Messages From England | Wk 2 London | Rev. Adam Hamilton | Church of the Resurrection

1:22 300 years ago next month, a 22-year-old John Wesley decided to live every part of his life for the glory of God. He would lead the 18th century evangelical revival that would spread to America where it would shape the heart and soul of our nation. He was born and raised in the small town of Epworth, where his mother's prayers and faith shaped his life, from whom he learned perseverance and suffering and how to bring peace in polarized times. He went to college and seminary in Oxford, where he mentored a small group of college students from which the Methodist movement was born. This movement combined a passionate faith with critical thinking and social action. Wesley eventually moved to London, where his heart was strangely warmed, where he felt called to preach in the fields to reach non-religious and nominally religious people, and where he led Methodists to avoid evil, to do all the good they could, and to pursue practices that helped them grow in faith. As we study the story of the 18th century Methodist revival, we may just find the keys to rekindling the flames of our own faith today.

2:22 Hi, I'm Adam Hamilton. I'm the senior pastor at Resurrection. And I just want to say hello to all of you at all of our locations, at Leawood, all the rest of the locations, on TV, online. Thanks for joining us for worship today. This last week, school started. My granddaughter, Stella, is now in middle school, which is just mind-blowing to me. And as the kids started school and college students have started their schooling, this seemed like a great time for us to be talking about some really key things about what it means to be a United Methodist and about the Wesleyan story, the story of John Wesley. So today we're preaching from scripture and scriptural ideas, but at the same time, our context is retracing the story of the birth of the Methodist movement in the 18th century, led by John Wesley, the founder of Methodism. If you're in the Leawood sanctuary, he's the guy on the horse up there. And so that's really where we're heading today. And in each of these sermons, so last week we started in Epworth, England, where John Wesley was born.

3:13 And today we're in Oxford, and behind me is Christ Church, which is one of 43 colleges at Oxford University. and it's the college that unites the academy with the cathedral. So the cathedral for this region is what you see behind me as well as classrooms and they're brought together. Oxford University was founded in 1096, although perhaps there'd been some educating even before that, but in 1096, most people agree education was happening here at Oxford. One of the things I find interesting about it is that it was founded with the idea that Christianity and the intellect were meant to go hand in hand. So sometimes the academy forgets that. So the motto here at Oxford University, I find fascinating. It is, the Lord is my light. John Wesley came here. He came here as a 17-year-old. He came here in 1720. His father was a priest. His grandfathers on both sides of his family were priests. And his mother wanted him to be a priest. He wasn't sure yet whether he wanted to be a priest or not, but came to school here.

4:08 And he came here to Christ Church when he came to study. He received his bachelor's degree here and then went on to receive his Master of Arts in Divinity here. and then became a fellow, a research scholar, teacher, instructor at Lincoln College. We're going to go visit Lincoln College in just a bit. Now, if you've seen any of the Harry Potter films, you have seen Christchurch College because Hogwarts Dining Hall is actually the main or the grand hall here at Christchurch. And I'm going to take you into Christchurch in just a little bit. So you have a chance to see what the classes or not the classes, but what the main settings look like as we tour Christchurch College. My hope for you today is that you're going to understand several critical things about who we are as United Methodists, but not just United Methodists. I would say there's lots of Christians. Maybe most Christians ideally would say, yes, I embrace this idea too. But these are things that find the character of Methodism and part of why I became a United Methodist when I was in college.

5:02 So I want to begin with one very simple idea. We've already begun to hint at it. And that is that Methodism has always believed that faith and intellect were meant to go hand in hand. So again, we began on the campus of Oxford University. We are, as far as I know, the only denomination in the world that was started on the campus of Oxford University by an Oxford University scholar or fellow with Oxford University college students. So Methodism began with three college students and John Wesley as their tutor, as their mentor. And this to me is a huge draw for, at least for me and for many other people, the fact that Methodism says you're not meant to check your brain at the door of the church. So you don't check your brain at the door of the church. By the way, I'm standing here, in case you weren't here for last week's sermon, with 36 young adults, college students and those who are in their careers, who are leaders at resurrection. And part of this is about mentoring them and helping them say, hey, I love these things about our church and to make sure that they continue.

