The Contextual Intelligence of John Wesley and the Early Methodists
In the United States, we find ourselves once again in a Judges 2:10 situation: “Moreover, that whole generation was gathered to their ancestors, and another generation grew up after them, who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel” (italics mine). As the famous quip attributed to Mark Twain captures so well, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” We now find ourselves on the front lines of a new missional frontier.
In these times, we need Issacharian leaders, “Of Issachar, those who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do” (1 Chr 12:32).
In 1 Chronicles 12, the people are in a liminal space, a time between the times. Various constituencies of the tribes are rallying around David in the wilderness. While Saul is still technically king and David’s movement is restricted, these supporters are of one mind to make David king. They are bringing support, in terms of people power, weapons, and resources. Thus, this is a time between two ages: the reign of Saul and the reign of David. The two paradigms exist simultaneously betwixt and between these kingships and their distinct ways of ordering society.
The tribe of Issachar shows up with their own unique gift. Each of the twelve tribes of Israel has a special posture, a special mission, a special symbol. Issacharians are scholar-strategist-practitioners who offer a twofold contribution. First, Issacharians know best their own story and can read best the current placement of that story in new landscapes. Second, based on their ability to understand the times, they have an ability to “know what Israel ought to do.” Issacharians know their world in light of the Word, and they know a path forward into the future God is calling them to enter.
In sum, the Issacharians enjoy a competency in both the reading of sacred content and the reading of worldly context. This is Issachar’s secret, a distinct kind of intelligence embodied by the tribe of Issachar. In a time of great transition and change, they were able to accurately diagnose the context (“read the signs”) and effectively apply their knowledge (“know what to do”)… contextual intelligence.
Contextual Intelligence comes from the Latin contextere which means “to weave together;” and the conjunction of two Latin words: inter which means “between” and legere which means “to choose or read.” Contextual Intelligence is literally about accurately reading between the lines (the threads that intertwine to form a context).
Two researchers and respected professors at Harvard, Anthony J. Mayo and Nitin Nohria, conducted a massive study of the thousand most influential business leaders of the twentieth century. They termed this group “the canon of business legends.” They found that there was great variety in traits, such as charismatic personalities, analytical intelligence, creativity, and low risk aversion. The only commonality that tied them together was the application of their unique set of strengths within differing contextual settings. Mayo and Nohria called this contextual intelligence and defined it as “the profound sensitivity to macro-level contextual factors in the creation, growth, or transformation of businesses” (In Their Time: The Greatest Business Leaders of the Twentieth Century, xv).
What makes a successful organization, then, is the ability of that organization to make sense of the spirit of the times and to harness the opportunities it presents. The best leaders appreciate and understand their situation in the world. They also lead teams with an innate awareness of their contexts. They understand the level of change and respond in ways that capitalize on the opportunities embedded in the emerging challenges.
A key facet of contextual intelligence is the ability to understand the limits of our knowledge and to adapt that knowledge to a context different from the one in which it was developed. The Western church is notorious for applying quick fixes, add-water-and-stir, and one-size-fits-all strategies.
Contextual intelligence starts with understanding and adapting to the context, rather than trying to apply a strategy.
Jesus instructed us to hone our contextual intelligence, “You know how to read the signs of the sky. You must also learn how to read the signs of the times” (Mat 16:3). Long before contextual intelligence became the shibboleth of management, scientists, and corporate consultants, Jesus taught the disciples to learn from and situate themselves in their surroundings—to look, observe, consider, behold, watch, and respond (Matt. 6:26–29). If we take our cues from Jesus and the early church, some adaptation is before us. Jesus and his disciples read the signs, immersed themselves relationally in the context of the people’s daily lives, and became a community of transfiguration within it.
A Case Study in Contextual Intelligence
John Wesley and the early Methodists embodied a contextually intelligent renewal movement. They were true Issacharians.
Wesley observed that the Anglican Church that he loved and served was largely failing to reach the masses of people in his day. In the eighteenth century, there was a great gulf between the wealthy minority and the immobilized masses experiencing poverty. It was a time of enormous social and economic change and dislocation which included massive population growth as well as urbanization. The Industrial Revolution was dawning, and the seeds of a global economy were being planted.
