Historic Spiritual Awakenings and Market Place Transformation

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Introduction

Let me begin this time by asking you three questions which I hope will plant a thorn in your mind and cause you to think and ask bigger questions of God. First, what in your opinion are the greatest spiritual, moral and practical issues facing us as a market place and as a community in Spokane today? Second, what do you believe God can do and wants to do to solve those problems? Third, what price are you personally willing to pay to see God do that? I want to talk with you today about two topics which at first blush may seem unrelated, but I promise you they are not. In fact I hope to demonstrate that they are, in fact, vitally connected. I want to talk today about Historic Spiritual Awakenings and Market Place Transformation. But before I can do that with any credibility I need to properly introduce myself, so you have a sense of who I am and a sense of the journey in my own life that has led me to this topic today. My name is Maurice Smith. I’m originally from North Carolina and graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the days when Dean Smith was the head basketball coach, and where Michael Jordan played college ball four years after I graduated. I spent two years on Staff with Campus Crusade for Christ and four years at Denver Baptist Seminary in Colorado where I studied Christian apologetics, taught on the adjunct faculty and designed their field education department. My wife and I then moved here to Spokane, where she grew up, and instead of going into ministry I went into business as a financial consultant. Why? Because I decided that I really didn’t want to live by faith and do church ministry. I would go into business in the market place, make money and serve God there. I was so successful that I spent the next 15 years slowly achieving bankruptcy, which I finally accomplished in early 2001, having the financial disaster that most Christians only have nightmares about (of course there’s more to it, but I’m sparing you the ugly details). In the midst of all that, God in His mercy precipitated a spiritual crisis, asked me if I was now willing to trust Him and to live by faith, and told me he was leading me back into full time ministry. I’m a little slow on the up-take, it only took me 15 years, but I did finally get the message.

In the midst of this crisis, as it was unfolding, God led me to study a topic which had intrigued me since my days as an undergraduate student, namely the history of spiritual awakenings. Specifically, He led me to write a book on the Great Welsh Revival of 1904 entitled When The Fire Fell. Although the book is now out of print, it still continues to circulate through churches in the Spokane area today. I was at the Doctor’s office recently and my doctor began asking me more about what I do. When I mentioned that I had written a book on the Welsh Revival he surprised me by responding, “My wife & I have read that book!” We had a great time visiting about the impact the book had made on them and their church at the time. So, it is still around and still getting good reviews from readers, for which I’m grateful. About the same time that God led me to write that book, roughly nine years ago, God also opened up in my own life a call and a ministry to fast and pray for revival & spiritual awakening here in the greater Spokane area. Although I was a serving elder in a local Presbyterian church He shook my comfortable paradigm again by calling me into the house church movement. Then, two years ago, God led me to create The Spokane Market Place Prayer Initiative to call believers to begin praying in and for their respective market places that God would bring genuine spiritual renewal and transformation to the Market Place. You can read more about The Spokane Market Place Prayer Initiative on our website at www.marketplaceprayer.org. And this brings me to where we are today and this message on Historic Spiritual Awakenings and Market Place Transformation.


I believe that today Spokane and the Pacific Northwest stand on the brink of a spiritual awakening of historic proportions. It is a promise of God that hovers over our region awaiting the appointed day of fulfillment, and I believe the season of it’s fulfillment is at hand. And as this season of spiritual awakening unfolds, I believe that the potential exists for the Market Place to have a greater impact upon people in our Post Modern culture than the traditional institutional church. And I hope this thought causes a pain in your mind. Leslie Newbigin, a veteran missionary to India for over 30 years once observed that all thinking begins with a pain in the mind. Newbigin understood that it is not until some challenger awakens us from our “dogmatic slumber” that we are truly prepared to think new thoughts and re-examine long-held beliefs. What I hope to accomplish in the next few minutes is to plant a pain in your mind, a holy discontent, if you will, a yearning deep within your heart for God to do more in our community, particularly in your market place, than you or I have ever seen before. This isn’t a talk about money, although whenever you talk about God’s work in the market place the topic of money is almost unavoidable. But I am more concerned with vision than with money. Without a Kingdom vision of God’s power to transform disaster into blessing, economic prosperity (money) is like a fine car without gas: expensive and beautiful to look at, but what’s the point? You’d be better off walking to your destination. My goal and purpose in this presentation is not to challenge you to give money, so put your check book away. Rather, I want to challenge your thinking and elevate the level of your own expectations regarding what God might want to do in and through your Market Place and what your role might be. And I want to do this by sharing with you five historic examples of how times of spiritual awakening have transformed the market place, individuals in the market place and eventually the entire society. In fact, I believe history demonstrates that during times of historic spiritual awakenings, some of the most profound impact takes place not in institutional churches, but in the Market Place., in the highways and bi-ways of life.