5:56 So anyway, Methodism always saw this, well, the intellect and faith were meant to go hand in hand. And so we don't see a conflict between science and faith. There are some churches where you go and you're sort of told, their approach to faith is you're told you have to decide to take the Bible literally or to embrace science. But within Methodism, that's never been a question, embracing science or faith. They are two different ways of understanding and knowing the truth. When it comes to faith and scripture, we're talking about, you know, the why of existence. Why are we here? And what's the ultimate meaning of life? When it comes to science, we're trying to understand how things work. And that's part of what I love is these two things going hand in hand. So Methodist places a huge emphasis on the intellect and vital faith. It was a church where you were encouraged to ask questions. So this is part of how you learn at Oxford. The learning process is actually asking questions. There's not, it's not such an emphasis on lectures and somebody lecturing you. It's let's talk together and have questions.

6:49 And then you probe the answer to those questions. And that's how you learn. And of course, that is a great methodology for learning. This is what Jesus did. He constantly asked people questions and then invited them to think about the answers. One of the things I love is in Matthew 22, 37. So this is where we find Jesus answering a lawyer who said, you know, what is the greatest commandment in the entire law, in the law of Moses? What's the greatest commandment? And you remember Jesus says, and in Matthew 22, 37, he says it this way, you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind. Now, what's interesting is he's quoting Deuteronomy 6, 5, but in Deuteronomy 6, 5, it says you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your being and with all your might. with all your strength. Jesus changes that from all your strength to all your mind. And the word mind, I've taught this at resurrection before, but it's a Greek word, dianoia. And dianoia means to practice critical thinking, to think through things. Literally, it means to reason through or to think through things. And so to love God with your understanding, to love God with your mind, with your critical thinking skills, you're meant to be a critical thinker. There are places within the world, and in the United States, I hear this sometimes, where there are people who are academics or intellectuals, and they think that they have to choose between the intellect and faith, not just science and faith, but the intellect and faith, that maybe you can't be a person of reason and critical thinking skills and be a Christian. In fact, sometimes they think the things that you Christians believe require me to suspend my critical thinking skills, but that's not the case. Jesus was saying, use your critical thinking skills, love God with your mind and not just your heart and your being. So when I think about this, I think, well, the early Methodists, part of what they did here at Oxford is the, you know, this first group of college students in John Wesley, they started tutoring little children. These were kids who couldn't afford to go to school, and they began to tutor them because they knew an education was a key to a future, and they wanted children to be able, especially in poverty, to be able to develop their minds. One of the first official institutions Methodist began was a school for children of minors and the preachers who couldn't afford to send their kids to school. It was called the Kingswood School, and so they started the Kingswood School. But when Methodism came to America, we started lots of schools. We started public schools to make sure that kids in the community

8:57 could have access to education. Many of you know this, but the first public school on the Missouri side of the state line in Kansas City was started in the basement of Westport Methodist Church. And the first public school on the Kansas side of the state line was started, it's now known as the Shawnee Mission. And it was started by a Methodist missionary to make sure the Native Americans in the community were able to be educated. Now, there's a big, long question and debate about how those Native American schools were run. But the idea was we thought education was really important. We then started not only public schools, but we started universities. colleges and universities. So just to give you some idea, United Methodist started over 100 universities and colleges across America. The second largest number of colleges started by a denomination are the Catholics, and they started 28. So I mean, think about that. You started over 100 colleges and universities, Catholics 28, and other denominations somewhat less than that. This was a huge emphasis. We thought giving people an education was a way to help them and prepare them and equip them to change the world. So just some of the universities, I've shared this with before, but Boston University, Duke University. These are all universities started by Methodism or by Methodist. Boston University, Duke University, Emory University, Northwestern University in Chicago, Southern Methodist University in Dallas, University of Southern California, and Vanderbilt are just a few of the better known universities out there. In Kansas, we started three universities, Southwestern College, Kansas Wesleyan, and Baker University, which was the first university west of the Mississippi. This was just so important.

