April 14 – Mission Field
The mission field was beginning to grow. Christians from all over Europe felt the call to take the Good News of Jesus Christ to the world.
One young man, William Carey, heard the call and managed to get into the mission field though he had to overcome many different obstacles.
Carey grew up in England, the son of a weaver turned teacher. He loved reading, but was never a strong, healthy boy. He managed to get himself apprenticed to a shoemaker and learned the trade. He joined a church outside the Anglican fellowship and ticked his father off. He got married and began preaching – sometimes walking eight miles to get to the church he served.
The group of ministers that he associated with did not believe in foreign missions, insisting that God would save the heathen without their intervention, but Carey couldn’t believe that and began focusing on his vision of ministry outside his immediate location.
Soon things began to look promising. A doctor volunteered to serve in India and needed someone to go with him – Carey volunteered. But, then the obstacles began to arise. Carey’s wife was pregnant and they had three children. He wasn’t healthy. The doctor had unpaid bills and creditors were searching for him and then the threat of war with France stopped the ship they would sail on.
Carey managed to coerce his family to join him and soon they sailed. In 1793 they arrived in Calcutta. Things weren’t great. No one was paying attention to his message, the oldest children were always in trouble, the doctor’s debts continued to follow him. But, Carey wasn’t dissuaded. He moved to another location, joining Danish missionaries. A church was built and Carey translated the New Testament into Bengali.
He spent thirty years as a missionary, translating the Bible into forty-four languages or dialects. He started several schools and mission stations. Carey believed that rather than bringing British religion to India, he needed to respect the culture. Instead of condemning Hindu religion, he simply emphasized the death and resurrection of Christ.
William Carey lived a life in mission and helped establish foreign missions as a strength for the church.
April 14 - Mission Field
April 13 - Ring the Bell
April 13 – Ring the Bell!
Every Sunday morning, I sat in Sunday School doing myriads of projects, singing songs, reading Bible stories, acting in little plays, doing different things that teachers hoped would anchor my faith.
This beginnings of this tradition looked nothing like what we recognize as Sunday School today.
In 1780, a newspaper editor named Robert Raikes couldn’t bear to see what was happening to children in Gloucester, England. The street urchins were stuck in dark, dank mills for six days out of the week and on Sundays they turned into terrors on the streets.
He paid a woman to bring the children into her kitchen, feed them, teach them how to read and recite the Bible. The children didn’t shape up, but he refused to stop. After terrorizing the first woman, he moved them to another home and they were there for seven hours a day, learning. He required that they wash their hands and comb their hair and before long, the children couldn’t wait to learn. He started with twenty kids but soon there were ninety children attending Sunday Schools around the city.
Raikes had been trying to reform the prisons for quite some time, but realized that at some point, rehabilitating adults was nearly impossible. He recognized that poor children might be able to move past the poverty and loss of life if they just received some education. After three years, he figured that his experiment was a success and began writing about it in his newspaper.
The idea caught on. John Wesley incorporated it into his Wesleyan groups. Merchants began supporting the idea (it kept their shops safe on Sundays when the children were free). The Queen caught the vision and helped with fund-raising. By 1787, 250,000 children were attending Sunday Schools and fifty years later there were more than 1 ½ million around the world.
Teachers were paid at first, but soon became volunteers. While early Sunday Schools taught everything, public education soon grew to the point where they were able to focus more on Bible teaching.
There were many benefits of the Sunday School program. While the Great Awakening was occurring in England and America, the religious fervor was sweeping across both countries. Many believe that this spared England a bloody civil war. At the same time, wealthy Christians began to understand their responsibility to the poor and to the children that worked terrible hours in hideous circumstances.
This was the beginning of public education and the revolution of religious education.
April 12 - Founding Fathers
April 12 – Founding Fathers
I would have to say that one of the most inaccurate views of our founding fathers is that they were Christian and based our democracy on Christian principles. While most of them believed in God, they were not evangelical or even orthodox Christians in reality. One of the prevalent forms of religion among the founding fathers was called Deism.
Deists believe in a supreme being who created the universe, but believe that reason and nature show this to be true and there is no need for faith or religion. Most deists tend to reject the intervention of God into human affairs or into the world and with this reject the idea of miracles and revelation.
Thomas Jefferson, a Deist, called Jesus’ miracles “vulgar ignorance … and fabrications.” Benjamin Franklin didn’t think it was important to consider Jesus’ divinity and publicly proclaimed his doubt with it. The Declaration of Independence refers to ‘Nature’s God,’ which is clearly teaching of Deism.
Deism came about as a result of the Enlightenment. Scientists were making great strides toward understanding how life worked, philosophers were questioning man’s interaction with the world and reason rather than faith began to be emphasized, creating a clear divide.
