Revival Stories

New York 1857-1860
In September 1857, a man of prayer, Jeremiah Lanphier, started a businessmen’s prayer meeting in the upper room of the Dutch Reformed Church Consistory Building in Manhattan. In response to his advertisement, only six people out of a population of a million showed up. But the following week there were fourteen, and then twenty-three when it was decided to meet everyday for prayer. By late winter they were filling the Dutch Reformed Church, then the Methodist Church on John Street, then Trinity Episcopal Church on Broadway at Wall Street. In February and March of 1858, every church and public hall in down town New York was filled.
Horace Greeley, the famous editor, sent a reporter with horse and buggy racing round the prayer meetings to see how many men were praying. In one hour he could get to only twelve meetings, but he counted 6,100 men attending. Then a landslide of prayer began, which overflowed to the churches in the evenings. People began to be converted, ten thousand a week in New York City alone. The movement spread throughout New England, the church bells bringing people to prayer at eight in the morning, twelve noon, and six in the evening. The revival raced up the Hudson and down the Mohawk, where the Baptists, for example, had so many people to baptize that they went down to the river, cut a big hole in the ice, and baptized them in the cold water. When Baptists do that they are really on fire!
Taken from The Role of Prayer in Spiritual Awakening - J. Edwin Orr
Hull 1860
In the 1860s over a million people were added to the church. Here’s an example of what was happening in one city:“ There were united daily prayer meetings in the port city of Kingston upon Hull, supported by the established church and the dissenting denominations. Numbers of people were unable to gain an entrance to the central meetings, and so, many places of worship were opened each evening for prayer. A monthly united prayer meeting attracted more than 3000. As usual a rising tide of evangelism followed, and campaigns were still crowding halls in 1865 to excess, necessitating the hiring of the circus, at which ministers of different denominations preached. Other very successful campaigns were carried on throughout the year 1865.”Taken from the Second Evangelical Awakening in Britain by J Edwin Orr

Wales 1904
The Welsh Revival started in 1904. It began as a movement of prayer. A key figure was a former coal miner, Evan Roberts, who was studying at Newcastle Emlyn College. He attended a campaign held by Seth Joshua, a Presbyterian evangelist, who prayed at the meeting, ‘O God, bend us.’ Roberts had responded with ‘O God, bend me.’ Following this he kept hearing a voice that told him to go home and speak to the young people in his home church. On his return to Loughor, his home town, his reluctant pastor allowed him to speak only at the end of a prayer meeting.
Roberts told them
‘I have a message for you from God:
You must confess any known sin to God and put right any wrong done to others.
Second, you must put away any doubtful habit.
Third, you must obey the Spirit promptly.
Finally, you must confess your faith in Christ publicly.’
The response to his message was remarkable and following a series of meetings a break occurred and the movement spread rapidly over Wales: in five months a hundred thousand people were converted throughout the country. The revival had a widespread social impact.

Saxony 1727
The Moravians officially established their community in 1457. Yet for 250 years, they had suffered intense persecution for their beliefs until 1722 when Count Ludwig von Zinzendorf, a man of deep faith, invited them to refuge on his estate. These asylum seekers came from Czechoslovakia and Bohemia to a village called Herrnhut in Saxony. Other asylum seekers joined them - French Calvinists and Anabaptists from Germany. In time, the blending of nationalities and ideas brought about conflict. Zinzendorf, the de facto leader of this group, was disturbed by the tension and had been praying with key community leaders about it.

On August 5, 1727, Count Zinzendorf and fourteen of the Brethren spent the entire night in conversation and prayer. On August 10th, Pastor Rothe another leader was so overcome by God’s nearness during an afternoon service at Herrnhut that he threw himself on the ground during prayer and called to God with words of repentance as he had never done before. The congregation was moved to tears and continued until midnight, praising God and singing.

On August 13, 1727 the whole community assembled for a communion service, and in that service, the entire body felt the presence of the Holy Spirit, leading them to beg forgiveness of one another and weep and seek reconciliation. Something happened to the Moravians during that service — they were transformed from being a disparate bunch of refugees into an excited band of disciples, ready for any task. Count Zinzendorf looked upon that day as “a day of the outpourings of the Holy Spirit upon the congregation; it was its Pentecost.”

Within two weeks, twenty-four men and twenty-four women of the community covenanted together to spend one hour each day, day and night, in prayer to God for His blessing on the congregation and its witness. For over 100 years, members of the Moravian church continued non-stop in this “Hourly Intercession.” Like the first Pentecost, men and women would move forth with the gospel from Herrnhut to the uttermost parts of the earth. All Moravian adventures were begun, surrounded, and consummated in prayer. They became known as “God’s Happy People,” establishing missions and churches around the world and having a key role in the life of John Wesley among others.
Their watchword was, “That the lamb that was slain will receive the reward for his suffering”.

Edinburgh 1905
Soon after the beginning of the Welsh Revival in 1904, a man called Joseph Kemp from Edinburgh went to Wales, where he spent a couple of weeks observing and experiencing the work and power of the Holy Spirit there. On his return he attended a large meeting in Charlotte Chapel. As he recounted his experiences there was an eager response to his story. A man asked for prayer and was the first of hundreds who became Christians during the subsequent revival in Charlotte Chapel. For a whole year prayer meetings were held, increasing in number and intensity, and characterised by passionate praying.
Joseph Kemp commented: “The people poured out their hearts in importunate prayer. I have yet to witness a movement that has produced more permanent results in the lives of men, women and children. There were irregularities, no doubt; some commotion, yes… After the first year of this work we had personally dealt with no fewer than one thousand souls, who had been brought to God during the prayer meetings.”
An account of one meeting reports that ‘the fire of God fell’. A sudden overwhelming sense of the reality and awfulness of His presence and of eternal things was experienced. Prayer and weeping began, and gained in intensity every moment. As on the day of the laying of the foundation of the second Temple, the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people. (Ezra 3:13)…Friends who were gathered sang on their knees. Each seemed to sing, and each seemed to pray, oblivious of one another. Then the prayer broke out again, waves and waves of prayer, and the midnight hour was reached. The hours had passed like minutes. It is useless being a spectator looking on, or praying for it, in order to catch its spirit and breath. It is necessary to be in it, praying in it, part of it, caught by the same power, swept by the same wind. One who was present says: “I cannot tell you what Christ was to me last night. My heart was full to overflowing. If ever my Lord was near to me, it was last night.”

Hebrides 1949-53
In revival, God moves in the district. Suddenly, the community becomes God conscious. The Spirit of God grips men and women in such a way that even work is given up as people give themselves to waiting upon God. In the midst of the Lewis Awakening, the parish minister at Barvas wrote, "The Spirit of the Lord was resting wonderfully on the different townships of the region. His Presence was in the homes of the people, on meadow and moorland, and even on the public roads." This presence of God is the supreme characteristic of a God-sent revival. Of the hundreds who found Jesus Christ during this time fully seventy-five per cent were saved before they came near a meeting or heard a sermon by myself or any other ministers in the parish. The power of God, the Spirit of God, was moving in operation, and the fear of God gripped the souls of men - this is God-sent revival as distinct from special efforts in the field of evangelism. (Duncan Campbell of the Hebridean revival).