10:20 In Missouri, it was Central Methodist College that was started. And by the way, even state schools. So K-State was started by Methodists who believed, who took this idea, this charge that we, you know, we should be educating people. And they said, well, let's start a state school so anybody could come here. So K-State was started by Methodists. And also UMKC, University of Missouri at Kansas City, started in the basement of the, what was Central United Methodist Church, what is today Resurrection Brookside. So this was just an important part of who we are. So Charles Wesley, the hymn writing brother of John, who also went to Christchurch, once wrote a hymn to be sung on the first day of school at the Kingswood School. And there's this wonderful line in it. It says, unite the pair so long disjoined, knowledge and vital piety. So we're not meant to separate the brain from our faith and our heart. We're meant to bring those two things together. All right, before leaving here, I wanna take you on a quick tour of Christchurch so you have a chance to see some of the cool things that are inside here.

11:12 So let's go inside. Thank you. So John Wesley graduated from Christchurch College in 1724 with his bachelor's degree and began thinking about, what am I going to do next? And his family was, you know, was really, they had their hearts set on him becoming a priest.

12:06 And he began thinking that may very well be what would happen for him. He would complete his master's degree several years later at Christchurch. But it was during that period of time that he was elected a fellow. While he was working on his master's degree, he was elected a fellow, a scholar in residence, an instructor for Lincoln College. And that's where we're standing now is Lincoln College. And it was here at Lincoln College that Methodism officially began in 1729. I'd like to take you inside the chapel here. We're going to go in the chapel and then we're going to take you to one other spot here. We're going to talk a little bit about the beginnings of Methodism with those college students led by their instructor, John Wesley. Let's go inside the chapel. In 1724, John Wesley graduated from Christ Church with his bachelor's degree, and then began his work on his master's degree, a master of arts, to pursue the priesthood.

13:16 He was still debating whether he was going to be an academic or a priest, but he would pursue his master's degree of divinity or master's of arts and theology at Christ Church. So while he's there, he's wrestling with who am I going to be? What am I going to do? In 1725, knowing he was preparing to be ordained as a deacon in September of that year, he begins really doing some soul searching. And he realizes, I don't think I'm the Christian I'm supposed to be yet. I think I've been trifling at it. I've been playing at being a Christian, but I don't think I'm a real Christian yet. And so he begins reading some classics in Christian spirituality. Thomas Akempis, The Imitation of Christ, William Law, Jeremy Taylor, all of these wonderful books on Christian spirituality. And in one of those, he reads this passage. He'd read it many times before, but it really spoke to him. It's 1 Corinthians 10 31, where Paul writes, whatever you do, you should do it all for God's glory. And it really speaks to his heart. And he says, from this time on, I want to try to do everything that I do for God's glory. And this becomes a driving passion of Methodists, to be real Christians, to seek to do God's will in everything, so to honor God.

14:17 And I just want to ask you, you young adults and all of you, I'm looking right in the camera at every one of you and saying, what would happen in your life if every day you woke up and said, I want to do everything today for God's glory? Now, are you going to do it perfectly? No, you're going to mess up and you're going to ask for God's forgiveness later on. But what if that became one of your aims in life? Not how much money will you have in your retirement fund or, you know, what your house is going to be like somewhere, but instead my driving passion, my magnificent obsession is to honor God with my life. And that really was a driving passion of Methodism. It's part of our DNA. So we have this prayer that we pray in the mornings. We have a shower tag that remembers our baptism. You hang it in the shower. Many of you have these, most of you, actually all of you have them. And in that shower tag prayer, we pray in the morning, Lord, as I enter the water to bathe, I remember my baptism. Wash me by your grace, fill me with your spirit, renew my soul. I pray that I might live as your child today. And here it is, and honor you in all that I do.

15:11 I mean, that's just basic Methodism. And it's really just basic Christianity. All right, so we're here at Lincoln College in 1726. John Wesley was elected as a fellow. He becomes an instructor or researcher or scholar here at Lincoln College. While he's working on his master's degree, he's teaching undergraduates. And finally, in 1727, he graduates 1728. He ends up being a, well, he's ordained as a priest. And then he goes to work with his father in Epworth for a couple of years. In 1729, John Wesley receives a notice from his brother, Charles, who's a undergraduate, a grant undergraduate student here at Christchurch. And his brother, Charles, says, we need you to come help us. You're a fellow at Lincoln College. You're supposed to be teaching. We need you to be our mentor. There's three of us who are getting together. At the time, maybe just two. A third one was added shortly after that. And they were getting together and they were saying, we want to be real Christians. We want to honor God, but we need somebody to tutor us and help us in that. And so John Wesley came back here.