Five Historic Awakenings

What I want to do now is to give you five historic examples of how Spiritual Awakenings over the past 250 years have transformed the Market Place, and then how a transformed Market Place has been used by God to transform the rest of society. And the first of these historic examples involves John Wesley & The Evangelical Awakening In England in the 1700s. As most of you probably already know, John Wesley, whose ministry spanned 51 years from roughly 1740 until his death in 1791, was the founder of the Methodist church, but the impact of his ministry went far beyond the either Methodism or the Church. I was raised in the United Methodist Church. My elderly mother who retired from a career in public education with a doctoral degree, is a licensed lay preacher in the United Methodist Church where I grew up. But I never really learned about or came to appreciate John Wesley until I began studying the history of spiritual awakenings. John Wesley, his brother Charles and their friend George Whitfield were the undisputed leaders of what is known as the Evangelical Awakening in England during the middle & late 1700s (The same awakening in America came to be known simply as The Great Awakening). There are many aspects of this powerful spiritual awakening that I wish I had time to talk about, but I’m going to limit myself to mentioning just a handful that dramatically impacted the market place.

The First way that the Evangelical a Awakening under Wesley impacted the market place was through Wesley’s personal example and his personal money habits. Throughout his lifetime Wesley sought to model a lifestyle that was free from the love of money (wow, imagine the novelty of that today!). By the time he died in 1791 after 51 years of ministry Wesley was one of the most highly regarded churchmen in all of England. His books and pamphlets were in high demand and he could have become a wealthy man through the sale of his writings. But Wesley regarded his life and wealth as a stewardship, entrusted to him by God for the benefit of those around him. So, each year Wesley calculated what he needed in order to live. Once he calculated that personal budget he gave away everything in excess of that modest amount. In one particular year Wesley lived on approximately £30 (in today’s currency, approximately $3,840). In that same year he earned and gave away an additional £1,400, which means that he gave away nearly 98% of his earnings for that year. Early in his long ministry, in 1743, Wesley wrote, “If I leave behind me £10 . . . you and all mankind bear witness against me that I lived and died a thief and a robber.” Throughout his life Wesley earned roughly £30,000, which I estimate in today’s dollars to have been around $3.84 million, most of which he gave away. In the year 1776 Wesley received a note from the Commissioner of Excise. At that time the English government imposed a luxury excise tax upon all silver plate (dinnerware, etc.). The Commissioner of Excise claimed that Wesley owned more silver plate than he had declared and paid tax on. Wesley responded curtly but profoundly, “I have two silver spoons at London and two at Bristol. This is all the plate I have at present, and I shall not buy any more while so many round me want bread.” Pity the poor tax collector trying to extract another farthing out of Wesley by accusing him of frivolous living. But ask yourself this question. What impact might it have on the market place, on our community and on the spread of the Kingdom of God if Christians in both the market place and in ministry lived by Wesley’s example today, and how much of the prosperity gospel nonsense would be revealed for what it really is, foolish arguments over how many silver spoons God wants you to own while so many people around you want bread.

