[i]Since the 16C Reformation, some writers identify six waves of special revival or "Awakenings" in the church worldwide - from 1727, 1792, 1830, 1857, 1882 and 1904.[/i]
[b]The Great Awakening[/b]
There are many great names and events associated with each of these. George Whitefield and John Wesley were associated with the First Great Awakening (1727 on).
[b]Second Great Awakening[/b]
The Second Great Awakening (1792 on) in UK resulted in the founding of the British and Foreign Bible Society, The Religious Tract Society, The Baptist Missionary Society, The London Missionary Society, The Church Missionary Society and a host of other evangelistic agencies. It also achieved considerable social reform; the abolition of the slave trade, prisons were reformed, Sunday Schools began and a number of benevolent institutions were commenced. The revival affected the whole of Europe and the US.
[b]Resurgence[/b]
The third Awakening or maybe "resurgence", from 1830, was largely influential in America and many countries worldwide including India and Ceylon. The Plymouth Brethren started with John Nelson Darby at this time, a result of disillusionment with denominationalism and clerical hierarchy.
[b]Third Great Awakening[/b]
The next Great Awakening (sometimes called the Third Great Awakening) began from 1857 onwards in Canada and spread throughout the world including America and Australia. Significant names include Dwight L. Moody, Ira D. Sankey, William and Catherine Booth (founders of the Salvation Army), Charles Spurgeon and James Caughey. Hudson Taylor began the China Inland Mission and Barnardo founded his famous orphanages. The Keswick convention movement began out of the British Holiness movement, encouraging a lifestyle of holiness, unity and prayer.
[b]Further resurgence[/b]
The next Awakening (1880 - 1903) has been described as "a period of unusual evangelistic effort and success", and again sometimes more of a "resurgence" of the previous wave. Moody, Sankey and Spurgeon are again notable names. Others included Sam Jones, J. Wilber Chapman and Billy Sunday in North America, Andrew Murray in South Africa, and John McNeil in Australia. The Faith Mission began in 1886.
[b]Welsh and Pentecostal revivals[/b]
The final Great Awakening (1904 onwards) had its roots in the Holiness movement which had developed in the late 19C. The Pentecostal revival movement began, out of a passion for more power and a greater outpouring of the Spirit. In 1902, the American evangelists Reuben Archer Torrey and Charles M. Alexander conducted meetings in Melbourne, Australia, resulting in over 8,000 converts. News of this revival travelled fast, igniting a passion for prayer and an expectation that God would work in similar ways elsewhere.
Torrey and Alexander were involved in the beginnings of the great Welsh revival (1904) which led Jessie Penn-Lewis to witness the working of Satan during times of revival, and write her book "War on the Saints" ("The aftermath of the Revival in Wales, which was a true work of God, revealed numbers of 'honest souls' swept off their feet by evil supernatural powers, which they were not able to discern from the true working of God"). In 1906 the modern Pentecostal Movement was born in Azusa Street, in Los Angeles.
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SI Moderator - Greg Gordon
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