Methodism Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
6correct to beat the crowd
48 free Methodism trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Methodism trivia quiz follows the Methodist movement from the Oxford Holy Club of the 1730s to the Global Methodist Church of 2022. It covers John Wesley's 'heart strangely warmed' at Aldersgate, his brother Charles's hymns, George Whitefield's open-air preaching and the Calvinist split, the 1784 ordinations that created American Methodism, Francis Asbury and the Baltimore Christmas Conference, the camp meetings and circuit riders, and the splits and mergers that produced today's denominations. Doctrine rounds ask about Arminian free will, entire sanctification, the Wesleyan Quadrilateral, the two sacraments, lovefeasts, watchnight services and Covenant renewal. There are also questions on Methodism around the world, from Fiji and Tonga to South Korea. Early rounds suit a church youth group; later rounds reward seminary-level knowledge. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries before publishing.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In a famous journal entry of 1739, John Wesley wrote that he looked on what as his parish?
All the world
All the world. 'I look on all the world as my parish,' he wrote, soon after parish pulpits were closed to him and he began preaching in the open air instead.
Q 02Within which established body did Methodism begin as a revival movement?
The Anglicans (Church of England)
The Anglicans (Church of England). Wesley lived and died one of its priests and told his followers to keep attending their parish churches; they became a separate church only after his death in 1791.
Q 03Who first used the name 'Methodist' for members of the Wesleys' strict prayer club?
Fellow students mocking them
Fellow students mocking them. The taunt was aimed at the club's rigid routine of study, prayer and prison visits, and John Wesley later took the insult up as his movement's own name.
Q 04In his last week, John Wesley wrote urging which abolitionist to fight on?
William Wilberforce
William Wilberforce. Wesley, who had attacked slavery in print since 1774, wrote six days before he died, telling him to go on 'till even American slavery (the vilest that ever saw the sun) shall vanish away'.
Q 05At which university did the Wesley brothers found the 'Holy Club'?
Oxford
Oxford. Charles began the group while John was away, and John, back as a fellow of Lincoln College, took over as its leader; members visited the city's prisoners.
Q 06Which colony's founder invited the Wesleys to America in 1735?
Georgia
Georgia. James Oglethorpe wanted the brothers as ministers to his colonists and missionaries to Native Americans, but John fled in December 1737 after a failed courtship ended in a warrant against him.
Q 07Where did John Wesley feel his 'heart strangely warmed' on 24 May 1738?
Aldersgate
Aldersgate. At a small religious meeting in Aldersgate Street he heard Martin Luther's preface to Romans read aloud and felt sure, for the first time, that his own sins were forgiven; Methodists keep the date as Aldersgate Day.
Q 08Peter Boehler, who helped the Wesleys after their failed American mission, belonged to which group?
The Moravians
The Moravians. Boehler persuaded Wesley that what he lacked was simply faith, and the meeting where Wesley's heart was 'strangely warmed' soon afterwards was itself largely a Moravian one.
Q 09Wesley's Chapel, opened by John Wesley in 1778 and called the mother church of world Methodism, stands in which city?
London
London. He built the chapel on City Road to replace the Foundery, the makeshift base where he had lived and preached for nearly forty years, and moved into the house next door.
Q 10Which Dutch theologian's rejection of predestination shaped Wesley's thinking?
Jacobus Arminius
Jacobus Arminius. Wesley wore the label openly: in 1778 he founded The Arminian Magazine to teach that God wills all people to be saved, not only a chosen few.
Q 11Which early Methodist leader held Calvinist views and famously preached in the open air?
George Whitefield
George Whitefield. He began by preaching to coal miners in the fields outside Bristol in 1739, then talked a reluctant Wesley, who had thought such preaching 'almost a sin', into doing the same.
Q 12Which 18th-century noblewoman used her fortune to build chapels and train Calvinistic Methodist preachers?
Selina Hastings
Selina Hastings. The Countess of Huntingdon held that a peeress could appoint as many chaplains as she pleased and staffed her chapels that way, until a church court ruled against her in 1779 and she became, in law, a dissenter.
Q 13John Wesley was rescued at the age of five from a blazing rectory in which Lincolnshire town, his birthplace?
Q 21How did John Wesley define sin 'properly so called'?
A voluntary breach of a known law of God
A voluntary breach of a known law of God. By that test a mistake made in ignorance is not strictly a sin, which is how Wesley could teach that a believer might be freed from sin in this life.