Now, the second profound impact that Wesley and the awakening had on the Market Place was in the area of work, money and debt. Wesley’s personal motto, which he lived by and drilled into all Methodists was, “Gain all you can, save all you can, give all you can.” Wesley believed in and taught the importance of hard work and industry. But the market place of 18th century England was one which abused the poor, engaged in shameless exploitation of child labor and trafficked in human beings (more about that in a moment). Wesley detested debt and forbid Methodists from frequenting pawn shops. Now you have to understand the Market Place of Wesley’s day. There was no middle class, and no consumer lines of credit for people in need. The pawn brokers were the lenders of last resort to the poor, usually at interest rates that would make a loan shark wince. So, to help people in financial distress Wesley undertook to form what today would be called credit unions, personally soliciting capital donations to finance the project. In fact, he created two such credit unions. The “Benevolent Loan Fund” made short-term loans to Methodists in financial need, and loaned money on more than one occasion to assist a fellow Methodist to start a business. Why? Because Wesley knew that a Methodist who owned his own business would combat poverty, become a productive member of society, employ other Methodists and give back out of his earnings. In addition, Wesley founded the “Strangers Society” which, according to Wesley, was “instituted wholly for the relief . . . of poor, sick, friendless strangers.” According to Wesley, the only qualification to participate was need. These forerunners of today’s “credit unions” were intended to assist individuals in need who might have no other alternative, but pawn shops and loan sharks. It was a revolutionary concept for both the Church and the market place in 18th Century England. So, the next time you go to your credit union to get a line of credit, thank John Wesley and the Evangelical Awakening. As a side note, on the eve of his death with his strength failing, Wesley closed his personal financial Account Book with these words: “For upwards of 86 years I have kept my accounts exactly, I will not attempt it any longer, being satisfied with the continual conviction that I save all I can, and give all I can - that is all I have.” When the day comes and it is time for us to settle and close our accounts here on earth in preparation for the reckoning of heaven, may we be able to say the same.

The third profound impact that the Evangelical Awakening had on the public Market Place in England was upon the public market place for human beings - that’s right, slavery, where human beings were openly bought and sold as property. You probably know the story of John Newton, the former slave ship captain who converted to Christianity and wrote the hymn, “Amazing Grace”. Newton came to faith in Christ during the Evangelical Awakening, abandoned the slave trade, studied for the ministry and became pastor of the Olney parish where he ministered until his death in 1803. Newton came to despise the slave trade which he had formerly practiced and began to preach against it. In 1785 he was approached by a young member of Parliament named William Wilberforce. Now, Wilberforce had been raised by an aunt and uncle who were strong supporters of Wesley and the Evangelical Awakening. In 1780 he was elected to Parliament. And in 1784 he experienced a conversion to Evangelical Christianity which radically changed his life. It was this young Wilberforce who approached John Newton, now an evangelical pastor, and asked his counsel concerning what he as a Christian should do regarding slavery. For the next two years the former slave trader turned pastor mentored the young Parliametarian and evangelical Christian until finally, on Sunday evening, October 28, 1787 Wilberforce wrote in his diary, “God Almighty has set before me two great objects: the suppression of the Slave Trade and the Reformation of Manners.” For the next 20 years William Wilberforce worked tirelessly in the Market Place of political ideas to transform the economic Market Place of the slave trade. Prior to his death in 1791 an elderly John Wesley wrote to Wilberforce and encouraged him in his fight against the slave trade, which Wesley himself detested and preached against. Finally, in 1807, Parliament adopted Wilberforce’s Motion for the Abolition of the Slave Trade and abolished the slave trade in England. In 1833, one month after Wilberforce’s death, Parliament abolished the slave trade throughout the British Empire, and they did it on the basis of Christian conscience without firing a shot in anger, even offering financial compensation to slave owners for the economic loss of their property.

There are so many impacts of the Evangelical Awakening on the Market Place that it’s impossible to mention them all. For example, do you enjoy not having to work on the weekend? Then you might want to thank an evangelical Christian by the name of Anthony Ashley Cooper, also known as the 7th Earl of Shaftsbury. He came to evangelical faith during the awakening and spent the remainder of his public career in Parliament working for the rights of the working class in England. He worked to pass the Ten Hour Law which forbid employers from working children for more than 10 hours a day. Another law required employers to give employees Sunday off. The law was later extended to include half of Saturday, and so the modern weekend was born, and you have the Evangelical Awakening and transformed people such as Lord Shaftsbury to thank. And it didn’t come without a paying a personal price. Lord Shaftsbury’s father, the 6th Earl of Shaftsbury hated his son’s work on behalf of the working poor, feeling that the poor needed to mind their place in society. He banned his son from the family estate (one of those “Don’t bother coming home for Christmas ‘cause the gate will be locked” deals) and never missed an opportunity to embarrass his son financially by withholding money to pay debts and bills. But he was willing to pay the price of accomplishing great things for the Kingdom of God. If you take a stand for Christ in the Market Place, it will cost you, and it will probably cost you more than just money. It may cost you your reputation among friends and family. It may cost you more. But ultimately each of us must come to the realization that we live our lives for an audience of ONE, and pleasing Him becomes the most important thing to us in all the world.

