(1703–1791) English cleric and evangelist. One of the founders of the Methodist Church. A leader of First Great Awakening of the 1730s and 1740s.

John Wesley was an English cleric, theologian, and evangelist who was a leader of a revival movement within the Church of England known as Methodism. He founded the Methodist movement that continues to this day. He held that, in this life, Christians could achieve a state where the love of God "reigned supreme in their hearts", giving them not only outward but inward holiness. Wesley's teachings, collectively known as Wesleyan theology, continue to inform the doctrine of Methodist churches. Wesley sailed to the American colonies and arrived in February of 1736. He had success as a leader in the Evangelical Revival, also known as the First Great Awakening. This was a series of Christian revivals that swept Britain and its thirteen North American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s.