Sharon Ann Haynes and other teenagers in and about York were active with layperson work in their respective Anglican Churches, but those whose families were selected to go on the vast sea voyage to Norfolk, Virginia did not know one another. The Haynes family was from a borough of York and the others were from small towns in other northern provinces. Their center of gravity was the evangelical movement that was put in motion by several ministers. All of them had heard Reverend Whitefield speak. They were captivated by the simplicity and purity of the method that he used to explain how individual people should make a connection to Jesus.
Especially, young people like them, who were not experienced in the wiles of adult evil, opened their hearts freely to Jesus through this new method, and they felt the Holy Spirit lift them up. Now, they were caught up in it. There was no formality that converted them to become a Methodist, no ceremony, and they did not wear a badge or pin to show that they were now followers of a new form of Anglicanism. But, they acted differently. They stopped waiting for a priest to tell them to do God's work. Joyfully, they spread the news of a living God to others. They did that on their own and in clutches of three or four. Such a happy thing, this self-realized empowerment, and yet the church leaders grew fearful of its unseen power, and especially so because it had infatuated the young (the future of the Anglican Church). The crown became increasingly wary of the movement too, for it had not come from the nobility.
Young Reverend Whitefield crafted oratory, intending to become a transmitter for God. He took upon himself, the daunting task to lead older adults to see past the phobia of young people preaching at them. Teenage girls like Sharon Ann had little chance to do as Whitefield did, for British society did not suffer a woman of any age to preach on any subject. But, Whitefield saw God's grace in the upturned faces of the young believers. He understood that they were the ones, the scouts, the pathfinders that would define the Methodist movement. He encouraged them. He told them to seek the Lord's guidance in their tasks, and trust their hearts only to God as they established their roles in Methodism. He saw an opportunity in Archbishop Blackburne's offer to cast some of these seeds of Christ on the wind. They might take root...they just might do that!
The eyes of Sharon Ann Haynes and her brothers and sisters in Christ were opened. They saw vivid color in the drab and dreary world around them. The air smelled sweeter. Food tasted richer. All of them got baptized. For most, it was a second time and something that they wanted to do to reaffirm their faith. They grew strong in the service of the Lord. Their optimism and unshakable joy seemed to some to manifest an aura about them as they walked down a street or alley or when they entered a room. Would that aura remain for the small number of their growing ranks who would be separated and sent to America? Whitefield sensed that the faith of each of the young followers would be tested by the arduous journey and the unfamiliar land. Through them, the strength of the entire Methodist movement might be tested. Was Methodism a new and enduring path to salvation or was it a sojourner of England, one that would perish at the shores of a distant land?
Whitefield had an uncanny ability to remember people's names and details about them even though he met so many new people every day. He kept up on the details of the Norfolk expedition through his personal network while he continued to move from place to place to conduct open air preaching. In this way, and through written correspondence, he also kept in touch with lifelong Oxford Society friends and especially with John Wesley.
John Wesley was not a hair-on-fire spontaneous orator like Whitefield. He preferred to organize, plan, and write a sermon using the method rather than preach the sermon at all. He did preach, but it was this creative side of his personality that advanced the brain trust of the new movement for Christ. Wesley wrote down in letters his views and his explanations of what God wanted. He sent the letters out to nearly everyone who asked for them and especially to his friends of the old Oxford Fellowship. Whitefield used the letters as a source of ideas. Yet, he and his brother ministers did not yet recognize that by using the art of John Wesley in their sermons they were imparting the method as a standard. As close friends, they solidified their individual evangelical efforts into a singular movement. They copied the letters and sent copies to their growing number of new converts. They did that simply because remarkably little else about the method was written down.