Now the second Historic Awakening I want to steal a market Place story from is the third Great Awakening. During the 1820s, 30s and 40s America experienced its third spiritual awakening in 100years, and the most prominent evangelist in America at that time was Charles Grandison Finney, an attorney turned pastor and evangelist. On one occasion in 1826 Finney was preaching in the area of Utica, New York when he was invited to visit and tour a local cotton factory where his brother-in-law was the Superintendent. When Finney arrived at the factory he proceeded to walk across the factory floor to meet his brother-in-law. Now, Finney was somewhat well known in the area for his preaching and revival work. As he passed through the factory some of the women workers on the factory floor recognized him and began pointing at him and giggling. Finney paused and decided to approach them. As he did so they stopped laughing and instead they began to weep. Soon, many more of the workers were weeping and unable to work. The factory owner was not a Christian. But when he realized what was happening he closed the factory, saying “Stop the mill and let the people attend to religion; for it is more important that our souls should be saved than that this factory run.” He then invited Finney to preach to the assembled workers. Finney preached, and over the course of the week that followed nearly every worker in the factory professed Christ as savior. These kinds of things happen during seasons of genuine spiritual awakening, when the presence of God hangs like an almost tangible fog over a community. Let me ask you something. What would you do if something similar were to happen where you work. By the way, trust me when I say they weren’t expecting it to happen to them either! But such things do happen during seasons of Spiritual Awakening. Having said that, let me ask you a question: Is the presence of God welcome in your market place? What would you do & how would you respond if God were to so rudely invade your workspace and interrupt your comfortable work schedule.

The Consequences Of Taking A Stand

When we were developing the Market Place Prayer Initiative I had Christians tell me that they couldn’t do anything in their workplace because of the possible consequences. Do you honestly think we are the first generation of believers to be openly criticized, ostracized and persecuted for taking an open stand for Christ in the Market Place? Let me give you a little perspective by once again using the life of John Wesley as an example. After his heartwarming experience at Aldersgate, Wesley began preaching an evangelical message of salvation in Christ. As a result, even though he was an ordained Anglican priest, the doors of Anglican churches throughout England began closing and preaching invitations dried up. Why? Because the Church of Wesley’s day had an official philosophy of Latitudinarianism. Now there’s a mouthful. It simply meant that in the Church all religious views were to be given the widest possible latitude of acceptance and toleration, and whatever else you might do, don’t preach that evangelical faith in Jesus is the only means of salvation. Needless to say, during the Awakening Wesley broke this taboo and Churches were promptly closed to him and his message. When Wesley abandoned the Churches and began preaching in the open air, in fields, in public squares, persecution followed him. He was frequently heckled and pummeled with rotten tomatoes and vegetables (I’ve often mused as to whether this was the origin of the Church potluck. After all, with that much free food flying around a church gathering you might as well invite friends and have a meal!). The homes of Methodist preachers were ransacked, their families evicted and the preachers beaten by angry mobs while local religious and secular authorities watched without intervening. So, exactly what was it that you’re so concerned about?

