Page 67 - Pilgrims in Georgia

R Christ Church

Contributing to the Kingdom

Founded in 1733, the original congregation held their services in the open-air

and in the courthouse, building led by the mission Priest the Trustees had
supplied, Henry Herbert. The original site for their church building they built
was the plot offered as a “trust lot” from the King of England for a house of
worship in Savannah. In this building two men who would contribute in
substantial ways to the Kingdom of God on earth, John Wesley (the third
rector) and George Whitefield (the fourth rector) exercised their ministries as
Anglican clergy.. The present building was constructed in 1838 and is referred
to by Anglicans and Episcopals as“ the Mother Church of Georgia"
Christ Church
John Wesley, already referred to in the section on the Moravians, served from 1736-1737.
He originally came to be a missionary to the Native Americans, Oglethorpe assigned him to
serve the Christ Church congregation in Savannah. While here He began a Sunday School
program for children which has been called the first one in America and in 1737, he
published a Collection of Psalms and Hymns, also reputed to be the first English hymnal in
America. His experiences and encounters in Georgia would lead him the society of
Moravian Christians in England and his famous conversion experience, leading him
eventually to establish the Methodists Societies within the Church of England the
forerunners of the Methodist Church in America.
John Wesley
George Whitefield was a good friend of Wesley whom he knew from Oxford University and
was one of the founders of Methodism and the evangelical movement. He was the next to
serve as the priest of Christ Church from 1738-1740 . After visiting the orphanage of the
Salzburgers he decided that one of the critical needs in Georgia was an orphanage and

decided to devote himself to this work. He traveled extensively during this time to the
other colonies, preaching with exceptional oratory, intensity and length. raising money for
the colony’s Orphan House, which he named Bethesda. This would lead to his career as an
Evangelist, preaching at least 18,000 times to as many a 10 million hearers. He was
recognized as “ the first internationally famous itinerant preacher and the first modern
transatlantic celebrity of any kind.“ and a luminary in America’s “Great Awakening”. George Whitefield