ABSTRACT
This chapter explains John Wesley's personal 'conversion' in 1738. His adoption of field-preaching and group organisation was only one of the many links in a chain which led to the Evangelical revival. At Oxford when John Wesley became a tutor of Lincoln College in November 1729, he at once lent his support to a tiny group which came to be called the 'Holy Club', recently formed by his undergraduate brother, Charles Wesley. The Holy Club, more select and rigorous than the standard religious society, provides us with a link in the revival chain: George Whitefield and the great Yorkshire evangelist Benjamin Ingham were among its fifteen members by 1735, as well as the two Wesley's and others later to make their mark. The early Methodist societies, especially those influenced by the Calvinistic theology of Whitefield, are known to have absorbed many migrants from dissenting congregations.
