Wesley's venture into field preaching began, perhaps out of curiosity, when he traveled to hear Whitefield preach. Although it may have seemed at the time like an alien exercise to Wesley, he soon joined Whitefield. Whitefield invited Wesley to come to Bristol and preach to the Kingswood coal miners. Wesley soon found himself, conceivably against his will, preaching in the open air. This evangelistic and preaching endeavor began the Methodist Revival. Although Whitefield and Wesley worked together, they eventually separated on doctrinal grounds. Whitefield believed in double predestination; Wesley regarded this as an erroneous doctrine and insisted that the love of God was universal. However, their doctrinal dispute never became an impediment to the young evangelists' fervor for gospel preaching. Whitefield and Wesley refused to allow their differences to diminish their revivalistic efforts. Thus, their focus is much to their credit.

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Wesley's theology, as scholars have studied his writing over the last 300 years, we might reduce to four primary focal points: these scholars named these theological principles the "Wesleyan Quadrilateral." Wesleyans believe that in order for a theological proposition to be acceptable that proposition must be in agreement with four criteria. The proposition must be true with regard to 1) Holy Scripture, 2) the tradition of the church, 3) human reason, and 4) human experience. If a theological proposition fails to meet these standards, then it is not deemed as the truth.

Essential Elements of John Wesley's Preaching

Wesley published his first collection of sermons in 1746, Sermons on Several Occasions. In the Preface Wesley wrote:

I design plain truth for plain people; therefore, to set purpose, I abstain from all nice and philosophical speculations; from all perplexed and intricate reasonings; and, as far as possible, from even the show of learning, unless in sometimes citing the original Scripture. I labour to avoid all words which are not easy to be understood, all which are not used in common life; and, in particular, those kinds of technical terms that so frequently occur in Bodies of Divinity; those modes of speaking which men of reading are intimately acquainted with, but to common people are an unknown tongue.

Wesley's quotation suggests that he understood himself as a preacher who wanted to communicate with ordinary people more than he desired "to wow" his fellow preachers. Many Wesleyan scholars over the years have advocated that Wesley was not really a "theologian's theologian." In truth, Wesley certainly could have functioned as an academic theologian should he have chosen. His scope of reading and learning still stand as remarkable. Yet Wesley's aim was less personal aggrandizement than it was evangelical. Indeed, his goal was to communicate the gospel in terms that nearly anyone paying attention could comprehend.