Now our third example of Spiritual Awakening and Market Place Transformation comes from one of the greatest revivals in American history. The Manhattan Prayer Revival began in the fall of 1857 and was led not by a pastor or ministry professional, but by a businessman named Jeremiah Lanphier. And although it began in a church building, it quickly spread into the Market Place. Jeremiah Lanphier was a New York businessman with the heart of a missionary. His mission field was the people living and working in the Hell’s Kitchen area of Manhattan, only a few blocks from where the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center once stood. He asked for and received permission to open the doors of the North Dutch Church on the corner of Fulton and William Streets from 12 Noon till 1:00 p.m. for prayer one day every week. Lanphier then wrote and distributed a small handbill (or tract) entitled How Often Shall I Pray? which invited businessmen to come and pray. At the first meeting on September 23, 1857 six men showed up. At the second meeting on October 1st there were 20 men in attendance. On October 7th between thirty and forty men came for prayer. The response was so encouraging that they decided to open the church for prayer every day, instead of just weekly. On October 8th the room was filled. And by October 14th over 100 men attended. Then something happened to shake everyone’s paradigm. In late September of 1857, New York had begun to see the first signs of what was then called a “banker’s panic.” Banks in Philadelphia had begun calling in loans and suspending the payment of gold for notes. By early October the New York Observer was warning of “the financial crash of 1857." Then, on the 14th of October, 1857, the entire banking system of the United States of America collapsed, bankrupting many businesses and bringing financial ruin to hundreds of thousands of people in New York, Philadelphia, Boston and other financial and industrial centers. Banks in New York remained closed for the next two months and thousands of people were thrown out of work. By the beginning of December, 1857, churches throughout New York began opening their doors during the day for prayer. By early February of 1858 even the secular press was noticing the growing prayer meetings, with the New York Times observing that “Soon the striking of five bells at 12 o’clock will generally be known as the signal for the Hour of Prayer.” The business prayer revival kept growing until it outgrew the churches and spilled over into the Market Place. On March 18th the YMCA rented Burton’s Theater to house the daily noon prayer meetings. The next day the New York Times reported the first prayer meeting in the Theatre and went on to note that “There are some 27 prayer meetings now held daily in New York and Brooklyn.” Then on Saturday, March 20th awe-struck reporters from The New York Times wrote an article entitled: “The Great Awakening” Here’s what they said: “In this city, we have beheld a sight which not the most enthusiastic fanatic for church observance could ever have hoped to look upon. We have seen in the business quarters of the city, during their busiest hours, assemblies of merchants, clerks, and working men, to the number of 5,000, gathering day after day for a simple, solemn worship. Similar assemblies we find in other portions of the city; a theater is turned into a chapel; churches of all sects are open and crowded by day and by night.” The great Manhattan Prayer Revival (also known as “the Layman’s Prayer Revival” and “the Businessman’s Prayer Revival) spread to other cities and burned intensely for the next two years, sweeping over 1 million new believers into the Kingdom of God. In New York city alone the number of conversions announced (often published in the local news papers!) reached a total of 50,000 per week! And it all began with a Market Placed businessman who had a burden to pray for the business community in his city. You know, we get excited here in Spokane because we have an annual business or Leadership Prayer Breakfast when some 900 business and professional people meet for breakfast and to hear a message once a year, and that’s a good thing. But for just a moment imagine that happening every day, for over a year, not with 900 people but with 5,000 people attending. You see, that’s the difference between a breakfast event and a genuine spiritual awakening. Which would you like to see God do here in Spokane? And what do you think the impact would be on the Market Place and on our community?

