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JaySaved
Member



Joined: 2005/7/11
Posts: 1132
Missouri

 Billy Sunday

What is with his preaching style? I am not condemning it or commending it, just want to know what the purpose was it all of it?

[url=https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/myalbum/viewcat.php?cid=16&min=15&orderby=titleA&show=15]Billy Sunday examples[/url]

 2007/4/25 16:44Profile









 Re: Billy Sunday

Dont know... looks like showmanship to me. I know God used him in a mighty mighty way, so I am not judging his style. Just think that perhaps he liked to utilize a lot of dramatic moves to bring home his point.

Kinda like Keith Greens dramatic flair on the piano... it grabs your attention.

Krispy

 2007/4/25 16:53
myfirstLove
Member



Joined: 2005/11/26
Posts: 496


 Re: Billy Sunday

I'm not sure either, but it seems a lot of open air preachers like to imitate HIM.


_________________
Lisa

 2007/4/25 17:02Profile









 Re:

Personally, I dont think that style is very effective in todays culture. I refuse to judge anyone who feels called to utilize that style... but it's definately not what God has called me to do.

Kinda like this preacher in Hendersonville NC with his signs "3 Gay Rights: AIDS, HELL & SALVATION". I wonder how many gays he has led to the Lord because of that sign?

I'll defend his right to do that with my life (I already did a decade ago)... but I dont agree with his style at all.

Krispy

 2007/4/26 8:42









 Re: Billy Sunday

Sunday's poses looks to be a primitive style of choreographing.

 2007/4/26 9:36
JaySaved
Member



Joined: 2005/7/11
Posts: 1132
Missouri

 Re:

Quote:
Kinda like this preacher in Hendersonville NC with his signs "3 Gay Rights: AIDS, HELL & SALVATION". I wonder how many gays he has led to the Lord because of that sign?



I know what you mean.

 2007/4/26 9:45Profile
RobertW
Member



Joined: 2004/2/12
Posts: 4636
St. Joseph, Missouri

 Re:

The thing about Billy Sunday that most comes to mind is that his ministry was a major step towards the whole sinners prayer thing. Like Finney, people took hold of Sunday's methods that did not preach a massage like Finney or Sunday and trouble resulted. Their methods had a more lasting effect than anything. It also greatly accelerated the 'Star' preacher phenomena we find today.

I copied this excerpt from a study I did a few years ago.


********

PREACHERS BECOMING CELEBRITIES

Perhaps we could lay much of the problem at the feet of the use of the modern day 'press'. When 'meetings' were advertised and covered in the newspapers suddenly there was an added pressure to have 'results'. After all, who wants to report that the meeting was a bust? D.L Moody preached his last sermon at the Great Convention Hall in Kansas City MO on November 16, 1899. his message title was, 'Excuses.' He died on December 22 of that same year, never seeing the 20th century. Before the days when Rex Humbard would become the father of modern day televangelism, D.L. Moody is credited with aiding in the development of the modern newspaper as they were used for creating the great wave of interest in this one very public evangelist and the meetings in general. Preachers were becoming celebrities and icons. Again, as with Finney, so with Moody, the 'new measures' of using the press was in itself not a bad thing. But is was like giving a six year old a gun for the incompetent. Some people simply cannot handle the popularity and the pressure to compromise becomes enormous for a host of reasons. Suddenly numbers were being printed in the papers. Attendances numbers and numbers of 'hopefully converted'. Notice the term again hopefully converted. This is as far as men dared to go in their reporting of numbers; but as with anything, the boldness to intrude into those things which we know not, vainly puffed up by fleshly minds, eventually took the place of reason.

Before we move to our next point I must again state the importance of understanding the 'pressure' of reporting positive results in the press. This pressure was no doubt a major cause of the erosion of the criteria degeneration for what it meant to be saved. The world was becoming 'quantity minded' and not quality minded. The industrial revolution was weighing in heavily to the whole philosophy of life. More, more, more... faster, faster, faster....