For hundreds of years, God’s truth as found in Scripture was the only possible response to the question “What is truth?” But, during the Enlightenment, doubt was created surrounding the Ancient truths. They didn’t seem to be working so people set them aside and declared that truth was whatever worked for them at the time, an idea which still permeates society.
These were the Deists and though they had very different ideas from the Christians, they respected and honored the idea that religious faith was a personal issue and one that could not be determined by the state. The third article of the Bill of Rights stated, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
While we take this for granted, this was an entirely new concept. Until this point in history, the state had always had an established religion and anything that smacked of difference would be shut down and its leaders persecuted. When America was still simply colonies of England, the Anglican Church was the State Church and with the Revolution, it was disestablished in the colonies and had to be re-established as one of many different forms of worship.
Today, we may take great offense at the government enforcing this right in ways that we think take away our right to proclaim our religion, but the safety that this third article of the Bill of Rights has granted to anyone within our borders to practice their religion without fear of persecution is one of the great decisions made by our founding fathers.
April 11 - From Actor to Preacher
April 11 – From Actor to Preacher
George Whitefield was born to a widow, an owner of an inn in England. In his young life, he fell in love with the theater. Later in life, his talent for acting would be featured in his sermons when he delivered them with great passion and re-enacted Biblical stories to the delight of his audiences.
Because he came from a poor background, he entered Oxford University as a ‘servitor.’ While this granted him a free education, he was responsible for taking care of many of the higher ranking servants, doing everything from waking them in the morning to helping them write their assignments. Whitefield joined the Holy Club, which John and Charles Wesley were also a part of and at some point during those years met God in a very personal way and become fully converted to lead a Christian life.
His preaching style incorporated his talent for acting and his passion for Jesus. He was soon ordained into the Anglican Church, but found that he reached more people by taking to open-air preaching. He followed the Wesleys to America and became a parish priest in Savannah, Georgia. After a year, he returned again to England. He joined up with the Wesley brothers in establishing Methodist Churches throughout England, but differed with them regarding Calvinism, predestination and slavery. He formed the first Methodist Conference in England, but left to become an evangelist and soon traveled to America to begin preaching a series of revivals.
Benjamin Franklin attended one of his revival meetings and could not believe the reports that Whitefield could be heard by ten thousand people at once in an open air venue. He moved further and further from the speaker, listening closely for the clarity of speech. When he got to the point that he could no longer hear Whitefield clearly, he realized that the man’s voice carried an incredible distance and that the reports were not exaggerated.
Whitefield preached to the slaves, but at the same time believed that no business could exist without them, so refused to side with the abolitionists and even owned several, though he treated them well and they were said to be devoted to him.
He traveled back and forth from America to England, then traveled into Scotland where he held several great revivals. In his mid 50s, he continued to travel and preach in open air services, ignoring his health. At the age of 55, he told his friends he would rather wear out than rust out and died from severe respiratory problems the morning after a successful service.
April 10 - Strangely Warmed
April 10 – Strangely Warmed
Every time I read about John Wesley, I find it easy to be proud of the heritage of faith I grew up in. I’ve grown up knowing his stories, how he was pulled from a fire in the rectory at age five and recognized that he was a ‘brand plucked from the burning,’ that God had a purpose for his life. I knew that his mother, Susanna had 19 children, seven of whom lived, that she educated the children at home in their early years, that his father was a pastor who had graduated from Oxford, that he had gone to school and come away without his faith because of the things that had happened to him there and his doubts that God loved him.
He and his brother, Charles, started a religious club at Oxford and were laughingly called ‘Methodists’ because they were so methodical in their approach to learning and to God. I learned about his trip to America with the Moravians and how their deep faith shook him because he was unsure that he had that faith. When he doubted his faith, upon his return from America to England, he returned to the Moravians and attending a service one evening, was struck by teaching from Romans and felt his heart ‘strangely warmed.’ At that moment, he realized that God loved him.
John Wesley spent time studying in Herrnhut with the Moravians and came back to England. He wasn’t allowed in many of the churches, so began preaching outside along with his friend, the evangelist, George Whitefield. He used his organizational skills to begin gathering groups of people wherever he preached into societies. These societies multiplied throughout England and Scotland and soon garnered the attention of the Anglican Church.
While Wesley never separated from the Anglicans, he also recognized that they weren’t reaching the populace. They also had refused communion to Americans following the Revolutionary War because they were no longer sending ordained pastors to America.
Wesley ordained Thomas Coke (who later ordained Francis Asbury) and gave them the charge of training and ordaining pastors in the United States. He did the same in England and Scotland and soon created an ecclesiastical system outside of the Anglican Church.