Now, the same Spiritual Awakening that broke out in America in 1857 also broke out in Wales in 1859 and swept through England. And one of the children of that Awakening was a fellow by the name of W.T. Stead, whose life gives us our 4th example of Historic Spiritual Awakening and Market Place Transformation. Now, some of you listening to this presentation work in the Market Place of the news media. Let me ask you a question. In your journalism class, did you ever study the life of William Thomas Stead? Well, you should have, because he is the god-father of modern issues-oriented, investigative journalism. William Thomas Stead was born in England in 1849. The son of a Congregational minister he was home-schooled by his father, and by the age of five he could read both Latin and English. In 1861 Stead was sent to finish his education at a school for boys where he was deeply touched and his life transformed by the 1859 Awakening which had begun in Wales and was sweeping the country. Choosing not to follow his father into the ministry, he ended up in 1871 as the youngest newspaper editor in the country at the helm of the fledgling Northern Echo in Darlington. He wrote to a friend, ". . . what a glorious opportunity for attacking the devil." Britain at the time was powering through the industrial revolution. Capitalism had replaced paternalism. Corruption and immorality flourished, and poverty was more chronic than at any other time in England’s history. With God as his "senior partner," Stead rolled up his sleeves. "I felt the sacredness of the power placed in my hands," he later wrote, "to be used on behalf of the poor, the outcast and the oppressed." Stead was determined to transform the Northern Echo into an "engine of social reform." And so one of his first editorials was on an issue that would have caused most decent Victorians to shudder with pious horror: prostitution. It was, he wrote, "the ghastliest curse which haunts civilized society". It was not the prostitute who offended Stead's Christian morality. In Victorian times, destitute women often had little choice but to turn to prostitution or face life in the dreaded workhouse. His criticism was aimed at a much higher echelon of society. "Stylish houses of ill-fame," he thundered, "could only be supported by men of wealth and respectability." It was their "reckless passion" to which "the ruin of the poor unfortunate is due." Stead was playing with fire; prostitution was not a suitable topic for daily journalism - the subject was tabooed by the press. But as a Christian he knew that he had to confront it. In 1880 he left The Northern Echo to work for The Pall Mall Gazette in London. In 1883 Stead was given full editorship of The Pall Mall Gazette, which he immediately set about transforming from a lacklustre gentleman's journal to a dynamic, even outrageous political organ that soon became required reading for high society. His attack on slum housing in 1883 resulted in new housing legislation being drafted. In the following year his "The Truth about the Navy" campaign forced a reluctant British government to authorize funds to update and repair Britain's ageing ships. Stead practiced "New Journalism," which introduced into the British press such innovations as crossheads, illustrations, and the personal interview. In 1885, Stead wrote the most sensational exposee of his career. Acting with the Salvation Army and his close friend General William Booth, he uncovered a trade in child prostitution in the London underworld. He was shocked to discover that the government knew of the problem but turned a blind eye to protect the trade's wealthy clientele. Enraged by what he discovered, Stead exposed the whole business under the title "The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon." The story opened respectable society's eyes to the world of London vice: stinking brothels, fiendish operators, drugs, and padded rooms, where vicious upper-class rakes could enjoy to the full "the exclusive luxury of revelling in the cries of an immature child." The public outcry in London was unprecedented, even hysterical, and the government was forced to enact the Criminal Law Amendment Bill which, among other things, raised the female age of sexual consent from 13 to 16. Ironically, Stead himself became the new law's first victim. As part of his expose, he had staged the purchase of a girl named Eliza Armstrong to prove how easily such impoverished children could be bought for immoral purposes (In 1972 the British Broadcasting Company broadcast a documentary on this whole story). Stead’s actions left him open to prosecution. He was charged, tried, convicted and sentenced to three months in prison for abduction, paying a personal price for his Christian activism in the Market Place. Stead left The Pall Mall Gazette in 1890 to found the highly successful international periodical, The Review of Reviews where he continued to be controversial and outspoken, particularly about war. He was nominated five times for the Nobel Peace Prize. But in the year in which many people thought he would actually win the prize Stead lost his life aboard RMS Titanic on the morning of April 15, 1912 while on his way to an international peace conference in New York. His body was never recovered. Most people of our generation think that issues-oriented or investigative journalism began with Bob Woodward, Watergate and the Washington Post. Nonsense. It began 100 years earlier with an evangelical Christian named W.T. Stead, a child of evangelical awakenings, who stood on Christian principles in the market place of the media and ideas.