You can Meet a 'STAR'


As the "altar call'' became more common, the numbers that came forward increased. During the 1800's, the act of going forward to receive prayer was never considered the means of salvation. But through the changing of generations, the Biblical understanding of the sovereignty of God was slowly replaced by a modern "quick-fix" mentality. The "struggle of faith" and "praying through" was replaced by signing your name on a decision card. Billy Sunday was a very popular professional baseball player before becoming a minister. His method of preaching broke the mold by any standard. At times he would even have a baseball bat on the platform and utilize it during the preaching. He started out in the beginning like D.L. Moody, with the emphasis on individual counseling in the after meeting. But by the end of his career this was fading or faded completely.
Billy Sunday asked folk to come forward to shake his hand as an indicator that they were turning to Christ. This marked a strong turning point in the way in which altar calls changed. Consider how he was a ball player and many wanted to 'shake his hand'. No doubt many were sincere also. __Early reports in the 1800's suggested that only 10% of the persons who went forward in an altar call were "hopefully saved." As the decades past, the percentage grew to as much as 30%. Then, much later, the number might be 50%. Until finally, by 1918, the newspapers reporting that everyone who "hit the sawdust trail" to shake Billy Sunday's hand were saved. The objectivity was all but gone and the emphasis on folk actually being born of the Spirit was being replaced with a simple decision.


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Robert Wurtz II

 2007/4/26 12:24Profile









 Re:

Robert... that was very interesting. Thank you for sharing that.

After all of this, along came Billy Graham who completed the process. The one issue I have with Billy Graham is that he issued no warning to those who came that were members of unbiblical churches... particularly the Roman Catholic Church. Instead, he sent them back to the wolves. And to make things worse, he had Roman Catholic priests at many of his crusades to minister to those Catholics who came forward.

Billy Graham has been a great servant of God, and many have been saved thru his ministry... but that does not excuse his ecumenical activities.

Krispy

 2007/4/26 12:32
RobertW
Member



Joined: 2004/2/12
Posts: 4636
St. Joseph, Missouri

 Re:

Quote:
Billy Graham has been a great servant of God, and many have been saved thru his ministry... but that does not excuse his ecumenical activities.



God seems to use what we make available to Him. I often wonder why God uses certain people and even messages that I think are way off in left field. Then I have to really wonder; why would He use me? What can He do with my words? So He takes us and uses us for His purpose, but that does not dismiss our need to be a willing vessel and study to show ourselves approved- rightly dividing the word. I also think we need to be careful how we pattern our lives after people. We need to preach the Gospel as it was given to the apostles. If every generation puts their 2 cents in- how long until it is corrupted?


_________________
Robert Wurtz II

 2007/4/26 14:17Profile
letsgetbusy
Member



Joined: 2004/9/28
Posts: 957
Cleveland, Georgia

 Re:

Billy Sunday has been a tremendous influence on my life (just look at my avatar). I have never read a Sunday peice on theology, and I kind of doubt he did one. To tell you the truth I would probably not go out of my way to study all his theology, because it wasn't his brand of theology that was so impressive. It was his passion to take the message of repentance to as many people as possible. This he did, preaching in person to about 100 million people.

You know, he probably had so many thousands converted under his words because he was just a rugged, grown-up kid who gave up a life of stardom to serve God. The thousands of farmers and laborers who came to see Billy did not come to hear a Bambi story, they came because the word on the street was that God had set a man on fire, and let's all go watch him burn.

I, personally would rather have watched Billy with all his antics than about 99.9% of the preaching that is out there today. A radical showman he may have been, but there was no sleeping, and there was no shortage of condemnation of sin. I have never heard of anyone who preached about the realities of alcohol and its place in our society like he did.

Curtis Hutson talked in his sermon, "If My People" about Billy Sunday's work from the book 'Billy Sunday, The Man and His Message': "I read where 48,000 people were saved during that revival meeting. And I read that after the revival was over, one church got 1000 new members, and their building would only seat 250. They had to build a brand new auditorium to house the converts that came out of the Billy Sunday revival. I also read that during the 3 months Billy Sunday was in Allegheny County that there were 600 less people in the jails of Allegheny County that there had been in the same 3 month period before Billy Sunday came to town."

Rough around the edges, not refined or polished, but he did more personal missionary work than probably all of us on this website have done combined. Please correct me if you think I am wrong on that, but I suspect it is the truth.


_________________
Hal Bachman

 2007/4/28 0:45Profile





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