Francis Asbury: Prophet of the Long Road

JMS: It's The World and Everything in It. Thanks for being with us today — and thanks for being a WORLD Member. Next, a story about one of the most influential people in American history. He was not a politician or a military leader or a businessman. He was a preacher and bishop. His ministry in America began on this date — October 27th — in the year 1771. The story now from WORLD Radio's Paul Butler.

PAUL BUTLER, CORRESPONDENT: During the late 1700s and early 1800s, an incredible period of revival swept across America on the heels of the American revolution; it became known as the 2nd Great Awakening. One of its most influential leaders was Francis Asbury.

WIGGER: Francis Asbury was the first bishop of the Methodist church in America, and in many ways, the architect behind the explosive growth of the Methodist movement.

John Wigger is Professor of History at the University of Missouri and author of American Saint: Francis Asbury and the Methodists, published by Oxford University Press.

WIGGER: He probably knew more people face to face than anyone else in America. Certainly he was more widely recognized than some like Thomas Jefferson, or George Washington. By the end of his life, he had become a living legend. People across America knew him.

Francis Asbury was born in England in 1745. His mother converted to Methodism when he was about 10 years old, and after a few months of attending meetings with her, “Frank” came to faith in Christ as well.

WIGGER: He thought about his need for salvation for a number of months, prayed by himself and with friends, read the Bible, and then he simply came to a moment in time where he believed he’d been saved.

After his conversion, Francis Asbury became deeply involved in Methodism, becoming a local lay minister at age 18, and when Asbury was 21, Methodist founder John Wesley appointed him as a circuit riding preacher in England.

WIGGER: He rode circuits for the next five years in England, none of them particularly good or easy circuits, but he persevered. Then in 1771, Wesley was looking for preachers willing to come to America.

Francis Asbury volunteered. [He arrived in Philadelphia on October 27, 1771. Circuit riding — that is to say, a preacher, a horse, and a saddlebag full of Bibles and tracts — turns out to have been the perfect methodology for the spread of Methodism in this country.

CORMAN: The ideas was, because of the rugged terrain, because of the difficulty of travel, it was too hard for the people to come to the preacher, so the preacher would end up going out to the people.

Thomas Cornman teaches Church History and is the dean of Trinity International University in Deerfield, IL.

CORNMAN: And what begins as a counter-cultural movement, almost a re-emergence of the missionary movement, and that's how some of the Great Awakeners talk about it, as “we're returning to the first century church and we're missionaries just like Paul. Just like Paul had a circuit, so we have a circuit.” This becomes a model that really is codified, systematized and exploited under the Methodist movement. The other problem you have is large groups of people with very few pastors, how are you going to meet the needs of all those people, circuit riding provides the answer to that.

Francis Asbury’s circuit riding ministry began almost immediately. And within only days of arriving in America, he had already spoken in both Philadelphia and New York. Methodism began to flourish, until it became clear that war between the Britain and the colonies was imminent.

WIGGER: The Methodist Church got off to a fairly strong start in the years immediately before the revolution, but then had a tough time during the American revolution, because it was associated with the Church of England and John Wesley, and Wesley wrote against the American revolution, which didn't help the cause for American Methodists at all, in fact, Asbury was the only one of Wesley's preachers who stayed through the American Revolution.

Francis Asbury was named superintendent of the American work in 1784 by John Wesley. Under his leadership, Methodist circuit riders met a critical need in the new nation; again, church historian Thomas Cornman.

CORNMAN: So here's an evangelical in Francis Asbury, who's committed meeting people's needs where they are and organizing a church structure that adheres to both the democratic principles of the American people who are starting to emerge, and the structural needs of providing them with good Bible teaching and a presentation of the Gospel in a format that works for people with very little education.

Asbury biographer John Wigger.

WIGGER: And by the early 1800's, the standard had become a 4-week circuit with about 25 to 30 preaching appointments. It was a very taxing system, but it was a very effective one as well.

Francis Asbury lead by example. Even as the American superintendent for the newly formed Methodist Episcopal Church, he was perhaps the most prolific circuit rider in history. His ministry led him across the Appalachians, where new settlements were beginning to spread westwards.

WIGGER: Most circuit preachers didn't last more than 5 or 6 years in the saddle, and one of the amazing things about Asbury is that he kept it up for 45 years. He rode probably at least 130,000 miles during the 45 years in America. Francis never married, never owned a home, never really owned much more than he could carry on horse back. He was devoted through his entire life to doing one thing, and that was preaching the Gospel, but more than that, creating a Methodist system that would allow the Gospel to be preached to lots of people.

Francis Asbury died at age 70 on March 31st, 1816. At his death, he was still riding a preaching circuit.

WIGGER: He finally collapsed and died on the the side of the road almost in Spotsylvania County, Virginia. Out in the middle of nowhere riding to preach the Gospel to lost souls, which he thought the calling for every Methodist preacher should be.

Under Asbury’s direction, the Methodist church grew to more than 200,000 members and ordained 700 preachers, but Francis Asbury was more than a preacher and administrator, he also was one of the first evangelicals to engage in social concerns of the time. Thomas Cornman.

CORNMAN: He was a major player in early abolition, and this is where the church begins to become involved in social issues that leads into a movement of progressivism, and the evangelicals become leaders in the field of not only abolition, but prison reform and school reform and care for mental illness, and the list goes on and on and on. As they wed their Christianity and evangelicalism with the need to care for their fellow man.

In a letter dated February 9, 1814 — about two years before his death — Francis Asbury wrote to Zachary Myles, a Methodist layman in Baltimore:

“I have nearly finished my mission, having traveled annually a circuit of 3000 miles, for forty-two years and four months; and if young again, I would cheerfully go upon another...”

More than a century later, in October 1924, President Calvin Coolidge helped dedicate a statue of Bishop Francis Asbury in Washington, D-C. Fittingly, the statue is of Asbury on horseback. His left hand holds the reins, his right hand clutches a Bible to his breast.

An inscription at the base of the statue reads: "The Prophet of the Long Road."

For The World and Everything in It, I’m Paul Butler.

JMS: John Wigger's biography of Francis Asbury, titled American Saint, is published by Oxford University Press.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.