And this brings me to our 5th Historic example of Historic Spiritual Awakening and Market Place Transformation, the Great Welsh Revival of 1904. My first and biggest challenge in talking about the Welsh Revival of 1904 is to help you understand and appreciate the sheer magnitude of this awakening which began in Wales, that tiny country on the southwest edge of Great Britain, and literally swept around the world between 1904 and 1907, ending up in Korea among Presbyterian missionaries during the winter of 1907. Let me try to illustrate this by comparing it with a recent event. A couple of years ago Spokane hosted an excellent Franklin Graham Festival, which averaged 20,000 people per night during the 4 day series of meetings. Now there were probably close to 500 area churches represented by the attendees at the Festival. If you divided the nightly attendance by the number of churches represented you would have roughly 40 people per church. That’s not really a lot of people per church and it was hardly an awakening. But during the Welsh revival of 1904 every church in Wales was filled to capacity 7 nights per week, some of them 24 hours a day, for over 6 months, and in some places for up to 18 months! You see, that’s the difference between a religious event and season of divine visitation. The first major impact of the 1904 Awakening on the Market Place was on the criminal justice system. Let me tell you a story to illustrate. During the awakening, in the township of Holyhead on the island of Anglesey off the northwest coast of Wales a constable was standing guard duty outside of the local court room. Suddenly he heard an outburst of singing come from inside the court. Since this was quite unusual he rushed inside to determine what had happened. It seems that the accused prisoner had come under a deep conviction of sin and had admitted that he was a sinner. The judge gavelled the proceedings to a close and turning to the accused he said, “As a Christian man I want to point you to Christ as Savior.” When the man professed Christ as his Savior the members of jury were overwhelmed and broke out in a glorious Welsh hymn. This was the point at which the confused constable entered the courtroom. He stayed and added his bass voice to the impromptu choir, and a praise and prayer service went on for another hour. In another jurisdiction the town council held an emergency meeting to discuss what to do with the police, now that they were unemployed. They interviewed a police sergeant to learn what the police were now doing. The sergeant explained that before the revival the police had two main jobs; preventing or investigating crime and crowd control. Now, he explained, because of the revival there was no crime, so the police were simply going with the crowds. “What does that mean?” inquired one confused councilman, “How does that affect you?”. The Sergeant explained that the crowds were now in the churches. So the 17 men in his precinct had formed three men’s singing quartets. Now, whenever a church needed a quartet, they simply called the police station. In several jurisdictions throughout Wales crime all but disappeared and judges were presented with white gloves, a symbol under English common law that there were no cases to try. Let me ask you a question. In a day of over-crowded jails, an over-burdened court system and budget cutbacks for over-worked law enforcement, do you think Spokane could benefit from that kind of Spiritual Awakening in the Market Place? Let me discuss a second Market Place impact of the Awakening. One of the casualties of the 1904 Awakening in Wales was the pubs - the bars, taverns. Many of them were forced to close as a wave of sobriety swept the nation. There are documented stories of the Presence of God resting so heavily on an entire community that people would walk into a pub, order a drink, lift it to their mouth but be unable to drink it, setting it down and heading for the nearest church. As a result, pubs went bankrupt. In the Welsh capital of Cardiff the police reported a 60% decrease in drunkenness, and in the county seat of Glamorgan, convictions for drunkenness fell by 50% from the year before to the year after the outbreak of the Awakening.

Let me translate this into terms we can relate to today. We have a serious drug problem in Spokane, especially with Methamphetamine. I’ve spent the past two years ministering in the West Central neighborhood with The Off Broadway Family Outreach and I’ve seen the problem up close and personal. Former drug dealers who have come to Christ are now my friends and attend some of our house churches. Drugs destroy lives, spark domestic violence and result in crimes of property to support the habit. What would be the impact on the Market Place if drug use (and all the crime that surrounds it) fell by 50% as a result of a genuine spiritual awakening? It CAN happen, because history tells us that God has done it before in places much tougher than Spokane. The question becomes, how badly do we want to see God do it here, and what price are we willing to pay to see Him do it?

Let me give you another impact of the Awakening on the Market Place. Do you ever encounter a problem with profanity and vulgarity in your Market Place? Maybe its just me, but it seems to me to be rampant. But trust me when I say it’s nothing compared to what you would have heard among the coal miners of Wales in 1904. Then the awakening started and spread all through the mining community. As a result of the Awakening, coal production in the mines nearly came to a complete halt. You see, so many miners had been touched by the awakening and had given up profanity and cursing that the little pit ponies who pulled the coal cars in the mine tunnels couldn’t understand what the miners were telling them without profanity. Work slowed down until the poor bewildered creatures could learn the new language of the transformed Market Place.

