it” (1 Corinthians 12:27, NIV).
A body needs all its members.
Methodism became a movement because ordinary Christians were given meaningful responsibility for ministry.
Women were indispensable to that story.
The revival needed their prayers.
Their courage.
Their leadership.
Their theological insight.
Their hospitality.
Their compassion.
Their preaching.
Their witness.
Their holy lives.
Remembering Women Changes How We Tell Methodist History
Church history can sometimes become the history of famous preachers.
But revival is always larger than the pulpit.
When we remember Susanna Wesley, Sarah Crosby, Mary Bosanquet Fletcher, and the many women whose names are less familiar, we begin seeing the Methodist movement differently.
We see networks of relationships.
We see homes becoming places of ministry.
We see small groups forming disciples.
We see works of mercy accompanying proclamation.
We see women exercising spiritual authority long before churches always had adequate language for what they were doing.
And we see the Holy Spirit working through the whole people of God.
This does not require us to rewrite history.
It requires us to tell more of it.
What Their Witness Asks of Us
The women of early Methodism leave the church with an important question.
Are we paying attention to where the Holy Spirit is giving gifts?
Churches can become very good at recognizing the kinds of leadership we already expect.
But revival rarely remains confined to our expectations.
The Spirit gives gifts.
The church discerns them.
The community nurtures them.
And disciples use those gifts for the glory of God and the good of their neighbors.
That requires humility from all of us.
We must be willing to notice gifts in people who may not fit our assumptions about leadership.
We must create communities where spiritual gifts can be developed under wise accountability.
We must remember that Christian leadership exists for service rather than status.
And we must expect the Holy Spirit to work through ordinary people.
That expectation is part of our Methodist inheritance.
Sons and Daughters Will Prophesy
The story of women in early Methodism is ultimately not just a story about women.
It is a story about the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit who descended at Pentecost continued working through the Methodist Revival.
The Spirit awakened sinners.
The Spirit gave assurance.
The Spirit sanctified believers.
The Spirit empowered preaching.
The Spirit formed communities.
And the Spirit gave gifts to women as well as men.
Sometimes the institutional church recognized those gifts quickly.
Sometimes it took longer.
Sometimes grace was already moving while everyone else was still deciding what to call it.
Perhaps that is one reason this history still matters.
It reminds us that revival belongs to God.
The church does not distribute the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit creates the church.
Our task is to listen, discern, nurture, and make room for the gifts God gives.
The Methodist movement was stronger because women answered God’s call.
They prayed.
They led.
They served.
They taught.
They testified.
They preached.
And through them, the grace of God reached people who needed to hear the good news of Jesus Christ.
Thanks be to God for their witness.
A Closing Prayer
Holy Spirit,
We thank you for the women who helped shape the Methodist movement through their prayers, leadership, service, teaching, courage, and proclamation.
Thank you for Susanna Wesley, Sarah Crosby, Mary Bosanquet Fletcher, and the many faithful women whose names may be forgotten by history but whose service is known to you.
Give your church wisdom to recognize the gifts you distribute among your people.
Deliver us from pride, fear, and assumptions that prevent us from seeing your grace at work.
Raise up women and men who will proclaim Christ, care for the vulnerable, form disciples, pursue holiness, and serve your church with courage.
As you promised through the prophet, pour out your Spirit upon your sons and daughters.
And make us faithful stewards of every gift you give.
In the name of Jesus Christ.
Amen.
R Y A N S T R A T T O N 