4/30/2025

Well, it’s Sunday morning when I’m writing this, and we’re at Tralee in the southwest of Ireland. The trip is going well, but I really miss you all this morning. 

Yes, I do mean that! 

We’ve seen some magnificent scenery (sheep, rock walls, ruined castles and abbeys,  gorse and grass)  and have eaten some really great food (that is, if you like lamb and blood pudding — which I do). 

But there was one moment, away from the crowds, away from ruined abbeys and castles, that has had the greatest impact on everyone so far. 

Imagine a rural setting in southwestern Ireland in the mid-1700s. It’s a Sunday morning and you hear, faintly, the low, throaty blast of a trumpet made from a cow's horn blown some 3 miles away. 

You are early Methodists and part of an itineracy, so your preachers come sporadically and the only way you know when a preacher has come is the call of the horn. So you hitch up your wagon and ride to the nearby farm where your congregation meets. 

There is no church building. You gather in the field outside the home of Paul and Barbara Heck, to discover standing beneath a peach tree (as he would stand a total of 16 times),  a rather short, about five feet three inches in height, man. He is slim but muscular, with a prominent, pointed nose. His eyes are blue, sharp and piercing, and unlike his contemporaries, he wears his hair long. 

It is John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement.  

This is the church we visited on Saturday, located in county Limerick.

The sexton, who grew up in the very same house Wesley stayed in when he preached there over 250 years ago, blew the same horn that had called the congregation together centuries earlier. 

Pastor Alan Weatherly led us in the call to worship, and I led, from an electric keyboard (the one concession to modernity) our group in singing “Holy, Holy Holy.”

Afterwards, Alan led the Great Thanksgiving, and we shared together in communion. We had people who sang parts and in that tiny space it sounded like a massive choir! We started with “Let Us Break Bread Together,” then picked it up with “Blessed Assurance” before launching into “Be Thou My Vision,” an Irish hymn sung in an Irish church. 

The service was so moving that when someone opened a door and a breeze blew through the building my first thought was that it was the Holy Spirit! 

But I couldn’t help but think, and be moved and then excited that out of this tiny,  seemingly insignificant and very, very much off the beaten path place, came two people who would ultimately impact our country in a massive way. It is one of those places where so much came out of what looks like so little. 

Because the roots of American Methodism began here. 

 In 1760,  a preacher named Philip Embury from this little congregation would  be sent to America. He would preach the first Methodist sermon on American soil. Paul and Barbara Heck had already immigrated and Barbara was especially concerned about the lax spiritual life of the immigrants (particularly when she caught Paul playing cards with some of the other immigrants – she snatched the cards up and threw them in the fireplace!). Once Embury arrived, Barbara urged him to preach to the immigrants or else God would require their blood at his hands. Because of her efforts, Barbara Ruttle (sometimes spelled “Ruckle”) Heck would be known as the “Mother of American Methodism.”

Shortly afterwards, on October 12, 1766, Paul Embury, originally from the little church in county Limerick, Ireland, preached the first Methodist sermon in New York City at what would become John Street United Methodist Church. 

The rest is history. 

Zechariah 4:10 says, “For whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice . . . ,” which gives us the saying  "do not despise small beginnings.” Zechariah speaks of the value of starting small and persevering, as even seemingly insignificant beginnings can lead to great accomplishments. 

As when a tiny, rural congregation helps bring the gospel to an entire nation. 

Or when a small, rural congregation commits itself to loving God and loving others. 

Blessings,

Pastor Terry