The Revivals and Early Believers' Meetings
I.The Prayer Meeting Revivals and Early Believers’ Meetings The second half of the nineteenth century witnessed the emergence of small groups of "Believers’ Meetings for Bible Study." These meetings, which developed into America’s parent Bible conference at Niagara, and played a major role in the birth of American Fundamentalism, descended directly from two sources: the Prayer Meeting Revivals that swept America’s cities and villages from 1857 to 1859 and the great revival in Ireland from 1859 to 1861.
A. The Prayer Meeting Revivals: The roots of Fundamentalism lie in America’s third Great Awakening-the Prayer Meeting Revivals
1. The first Great Awakening, under Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, had lasted from the 1720s to the 1760s.
2.The Second Great Awakening had lasted from the 1780s to the early 1840s under the leadership of Timothy Dwight, Asahel Nettleton, and John Leland, among others. a.This was a time of unprecedented prosperity for America: b.gold was discovered in the West; c.the banking business was booming; d.Industrial plants sprang up like mushrooms. e.The establishment of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine (1850) f.The slavery issue had already erupted into open violence, and g.The country was on the brink of civil war. h.Most importantly, spiritual lethargy permeated churches and schools, and i.Unitarianism was running rampant.
B. In the midst of that social, economic, and spiritual confusion, in 1857, Jeremiah C. Lanphier, a lay visitation worker at the Fulton Street Dutch Reformed Church in New York City, announced that on Wednesday, September 23, the chapel behind the church would be open for a noonday prayer meeting for any who would come.
1. at half past the hour, one man arrived. When the meeting closed at 1:00 P.M., six people were present.
2. Twenty people came the following Wednesday and 3. forty the next, at which time they agreed to begin meeting on a daily basis.
4. within a few months, not only was the old Dutch church unable to accommodate the crowds, but 5. Concerned believers were conducting some twenty simultaneous noonday prayer meetings in New York City alone.
6. Shopkeepers were hanging out their signs at noonday, "Closed-Be Back After the Prayer Meeting."
7. The police and fire departments opened their buildings for prayer services;
8. The Music Hall did likewise.
C. Numerous churches, such as John Street Methodist, were overflowing with praying businessmen.
1. Stories of conversions appeared on the front pages of daily newspapers, such as the New York Tribune, as the revival spread rapidly to cities like Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, and Atlanta
2. It has been estimated that during that twenty-four-month revival perhaps as many as one million came to Christ.
3. The revival not only braced the nation to withstand the crisis of the Civil War, it also prepared scores of Christian laymen to become spiritual leaders.
4. Most significantly, it left a permanent impression in the hearts of many young men, such as Dwight L. Moody, who would go on to become the earliest leaders of American Fundamentalism.
5. It became the seedbed of the movement.