Friday evening, I shared the story of the great bishop of American Methodism, Francis Asbury. Asbury was one of the most successful evangelists the Western world has ever known. Coming from England in 1771, during the early days of the American colonies, he spent his life on horseback, taking the gospel to a rural population spread throughout a region the size of continental Europe. He had unflagging perseverance and was known to have said “I must ride or die” when it came to his itinerant ministry of spreading the gospel. By the time he died he had ridden 130,000 miles and had probably delivered over 10,000 sermons.

Asbury was born in 1745 in an industrial part of England, close to Birmingham, and he and his mother were saved through the preaching ministry of the Methodists, perhaps by John Wesley himself. Methodism was a revival movement that emphasized holy living and earnest evangelization. Asbury had begun to preach in England and acquitted himself well, when in 1771 Wesley asked for volunteers to go to America. Francis responded to the call.

In America, Asbury was appointed by Wesley as one of two superintendents (later, Bishops). At the time there were fewer than 600 Methodist believers. When he died in 1816, there were over 200,000 Methodists. God greatly blessed Asbury’s personal preaching and ministry, but also his earnest organization of other preachers and “circuit riders”.

In 1795, 95 percent of Americans lived in places with fewer than 2500 inhabitants. “Under Asbury” writes one author, “”the typical itinerant” (the circuit riders) rode a predominantly rural circuit, 200 to 600 miles in circumference, typically with 25 to 30 preaching appointments per round. A common circuit of 400 miles took four weeks to complete. This meant that circuit riders had to travel and preach most every day.” These preaching opportunities were mostly not in churches. They were in people’s homes, in barns, in business places, open fields.

In spite of incredible fruitfulness in his preaching, Asbury was neither a gifted theologian nor preacher. God used a man of simple skills, but earnestness and perseverance for His glory. Asbury, however, was a man of prayer and though almost always on the road, he would usually rise at 4 or 5am to spend an hour in prayer before anyone else rose.

Asbury appointed hundreds of other circuit-riding preachers like himself to keep up with the need and the burgeoning post-revolution population. These were typically not eloquent men, but middle or even lower-class men, but men who had great faith in God. One of the circuit-riders, Peter Cartwright (1785-1872), baptized 12,000 adults and children over 50 years. Cartwright said, “It is true that we could not, many of us, conjugate a verb or parse a sentence and murdered the King’s Enlish almost every lick… But there was a Divine Unction attended the word preached and thousands fell under the mighty power of God.”

Another notable aspect of Asbury’s life and ministry was his support for African-Americans, of whose slavery he viewed as a tremendous evil. One of his travelling companions was Harry Hoosier, known as “Black Harry.” Although Harry couldn’t read, he had a wonderful memory, and Asbury trained him to preach. Coke, Asbury’s co-superintendent said of Harry, “I really believe he is one of the best preachers in the world.”

Francis Asbury kept traveling and preaching until the very end of his life. He was literally carried into the pulpit for his last sermon. He died a week later and ascended to receive from His Lord the crown.

Asbury’s life is a wonderful illustration of the apostle Paul’s own ministry goals:

“For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience—by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God—so that from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ; and thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else’s foundation, but as it is written, “Those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand.”” (Ro 15:18–21)

Several sources were used for the presentation and this summary, including Christian History, Issue 114 (2015) and Heroes of Methodism, J. B. Wakely.