Wesley and Whitefield disagreed quite strongly about Calvinism and the argument spread to other leaders within their scope of reference. Whitefield ended up founding the Calvinistic Methodist Church. While this argument was made public, the two men came together and re-established their friendship. It is John Wesley who first put into print the words, “agree to disagree.”
Wesley traveled over 200,000 miles on horseback. He gave away nearly every cent he ever owned and died a poor man. Through his entire life, he continually doubted that God could love him and constantly strived to make his life worthwhile. He was a prolific writer and his teachings are still used throughout the world. Wesley spoke out strongly and clearly against slavery. With his brother, Charles, he introduced hymn singing into the church, once again separating himself from the Anglicans.
John Wesley’s greatest gift to the world was his teaching on personal holiness. His life was lived to fulfill God’s purpose. He died at the age of 87, surrounded by friends and family. His final words, “The best of all is, God is with us.”
April 9 - Jonathan Edwards
April 9 – Jonathan Edwards
The mid-1700s were a period of great spiritual growth in America as well as Europe. Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, John & Charles Wesley all taught of the great love that God has for us and our response to that love.
Jonathan Edwards was an incredibly brilliant man, entering Yale College at the age of 13. When he left there at 18, he returned to Northampton, Massachusetts to co-pastor a church there with his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard. At his grandfather’s death, Edwards took the position as lead pastor.
Edwards was a devout Calvinist, a scholar, an author and a man of deep prayer. His grandfather had seen five different periods of great spiritual change during his 60 years in ministry and Jonathan Edwards began praying for that to occur again within the church. He began to preach on changed lives and devotion to God and in 1734, the Holy Spirit fell upon the people of Northampton. The church was filled with people, the town began to transform as nearly everyone came to worship and hear the words of God.
He didn’t preach using emotions, simply the truth of God. Outsiders mocked the response of the congregation, the wailing and physical responses from the people, and though Edwards admitted that it might have been emotionally excessive, he recognized that it was the Holy Spirit moving among the people.
This was the first Great Awakening in America. Itinerant pastors took this message throughout the colonies and invigorated the hearts of the people. This period of time was a precursor to the American Revolution, teaching equality between men rather than the class system of England and stressing the importance of religious freedom.
Edwards’ scholarly interest crossed many boundaries. He believed in the importance of studying so much so that he attempted to dedicate at least thirteen hours/day to that. He wrote essays on natural philosophy, even exploring atomic energy. He was fascinated with Isaac Newton and studied light and optics.
His descendants played a very active role in the development of America throughout the next century both in religious and political venues. One of these was Aaron Bur, the Vice President under Thomas Jefferson. There were at least 13 college presidents that came from his line, 65 professors, and untold numbers of pastors. His writings continue to influence pastors and scholars today.
When he left Northampton, he began to preach to the American Indian and then traversed the States, bringing the message of hope and eternity through Jesus Christ.
April 8 - 100 Year Prayer Vigil
April 8 – 100 Year Prayer Vigil
Do you remember John Hus (God In History – March 4)? In the early 1400s, his death at the stake energized the Bohemians and they began to oppose hypocrisy and heresy. When forced to rejoin the church, many split off and began a group called the Union of the Brethren.
Three hundred years later, they were still being persecuted until they found a home on the estate of a wealthy man near Dresden, Germany. Count Nikolaus Zinzendorf was Lutheran, but opened his lands to this small group of Moravians. They called the community Herrnhut or ‘the Lord’s watch’ and by 1725 there were nearly 100 people living there.
Zinzendorf was a devout man and soon left his castle and joined the people, leading them as they grew closer to God. He helped the Moravians design rules to live by, established charity work and small groups that would help the people continue to grow.
On August 13, 1727, they planned a twenty-four-hour prayer vigil. The light on the altar was never extinguished and this continual prayer lasted for much longer the twenty-four hours, it lasted for a hundred years!
The Moravians made contact with other groups throughout Europe, trained leaders to visit them and share what was happening at Herrnhut. In 1732, Zinzendorf met an African slave and a group of Eskimos that had been led to Christ and knew that his group was being called into mission. Within the next hundred years, the Moravians sent more than 300 missionaries throughout the world and baptized more than 3000 people.
Zinzendorf tried to make the Moravian church legal in Germany, but ended up being banished. He traveled to America, settling in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania for a time and setting up a base of missions to the Native Americans. He then moved to London and a center for Moravians was established.
John Wesley was on a ship filled with Moravians, heading to America when a storm struck. While others were terrified, the Moravians quietly sang Psalms. For him, it was ‘the most glorious day he had ever seen.’
It was a Moravian that asked him if he knew Jesus Christ. Wesley wasn’t able to give a firm answer, wondering who might convert him if he was converting others. But, that’s another story for another day.
Zinzendorf, the Moravians, Herrnhut. The world was changed through their mission, their passion for a personal relationship with Jesus and through prayer.
