Another Look at the Methodist/Wesleyan Love Feast: Introduction, Reception, Adaptation, and Emerging Possibilities

Abstract

The article considers the viability of the Methodist/Wesleyan love feast today based on historical, liturgical, and practical investigations of its use in selected ecclesial contexts from the eighteenth century to the present. Six categories derived from Wesley’s description of the practice in his ‘Plain Account’ focus the study, enabling an examination of the love feast as an experiential event marked by prayer, a common ‘meal’, and the sharing of God’s love, and done in imitation of apostolic practice as a prudential means of grace.