Coal mining was Wales’s largest industry and employer, and there were some bitter labor disputes between the owners and the miners prior to the awakening. But many of those labor disputes were quickly settled when the awakening broke out, because the Holy Spirit became the arbitrator who brought peace to the workplace. There were other Market Place impacts. Longstanding debts were repaid, stolen goods were returned, and cases of restitution for past sins and grievances were frequent. In one village in Wales a businessman reported receiving a live pig in payment of a debt which had been outstanding for 6 years. Does your business have people who owe you money? We’ll all pray that when the awakening breaks out here in Spokane, you get paid in something other than live pigs.

When the 1904 awakening reached America in early 1905 it had a dramatic impact on the Market Place. In Denver the Mayor declared Friday, January 20, 1905 a day of prayer. At 10:00 a.m. all churches in the city were full, and at 11:30 nearly every business in Denver was closed. Four theaters were crowded for prayer with people who couldn’t get into the churches. The Colorado Legislature voted to postpone business in order to attend the prayer meetings, and every school in Denver was closed. In Atlanta, Georgia, the newspapers reported that 1,000 businessmen were praying together for spiritual revival. On November 2, 1905, stores, factories and offices closed at mid-day for prayer and the Supreme Court of Georgia adjourned to attend prayer meetings. In Portland, Oregon, some 241 businesses entered into a written agreement to close daily between 11 and 2 to allow their customers to attend local prayer meetings. How’s that for Spiritual Awakening and its impact on the Market Place. It has happened before out here in the pagan & unchurched Pacific Northwest, and it can happen again.

O.K., it’s about time to wrap this up, and by now you’re probably asking yourself, “How’s he going to tie all of this together?” Good question, and by the time I’m done I hope to have an answer for you! Seriously, I began this presentation by asking three questions, and I want to go back to them now. First, what in your opinion are the greatest spiritual, moral and practical issues facing us as a market place and as a community in Spokane today? Have you had a chance to mull that over? Have some of our more intractable problems come to mind? I hope so. Now the second question was, what do you believe God can do and wants to do to solve those problems? I hope the real-life stories I’ve shared with you from the history of spiritual awakenings have sparked a vision in your own heart and mind for how God can and does move during seasons of spiritual awakening, and how He works through people just like you in the Market Place to solve problems other people thought were impossible. With God, nothing’s impossible. The third question was this: What price are you personally willing to pay to see God do that? As I’ve demonstrated with the stories I’ve shared from the history of spiritual awakenings and Market Place transformation, people greatly used of God to transform their neighborhoods, their Market Places and their communities have usually done so at a price. Sometimes that price is financial. Sometimes it is personal. As I recently shared with a group of ministry leaders, God calls some people to GIVE radically and sacrificially. Others He calls to LIVE radically and sacrificially. Which are you? Greatness in the Kingdom of God usually comes with a price tag of personal sacrifice attached. What price are YOU willing to pay to see God do great things? I said at the outset of this presentation that I wanted to plant a pain in your mind about what God can do in the Market Place through Spiritual awakening and transformation. So if you’re in pain, then I’ve succeeded. If I’ve rattled your comfortable paradigm of what ministry ought to look like, then I’ve succeeded. And if I’ve caused you to think bigger thoughts, dream bigger dreams and pray bigger prayers for spiritual awakening and Market Place transformation, then I’ve succeeded.

Let me end this time with a quote and observation by our ol’ friend, W.T. Stead who also saw and reported on the great Welsh revival of 1904. Here’s what W.T. Stead had to say about the importance of Spiritual Awakenings. His words are as true today as the were when he penned them 100 years ago: “As spring-time precedes summer, and seed-time harvest, so every great onward step in the social and political progress of Great Britain has ever been preceded by a national Revival of Religion. The sequence is as unmistakable as it is inevitable . . . . Hence it is not necessary to be Evangelical, Christian, or even religious, to regard with keen interest every stirring of popular enthusiasm that takes the familiar form of a Revival. Men may despise it, hate it, or fear it, but there is no mistaking its significance. It is the precursor of progress, the herald of advance. It may be as evanescent as the blossom of the orchard, but without it there would be no fruit.”