My dad was saved in a revival meeting in 1930. The revival meetings were held every night for six straight weeks! My grandfather loaded his family up into the Model A every evening and drove seven miles from the family farm to the church. Upon arrival, they listened to the preaching of an evangelist by the name of Shannon.

I love to hear the old-time stories of revival. Years ago in northern Wisconsin, a song leader told me how his family used to attend the Methodist camp meetings every night for weeks at a time. One day as a fifteen year-old boy, the song leader looked across the field and saw a neighbor kneeling down in the furrow behind a team of horses. He and his dad walked over to see what was wrong and heard their neighbor praying the sinner’s prayer. He was a proud, hardened old farmer, but the conviction of the preached Word broke him.

In a revival meeting near Detroit, Michigan in December of 1975, an elderly man lent me his overcoat for the week. When I tried to refuse his kindness, he told me how he sang in the choir during several Billy Sunday crusades. He had been praying for a revival to sweep across the nation once more. Stories like these make me thirsty for a pouring out of God’s Spirit again in a Great Awakening! Read more »