The spiritual fire that awakened John Wesley’s heart at Aldersgate was unleashed in a field just outside of Bristol, England. A heart aflame with God’s love can ignite a revolution in the fields, when we find a contextually appropriate expression for its embodiment. (For an in-depth treatment of these thoughts, see Michael Beck with Jorge Acevedo, A Field Guide to Methodist Fresh Expressions).
On April 2, 1739, at the compulsion of his friend George Whitefield, John Wesley went to a field just outside what was then the city limits of Bristol, England. Bristol was a city of approximately 50,000 people, an emerging hub of commercial activity. It was an important port for trade with North America and the West Indies, exporting manufactured goods, and reprehensibly, African slaves. What’s truly noteworthy for our discussion is that Bristol was surrounded by the coal mines that would help fuel the dawning Industrial Age (Richard P. Heitzenrater, Wesley and the People Called Methodists, 98).
There, among the coal miners who would transform the structure of society through their sweat and groaning backs, Wesley tried this missional innovation called field preaching. About 3,000 people showed up, many of whom had no connection with a church. Later Wesley wrote in his journal, “At four in the afternoon I submitted to be more vile and proclaimed in the highways the glad tidings of salvation...” (Journal of John Wesley, April 2, 1739).
John Wesley and those first Methodists joined what the Holy Spirit was up to in the fields with people who largely had no relationship with the church. Today we categorize those groups as “nones” (people who claim no religious affiliation or practice) and “dones” (people who once practiced a religion, but no longer do).
Despite the derision of his many critics, most of whom were clergymen, Wesley took up this vile practice of field preaching and, borrowing from similar practices of his day, designed an apostolic discipleship process. Wesley reached the people who were not connecting with the established church, taking the gospel to the fields, miners’ camps, and debtors’ prisons. He connected new believers, whose only entrance requirement was a “desire to flee the wrath to come,” to small gatherings of people who journeyed on the life of grace together (societies, classes, bands, and visitation).
It might be a stretch to call John Wesley an innovator, but like other innovators, he spotted cultural waves and drew from and enhanced practices that were emerging. Field preaching was already happening, and Wesley joined fellow “irregulars” like George Whitefield in this practice. German Pietists sought to renew the Lutheran Church by returning to traditional Reformation themes through creation of the collegia pietatis (colleges of piety) which were small groups gathered together for Bible study and prayer. An adaptation of these groups for the Church of England became the religious societies (started by Anthony Horneck in the 1670s). By the dawn of the eighteenth century, the societies movement birthed centralized organizations like the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK). John grew up in a home in which his father Samuel was involved in the SPCK, and John later became a member himself (Heitzenrater, 19-21).
Furthermore, other groups prayed extemporaneously, utilized laity, took personal conversion seriously, sought to recover the primitive form of the church, and utilized print media culture to further their movements, as part of the larger Evangelical Revival.
One aspect of Wesley’s contextual intelligence was his ability to weave these innovations together in a robust system that combined discipleship with ethics, while creating a relational network that would sustain the movement beyond his own influence. Contextually intelligent leaders have the ability to see how innovations might be utilized in the emergent scenario in fresh ways.
In Wesley’s day, crime, alcoholism, and poverty plagued the general populace. Soldiers returning from the war between England and France joined the swell of marginalized masses, and they resorted to criminal activity. Wesley’s strength was communicating the gospel in “plain words for plain people” with great urgency in the sore places and spaces where people did life. Contextual intelligence requires one to see the fragmentation, translate and recode the Gospel in the indigenous language of the people, in a way that speaks to the reality of their circumstances.
Wesley also unleashed the “plain people,” his army of lay preachers, to do the work of ministry. Through small groups, and high expectations that all people would participate and grow as leaders, Wesley helped common people lay a thoughtful theological foundation for their lives. CQ (contextual intelligence) requires a shift from the “great man” form of leadership to developing teams of first-class noticers in a shared leadership model.
John Wesley saw the change in his own day and adapted practices to reach people where they were. This is what movements like Fresh Expressions are allowing us to do today: to plant contextual churches or new networked ministries in the wild, with new people, in new places, and in new ways.