16:05 He set up shop at Lincoln College in a study that was provided for him by the university. And he's teaching undergraduates, but he's also mentoring a small group, first three and then four. And then eventually there was about 40 students who were somehow a part of that. And this group of people, he was teaching them how to pray, how to study the classics, how to study scripture. He was teaching them and they were learning together the rhythms of the Christian life. And people in the school began looking at them and saying, you know, you all seem just a little too serious. You're taking your faith a little too serious. You seem like you're working so hard to be good Christians. And they began to make fun of them. They called them Bible moths, super irrigation men. Super irrigation was to do extraordinary works, you know, to try to receive your salvation. They called them sometimes Bible bigots because they wanted to live a scriptural Christianity. But the name that stuck was because of their methodical approach to faith, they were called Methodists.

17:00 And today we remember that. Resurrection, our method, we talk about five practices, essential practices that we try to live by. These are our expectations for membership. It's worship and prayer. It's study, reading scripture. It is, and doing that individually and as groups, in small groups. It is serving God with your time. It is giving of your resources, being generous, not only to God through the church, but to other people. And in the end, it is also sharing your faith, bearing witness to your faith, those five things are part of our method to our Methodism. All right. So I want to talk a little bit more about what happened at Lincoln College and those first Methodists. But first, we're going to take a little tour. So let's wander around. We're going to make our way to the dining room here at Lincoln College. So this is the dining hall at Lincoln College. And many of you, some of you are actually in college, or getting ready to go to college, this is where the students would gather to eat.

18:14 The fellows would eat at the head table up here, and everyone else would be sitting down in this area. And it's still used in that way every day. You can see there's salt and pepper and ketchup and malt vinegar on the tables right now. And what you see on the halls or on the walls are some of the famous graduates of Lincoln College or famous fellows. And you can see John Wesley's portrait is on the wall over here. So I want you to just imagine, by the way, I want to pause for a second and say, we've been talking about education and the union of intellect and faith and Methodism's emphasis on schools, universities, high schools, elementary schools, preschools even, and making sure everyone had access to an education. This is part of the reason why Church of the Resurrection has such a long-term commitment to our work with our partner schools. So in Kansas City, we have 11 partner schools, maybe another one since then, I don't remember. But in those schools, we've invested millions of dollars and tens of thousands of volunteer hours to make sure that kids have a fighting chance at escaping poverty by working in the schools.

19:12 So that's just an inherent part of who we are. It's what Methodism is. And across the country, you'll find that there are Methodist churches engaged in public education, not to convert people, but to live out the gospel and caring for people and lifting them up. And so that starts here in Oxford with tutoring kids who couldn't go to school otherwise by those early Methodists. But I want to remind you of a couple other things before we leave the space. So Methodism started as a group, not only at Oxford, but as a small group. Didn't start as a church, didn't start as a denomination. It started as a group of people getting together in a small group to encourage one another in the faith. So a couple of weeks ago at Resurrection, we talked about small groups and the importance of small groups. That is an essential part of Methodism. In fact, in Christianity across the world, many people trace back the origins of small group activity, small group programming. I mean, small groups have been around, but it was Methodists who emphasized this idea of bands and classes and coming together in small groups. to encourage one another in the faith.

20:07 Last night, I sat at supper with some of you. We had a great table conversation, and I enjoyed listening to you talking about the small groups you were a part of. And most of the people around our table were talking about their friends, their stretcher bears, that's what we call them, people who you could call at two in the morning when the wheels are falling off of your life, and they would show up at your house. They would get up in the middle of the night and show up at your house to care for you. The people who encourage you, from whom you learn faith, and John Wesley started with a small group. And from that time on, small groups were pivotal to Methodism. So again, before we ever started churches, we started small groups of people, bands and classes of people coming together to grow in their faith. And so I wanna encourage you, if you've yet to sign up for a small group, I'd like to invite you to do that. You can go to core.org slash next today and you can find out more information about small groups. They're kicking off here in just a couple of weeks. And I need a small group, you need a small group. Jesus had a small group. John Wesley started with a small group. And I promise you, that's one way that you can not only make deep friendships, but you'll find your life changed.

