News ¢ Aldersgate SG 2021 Jason Woo is the Communications Executive at MCS Comms. / Screenshots courtesy of MCS Comms
Seeking your own
Aldersgate moment Bishop Dr Gordon Wong gracing the online event and praying that hearts would be receptive to the teachings for the evening
ETAC President, Rev Philip Abraham, in attendance
The lectures being conducted in Mandarin with English subtitles on both evenings
T
he Aldersgate lectures have become an important component of the Aldersgate SG celebrations. They enable local Methodists as well as attendees from other faiths and denominations to learn more about Methodism and how it relates to society at large.
However, is this all there is to it? An old story of how Wesley’s zeal for God was re-ignited, leading to his founding a movement that would ultimately span the globe? Rev Dr Wilfred Ho differs in his view, arguing that there is much to learn from Wesley’s divine encounter.
This year’s lectures, which took place via Zoom on the evenings of 20 and 21 May 2021, were given by Rev Dr Wilfred Ho. Rev Dr Ho was ordained in 1998 as a Methodist pastor under the Chinese Annual Conference. In 2007, he joined Trinity Theological College and currently serves as Director of the EQUIP programme as well as Associate Chaplain. His lectures, delivered in Mandarin with English subtitles, dealt primarily with how John Wesley’s Aldersgate experience was and can still be relevant to believers everywhere.
A heart strangely warmed As much as Wesley’s experience on 24 May 1738 rolls off the tongue of even those who are half familiar with the origins of Methodism, the way that he described his experience clearly showed that it was anything but a perfunctory milestone in his spiritual life. This point may be inferred from the fact that John Wesley wrote about his “heart strangely warmed” moment in the second volume of his personal journals on 29 September 1740—two years after it happened.
Wesley’s Aldersgate experience revisited Ask an average Methodist and they might be able to recount the gist of John Wesley’s Aldersgate experience on the evening of 24 May 1738. John Wesley had reluctantly gone to a Christian gathering when he felt his “heart strangely warmed” by a reading of Luther’s Preface to the Epistle to the Romans. Wesley’s spiritual worldview underwent a fundamental shift, not only a bolstering of his faith but also providing assurance that his salvation was indeed found in Christ. All in all, it is a familiar tale to both the Methodist churchgoer and the Wesleyan scholar.
8
|
METHODIST MESSAGE July 2021
“Therefore, we have good reason to believe that the content published in Wesley’s Journals had undergone a rigorous selection and editing process. Only events that Wesley thought were beneficial for the readers were included,” argued Rev Dr Ho. Rev Dr Ho drew the attention of the audience to the paragraph preceding the record of the Aldersgate experience in John Wesley’s journal: “What occurred on [24 May], I think best to relate at large, after premising what may make it the better understood. Let him that cannot receive it ask of the Father of lights that he would give more light both to him and me.”