Because the world truly was his parish, Wesley’s pulpit took many forms. Here’s a non-exhaustive list of places Wesley preached: parks, public and private gardens, churchyards, lofts, barrack-yards, barns, streets, theaters, private homes, front porches, city malls, general recreation grounds, miners’ camps, prisons, paved stairs, gateways, mansions, open squares, guildhalls, marketplaces, covered shambles, piazzas, bridges, cottages, malt houses, castles, cemetery tombstones, market houses, universities, shooting ranges, libraries, schools, courthouses, session houses, exchanges, local assembly rooms, playhouses, ballrooms, workhouses, asylums, hospitals, and auditoriums. Also, he preached from many natural formations: rocks, hills, mountainsides, granite boulders, beaches, prehistoric mounds, stone hollows, riverbanks, fields, orchards, meadows, and the shade of convenient trees. Wesley did of course preach in Anglican parish churches, when they were open to him, but also, we find him in Presbyterian, Independent, Calvinist, Baptist, and Quaker meeting houses. Further, he preached in the Methodist buildings, sometimes when they were still under construction (Arthur S. Wood, The Burning Heart: John Wesley, Evangelist, 125-36)!
In the emerging industrial revolution of the eighteenth century, Wesley was leveraging the power of first, second, and third places. Not only did he understand the importance of embodying the gospel in the places where people lived, he also had the contextual intelligence to adapt to the rhythms of their lives. Wesley adjusted his schedule to times when he could reach the people. He preached some days—morning, noon, and night—wherever his voice could be heard by a crowd. He also habitually preached at 5 a.m. so he could catch the workers as they went off to work in the mines, forges, farms, and mills. This was so important to Wesley that he called the early morning gatherings “the glory of the Methodists” and said if this was ever abandoned, “Ichabod” (the glory of God has departed) should be inscribed over Methodist societies (Wood, 154).
Wesley encouraged Methodists to “search the scriptures,” including daily engagement with the Old and New Testaments. He suggested that itinerant preachers “Fix some part of every day for private exercises. . . . Whether you like it or no, read and pray daily” (quoted in Steve Harper, Devotional Life in the Wesleyan Tradition, 21). For Methodists, scriptural engagement and spiritual reading is the source of ongoing spiritual development.
However, Wesley also instructed his Methodist preachers, “Spend all the morning, or at least five hours in twenty-four, in reading the most useful books, and that regularly and constantly” (quoted in Iain H. Murray, Wesley and the Men Who Followed, 89–90, emphasis original). He lifted up both the importance of continuous engagement with the scriptures, and the importance of reading widely to gain all manner of understanding. It is through this study that Methodists were able to cultivate contextual intelligence. They thrived by not only knowing the scriptures but by knowing the culture and knowing what to do. Engaging thinkers across the spectrum informed how they communicated the gospel. They learned to build bridges of meaning and translate that biblical practice to the wider culture in relevant ways.
The early Methodist’s Contextual Intelligence was oriented towards a hermeneutic and a semiotic together: interpreting the Scriptures (hermeneutic) and reading the “signs” of a specific context (semiotic). The following Venn diagram highlights the “CQ” sweet spot of the Issachar mandorla.
John Wesley and the early Methodists were of the tribe of Issachar. They had the contextual intelligence to read the signs and know what to do. They recoded the Christian faith into the dawning industrial society (as well as the emerging European colonial expansion), in “plain words for plain people,'' by harnessing the emerging technologies. This is what contextually intelligent pioneers are up to today.
In a pandemic world, now more than ever, we need contextually intelligent disciples to arise and lead local churches to flourish. This is our “Issachar moment” like never before. God has given all people the capacity to grow in contextual intelligence. This is why in our new book, Contextual Intelligence: Unlocking the Ancient Secret to Mission on the Frontlines, Leonard Sweet and I lay out a framework, centered in the very mind of Christ (Phil. 2), and suggest a palette of competencies to help learn the ancient Issachar way for this newly emerging reality.
May the people called Methodists once again recover our CQ for the emerging scenario of a new missional frontier!
Dr. Michael Adam Beck serves as the Director of Re-Missioning for Fresh Expressions U.S., Cultivator of Fresh Expressions for the Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church, and Director of the Fresh Expressions House of Studies at United Theological Seminary. He and his wife Jill are co-pastors of Wildwood UMC and St Mark’s UMC.