21:00 And that's what we see here. So Methodism started here. I just wanna recap. Methodism started here at Oxford University. It started with a group of college students and their tutor, their instructor, their fellow, who was helping them to honor God in everything that they do. And again, the driving passion here for John Wesley at that time in his life, I want to be a real Christian. For the rest of his life, I want to be a real Christian. And I want to encourage you to be real Christians, for us not to be almost Christians, but altogether Christians, and to seek to live our lives every day for the honor and glory of God. what would happen if in your life, I'll ask again, you woke up every day and said, Lord, help me to honor you today. And I promise you it would change your life and it changed the lives of other people. ... ... ...

22:00 ... ... We've come now to the University Church of Oxford, the Church of St. Mary the Virgin. This is a very important church for Oxford University. The church existed here 200 years, almost 300 years before Oxford was actually formed. There was a church on this site in the 900s. The church then, the central portion of the church, the nave was built in the 1100s. This portion was built in the 1400s. And by the time of John Wesley, actually throughout its history, this was the church for the university. There's other churches and chapels all around, but this was the university church. And so it was here that John Wesley came to preach on several occasions as a fellow of Lincoln College. That was one of the opportunities was to be invited to preach here at St. Mary. Now, when you preached here, when you came, it was usually a special occasion.

22:56 So John Wesley was preaching here in front of the faculty, the university deans, the faculty, the chancellor of the university, as well as students. It was a really, really big deal. And if you were a fellow and you were doing this, I'm assuming it would make you very nervous. So he preached before 1738. He preached here. But in 1738, as we're going to find next week, he had a profound experience of the Holy Spirit and an assurance of faith. He came back and preached four more times after that experience. The last time they decided never to invite him back. So I want you to know I have several of his sermons here. One of those, and Wesley's sermons are organized by number and number one. And so he ordered these sermons like, read this one first. Number one was salvation by faith preached here at St. Mary. And in that sermon, he's trying to remind them, the people there, listen, you know, it's not about how hard you work to get God to love you. It's you accepting God's acceptance of you, you accepting by faith God's grace.

23:54 And that's what we do. And then in response, we live a joyful life obedient to God. And so that was the first sermon he preached, a very basic sermon in essential Christianity, but was sometimes forgotten by Christians who would say, well, I'm a Christian and I try to do good things. And of course I'm a Christian. He's saying, no, no, it's not about the good things you're doing. It's about you're accepting God's love and grace through Jesus Christ. And then in response, allowing the Holy Spirit to work in you so that you live out your faith in the world, not earning God's favor and grace, but in response to it. The second sermon that he preached, and this is number two in his collection of sermons. So he's saying, now this is right there with number one is essential. It's the foundation. It was called the almost Christian. And in the almost Christian, John Wesley draws a text from the book of Acts where Paul is preaching. And I think he was preaching before Herod Agrippa. And Herod says, you know, are you trying to persuade me to be a Christian, Paul? I'm almost persuaded, but not quite. And Paul preaches, or Wesley preaches this text and says, you know, here at the university, it seems like there's a lot of people who are almost Christian.

24:54 That there are people who are Christian in name. You might wear a cross. You certainly are surrounded by the, you know, trappings of Christianity. But have you actually surrendered your whole self to Christ? And this is a huge emphasis in Methodism. Have you given yourself wholly to Christ? You understand that when you wake up in the morning, you belong to him. And you seek to live for him and follow him and do his work in your daily life and in the world. And the assumption he had was that many of these students and many of the faculty and deans of the university, of the various colleges, that maybe they weren't actually deeply committed to Christ. Maybe they were more than nominally religious people. And that's really what drove Wesley in his preaching was thinking there's a whole lot of people out there who in name are Christian, but they aren't actually yielding their lives to Christ. They aren't experiencing the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. And so he was challenging, in this really important sermon, challenging them to be altogether Christians. By the way, I wanna just ask you, I'm looking right in the camera, just asking, are you a Christian in name only?

