Walking along the river in Savannah, Georgia on Saturday, I saw a man selling lovely pieces of slate with wicks that burned brightly. The thin pieces of gray and brown slate had some kind of oil container inserted that allowed the rocks to appear to be burning. As I looked over the varying shapes and sizes of these rock and fire creations, my eyes fell upon his aqua t-shirt: Love Your Life! it said in bold white letters. That morning, in addition to preparing his goods to sell, he had also decided to send people an important message.

In one of Savannah’s green squares not too far from where this man was working there is a bronze statue of John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement. Wesley and his brother Charles are famous in this city. John lived here from February 1736 to December 1737. It was a short, troubled, but significant stay on the shores of this new land. John preached on street corners, befriended the Native Americans here, and began the Sunday School in America. Through the weekly gatherings at his simple wooden parsonage, twenty to thirty people studied scripture, prayed for one another, shared their faith and created community….still the backbone of what it means to be the church.

On the base of the statue of Wesley are these words: "I felt my heart strangely warmed. While we live, let us live in earnest. I look upon all the world as my parish. The best of all God is with us." Each of these sentences were spoken by Wesley in different situations but they make a nice synopsis of his message.

As he witnessed a group of Moravians in prayer,Wesley had been moved by their faith and how he saw the Spirit moving in their lives. He wanted what they had. Through his interaction with them, his faith moved from head to heart and that connection carried him through the ups and downs of his ministry of which there were many. His intention was never to start a church but to continue a movement of renewal in the church he loved,the Church of England. His desire to help people connect their faith with their real, everyday lives, to lift the poor and troubled out of despair and to give them inspiration for a new and better life, called him to name the world his parish. And that passionate belief that God is in the messiness of it all led him to live that faith every day.

In this city known for ghosts and spirits, the presence of John Wesley lives on in the bells that sing out familiar hymns on the hour and the beauty of church steeples. But on Saturday I also found another reminder of that presence.Though separated by centuries,Wesley and the artist who had taken cold, hard slate and given it warmth and the life of a flickering flame had much in common. Both carried a similar, earnest message: Love Your Life!