Q 22Which theologian proposed the 'Wesleyan Quadrilateral'?
Albert Outler
Albert Outler. He gave the name to the four tests he saw Wesley apply to any belief (Scripture, tradition, reason and experience), and the idea was written into Methodist teaching as 'our theological guidelines'.
Q 23What did Wesley abridge to create Methodism's doctrinal standard?
Epworth
Epworth. His father was the rector there, and the 1709 fire left a lasting mark on the boy; decades later Wesley came back and preached to a crowd from on top of his father's tombstone.
Q 14What were early Methodists' weekly groups of about twelve under a lay leader called?
Classes
Classes. They began in 1742 as a way to pay off a chapel debt, with one member in twelve collecting from the rest, and the weekly contact soon turned into a way of watching over each member's spiritual life.
Q 15Why did Wesley ordain ministers himself for the new United States in 1784?
Too few clergy remained there
Too few clergy remained there. The war had left American Methodists with almost no one to give them the sacraments, and when the church authorities at home would not act, Wesley, though only a priest, ordained men himself.
Q 16Whom did Thomas Coke ordain superintendent of American Methodism at the 1784 Christmas Conference?
Francis Asbury
Francis Asbury. Wesley had simply appointed him, but he refused the post until the American preachers had voted on it, so he was elected first and then ordained three times in three days.
Q 17In which city did American Methodists hold their founding Christmas Conference of 1784?
Baltimore
Baltimore. Messengers were sent out to summon the scattered preachers, and nearly sixty reached Lovely Lane Chapel, where in ten days they organised a church independent of England.
Q 18Which chosen successor of Wesley is remembered as Methodism's systematic theologian?
John William Fletcher
John William Fletcher. The Swiss-born vicar defended Wesley's teaching in a series of books, but the plan to hand him the movement failed: he died in 1785, six years before Wesley.
Q 19What did Wesley call 'the grand depositum' of the Methodist faith?
Entire sanctification
Entire sanctification. Wesley meant the belief that a Christian's heart can be made perfect in love in this life, and he said God had raised up the Methodists chiefly to spread it.
Q 20Which motto have Methodists traditionally promoted?
Holiness unto the Lord
Holiness unto the Lord. It sums up what set Methodists apart: Wesley taught that being forgiven was only the beginning, and that a believer should go on to live a holy life.
The Thirty-nine Articles
The Thirty-nine Articles. Wesley cut them to twenty-four for his American followers, dropping or trimming whatever leaned towards Calvinism, and with one more added they were adopted in 1784.
Q 24Methodists recognise two sacraments as instituted by Christ: Holy Communion and which other?
Baptism
Baptism. Most Methodist churches baptise infants, so confirmation follows years later, when the child can answer for themselves the promises others made on their behalf.
Q 25Early Methodists shared testimonies over which simple meal?
Lovefeast
Lovefeast. Wesley took the custom from German settlers he had met on his American mission, and Methodists kept it about four times a year as a revival of the shared meals of the apostles' day.
Q 26On which night do Methodists traditionally hold the watchnight Covenant Renewal service?
New Year's Eve
New Year's Eve. Wesley's first Covenant service was actually held in August, in 1755, and British Methodists today usually keep it on the first Sunday of the year rather than at midnight.
Q 27John Wesley's 1784 order of worship for American Methodists was his own shortened version of which older text?
The Book of Common Prayer
The Book of Common Prayer. Wesley called his revision The Sunday Service of the Methodists and sent it across the Atlantic with Thomas Coke, the man he had chosen to lead the American work.
Q 28Which weekly observance was part of traditional Methodist discipline?
The Friday fast
The Friday fast. Wesley's rules of 1744 told members to go without meat every Friday in memory of the Crucifixion, a habit he had kept himself since his student days.
Q 29Which new 18th-century technology did John Wesley try out on patients at his public clinics?
Electric shocks
Electric shocks. Wesley treated the sick with 'electrifying machines' and published a book, Electricity Made Plain and Useful, collecting reports of cures that other writers treated with scorn.
Q 30Which 19th-century New York evangelist revived Wesley's teaching on Christian perfection through meetings held in her own home?
Phoebe Palmer
Phoebe Palmer. Her Tuesday Meeting began as a women's prayer group, but once men were admitted in 1839, Methodist bishops and theologians crowded into her house to hear her.