25:53 Are you almost a Christian? Or have you actually said, Christ, I'm yours. I give my entire life to you. And then to offer yourself every day for him to use you. Well, the last sermon that Wesley preached here was in 1744. And this is a kind of a weighty sermon. There's 13 pages of the sermon and it's called scriptural Christianity. And Wesley starts off describing what Christianity looked like in the early church, in the book of Acts, and what the apostles said and what Jesus said about what it meant to be his followers. And so he describes all this and then he begins meddling and he begins asking questions. He starts off with the faculty, the professors, the fellows, the deans, and the chancellor, and he calls them venerable men. And of course, they were all men at that time. And he says, what about you? You have all these students who are put under your care. Do you take seriously God's high calling on your life to mold and shape them into followers of Jesus? Or are you just teaching chemistry or biology or history? I mean, do you understand the role that you play in the ministry that God has called you to, to form these disciples of Jesus Christ?

26:52 And are you personally living the gospel? Are you living out the faith? Are you following Christ yourself, offering yourself to him. Are you doing this or are you just trifling, just playing at being a Christian? Can you imagine how offensive that was to the deans? It was convicting to some, undoubtedly, but for many, offensive in his preaching this. And then he turned to the students and he said, what about you? Are you seeking to live your life wholly for God? You have this opportunity to be here and be formed and shaped mentally, intellectually, cognitively, but are you also allowing your soul to be shaped? I'm paraphrasing his words, but are you becoming deeply committed? Are you becoming deeply committed Christians? Are you seeking to follow Christ? Are you seeking to be prepared for a lifetime of service for him? Or are you just playing games and nominally pursuing your faith? Maybe not at all. And so he challenged them. And in the end, he says, what would happen if, I'm paraphrasing again, if you became once more an altogether Christian, if you became somebody who daily yielded your life to Christ? I just want to remind you that what I've tried to model for you as a pastor, I'm not perfect at this. John Wesley wasn't perfect. I'm certainly not perfect at it. I blow it all the time. But my daily prayer when I wake up and I get down on my knees in the morning is, I'm yours. Please do with me whatever you want. Fill me with your Holy Spirit. Form and shape me. And then help me to pay attention to what's happening in the world around me so that you can use me however you want. Right? That Wesley Covenant prayer that we're going to pray at the end of next week's service, or maybe two weeks from now, next week's service. I am no longer my own but thine. Put me to what you will.

28:20 I just want to ask, I want to encourage you in early Methodism, this is what we see, this driving passion to help people move from just being nominally religious to being deeply committed followers of Jesus Christ. All right, we're going to take a look at a little bit more of what that looks like in our next stop in the sermon. I'm going to be taking you to the Castle Prison here in Oxford. So let's head there now. And so we've come to the conclusion of this sermon in Oxford, and I want to tell you about this place behind me. This is the Castle Prison in Oxford. I don't remember when it was built in the 1200s, 1100 something, it was added on to, rebuilt. And at first it was a military garrison, and then it became the prison for Oxford, one of two prisons in Oxford that I recall.

29:15 The other one is the Bacardo, which was a prison for debtors. Now, you may remember that John Wesley, his father was in debtors prison for four months while John was growing up. And so John, I think, probably always had a concern for people in debtors prison. You couldn't pay your debts, you went to prison. But it was as John and the early Methodists, those handful of college students were meeting together that one of them, William Morgan. So they were serious about being real Christians, authentic Christians, living out their faith, altogether Christian. And William Morgan, one of their group, began to visit prisoners at maybe the Bacardo. No, actually he came here to the Castle Prison. And he was this college student, and he found himself taken by the people who were here. He first visited a man who had killed his wife and the man was waiting to be put to death. And when William Morgan was visiting him and talking to him about the grace of God and the hope of everlasting life in Christ and redemption, this man was deeply moved by William Morgan. William Morgan in turn was deeply moved by him.

