While visiting the Museum of Methodism in London this summer, I came across this well-worn concertina. It belonged to Rodney “Gipsy” Smith (1860–1947), one of the most remarkable Methodist evangelists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Smith was born into a Romani family in a tent in Epping Forest, on the northeastern outskirts of London. He received no formal education, but after his conversion as a teenager, he taught himself to read and write and soon discovered that God had given him unusual gifts for preaching and singing. He began his ministry with William Booth’s Christian Mission, which became the Salvation Army, and eventually developed an evangelistic ministry that carried him throughout Great Britain, the United States, and around the world.

What caught my attention was the role this little instrument played in his ministry. Smith continued the old Methodist tradition of taking the gospel outside the church walls. He would play his concertina during outdoor meetings, using music to attract a crowd. Once people gathered, he would sing, preach, and point them to Christ. Music became such an important part of his ministry that he sometimes broke into song in the middle of his sermons.

There is something about seeing the actual instrument that makes the story come alive. It is scratched, worn, and clearly used. This wasn’t something that sat safely on a shelf. Smith carried it into the places where people were and used what he had to gain an opportunity to share the gospel.

That sounds a lot like early Methodism. John Wesley went into the fields when people would not come into the churches. The circuit riders carried the gospel into scattered settlements. More than a century later, Gipsy Smith stood in streets and open spaces with a concertina in his hands, still following that same basic principle: go where the people are.

Smith continued preaching into old age. Incredibly, at eighty-seven years old, he was once again crossing the Atlantic for ministry when he died aboard the Queen Mary in 1947. His evangelistic ministry had stretched across roughly seven decades.

As I stood looking at his concertina, I found myself thinking about a simple question: What is already in my hands that God could use? Smith had a voice, a testimony, a concertina, and a willingness to go. He used them.

The methods available to us have changed dramatically, but the mission has not. We still have a gospel to share, people to reach, and opportunities to use whatever God has placed in our hands to point someone toward Christ.

That is Wesleyan theology in practice: take the gospel to the people, use what God has given you, and keep going as long as He gives you strength.