Today, from the point of view of John Wesley's ecclesiology, South Korea's Methodist Church is becoming an incompetent sect. With this reality, research on John Wesley's ecclesiology on the church is essential for the recovery of South Korea's Methodist Church.
Towards that end, this thesis examined the background of John Wesley's ecclesiology on the church in a bid to conduct an in-depth research on his theory. The background of the Bible and the influence of the Early Church, which he valued the most, were examined, and given that Wesley's theology is a conjunctive theory, his church historical, personal, and social backgrounds were examined.
Wesley defined the church based on the Bible, and the essence of the church according to the Nicene tradition. Of his ecclesiology, his church duty system is radical. Based on such system, lay preachers, who were the most important for the Methodists, could emerge.
His church renewal movements were executed through small groups. Classes, bands, penitents, and select societies made associations of Methodists a powerful ecclesiola in ecclesia.
Another church renewal movement was the lay leaders' outdoor sermons, which were delivered to alienated people. The Methodist movements expanded from inside the church to the movement of making the society holy. His ecclesiology was that the holiness of individuals creates a holy society through the renewal of the church, which has a meaningful implication on the modern church.
John Wesley realized the religion of love, where God and neighbors are loved with the whole mind and heart. The modern Methodist Church should research on John Wesley's ecclesiology, the founder of the Methodist Church, and should apply the results of such research, thus recovering the essence of the church.