30:12 And he starts visiting this one lone college student, starts visiting. And I say that because we got a lot of young adults here and high school students. This part of the Methodist ministry of concern for social action and concern for vulnerable people started with a college student, a 20-year-old college student, who ended up dying a year later. Ended up getting sick and dying a year later. So William Morgan starts visiting the prison on a regular basis. He's just a college student, but he's like, and he's, you know, meeting with Wesley and the others to grow in their faith. And he goes to John and Charles. He keeps talking to John and Charles saying, you know, I think there's something happening here. He visits a debtor who's, you know, who's in serious trouble. He starts visiting other people. And these are people who are in really bad places. And he starts coming to share Christ's love with them. And so John and Charles decide to check it out. And they go one day and they come to the prison and they're meeting with people and they find their own hearts touched by this. And they said, we have to go back. And so they made a commitment to go back, to go to this prison and to the Bacardo once or twice a month. But they ended going more often than that. And actually there was a nine month period of time where Wesley records in his journals, he was at the prison 67 times in nine months, which tells you something about the passion and concern that he began to feel for people who were vulnerable or people who were hopeless or people in despair. And he took the words of Jesus very seriously. Remember he He was trying to live biblical Christianity.

31:27 And Jesus said, I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty. You gave me something to drink. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and in prison and you visited me. I was a stranger, an immigrant, and you welcomed me. And as much as you've done it for the least of these, you've done it unto me. And so John said, we're going to take that seriously. We're going to go start visiting these. And this became a part of the Methodist way of life, the Methodist character and ethos. So across the course of his ministry, he would visit both what were called then insane asylums. He would visit these places to give hope to people who were struggling with mental illness, and he would visit the prisoners, the prisons. He began advocating for prison reform in the 18th century because the conditions in many of the prisons were terrible. And he did that to the end of his life, 1787. So this is four years before he died, I think was the last time we recorded that he's advocating for prison reform and still visiting people in prisons. And so this is part of the character of Methodists, is that because of our faith, we're called to go live out the love of Christ towards others.

32:25 And remember, Jesus said the two great commandments, love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, love your neighbors, you love yourself. And for Wesley, loving your neighbors, you love yourself was the key to healing the world. It was the key to living out of faith. So if you're gonna be an altogether Christian, you're gonna find ways to positively live the love of Christ in your community and in your world. So at Resurrection, this has clearly shaped our congregation. We have prison ministry. We have done more for being engaged in schools in Kansas City. than probably any other organization, except for the school districts themselves, where we provide more food than anybody but harvesters to be able to help people who are food insecure. We are, you know, we have teams going out every year, multiple times every year in mission and ministry, starting with our, actually we have family trips where children and families can go out, middle school and high school trips. And then of course, you know, what we do for, with our adult trips that are going throughout Kansas City and around the world, Surf Saturdays are just one example of this as well.

33:19 But this is just a part of who we are. And it's not just surf trips and volunteering it's also saying, how can we advocate? So Paul was advocating for prison reform. Some people could have said, well, you know, that's a political topic. You shouldn't be talking about this. And he says, no, it's a moral topic. He advocated against slavery. There were people who got really upset. We're going to find in Bristol when we're there, people got really upset in Bristol because he was preaching about slavery. Like that's a, that's a, that is a political topic, pastor. You shouldn't be talking about that. And he says, no, it's a moral topic. It's a topic about the love of Christ and how we live out the love of Christ. And so that's one of the things I'm really proud of at Church of the Resurrection, who you are, is that you understand that we long to be altogether Christians, to be deeply devoted to Christ, to offer ourselves to have a deep personal relationship with Christ. But in addition to that, our aim is to figure out where is there, where does the world not look like the kingdom of God?

34:11 Everywhere I travel, I've traveled around the world. I've been to Siberia. I've been to Russia, Ukraine. I've been to Poland. I've been all over parts of Europe, in Africa, in Central America. You find a Methodist church, you're always going to find people who are preaching Jesus and inviting people to have a personal walk with Christ, to be all together Christians, and then in turn to go live out their faith as Christ's hands and voice and asking the question, where does the world not look like the kingdom of God?