Church History · 1850s to 1900s
The Third Great Awakening and D. L. Moody
From the 1850s into the early 1900s, a new wave of revival began with noon prayer meetings in New York in 1857. Evangelist D. L. Moody preached to millions, the YMCA and the Salvation Army reached cities, missionaries went around the world, and the social gospel pushed churches to help the poor.
Read it in the Bible: 2 Chronicles 7:14 Matthew 25:40 Matthew 28:19-20 1 Peter 2:21
The Third Great Awakening is the name many historians give to a wave of revival and reform from the 1850s to the early 1900s. It began with a small businessmen's prayer meeting in New York City in 1857 that spread across the country. It produced D. L. Moody, the most famous evangelist of the 1800s, and it helped grow the YMCA, the Salvation Army and a huge missionary movement. It also gave rise to the social gospel, which called Christians to fight poverty and injustice in the cities. Not every historian likes the label, but the movement itself was real.
How Did the 1857 Prayer Revival Start?
On September 23, 1857, a businessman named Jeremiah Lanphier started a weekly noon prayer meeting on Fulton Street in New York. Only a few people came at first. Then, in October, the stock market crashed in the Panic of 1857, and thousands of people lost their jobs and savings. Suddenly a lot of businessmen wanted to pray.
The meeting went daily. Within six months, about 10,000 people were gathering every day for prayer around New York. Noon meetings sprang up in Chicago, Philadelphia, Cleveland and many other cities. The revival was led mostly by lay people, not famous preachers, and it is sometimes called the Layman's Prayer Revival. Newspapers covered it like front page news. It is a good reminder that God can use a nervous economy and a lunch break.
Who Was D. L. Moody?
Dwight Lyman Moody was born in 1837 in Northfield, Massachusetts. At 17 he went to work in his uncle's shoe store in Boston, where his Sunday school teacher, Edward Kimball, led him to Christ. In 1856 he moved to Chicago to sell shoes and ended up building one of the largest Sunday schools in the city, reaching poor children others ignored.
Moody never became an ordained minister and had little formal education. His grammar was famously rough. But he preached simply and warmly about God's love. During the Civil War he worked with the Christian Commission, ministering to soldiers. In 1866 he became president of the Chicago YMCA.
From 1873 to 1875, Moody and the singer Ira Sankey toured Britain, and huge crowds came to hear them. When they returned to America, they filled halls in Brooklyn, Philadelphia, New York and Boston. Moody later started schools in Northfield and a Bible institute in Chicago that was renamed Moody Bible Institute after his death in 1899. Many historians estimate he preached to millions of people in his lifetime.
What Role Did the YMCA and the Salvation Army Play?
The Young Men's Christian Association began in London in 1844, founded by George Williams to help young workers in the city find faith and avoid trouble. It reached America in 1851 and became a key partner in the 1857 revival and in Moody's work.
In 1865, William and Catherine Booth started a mission in the slums of East London. In 1878 they renamed it the Salvation Army and gave it ranks, uniforms and brass bands. The Army preached the gospel to the poorest people and fed them at the same time. Catherine Booth was a powerful preacher herself, at a time when few women were allowed in the pulpit. The Salvation Army reached the United States in 1880.
Why Did Missions Grow So Much?
Revival lit a fire for the world. In 1865 Hudson Taylor founded the China Inland Mission. In 1886 a student conference at Moody's Northfield campus led to the Student Volunteer Movement, whose motto was "the evangelization of the world in this generation." Thousands of young people signed up to go overseas as missionaries over the following decades. Women formed their own mission boards and sent single women as doctors and teachers.
The period also gave the church many of its best loved hymns. The blind hymn writer Fanny Crosby wrote thousands of songs, including "Blessed Assurance," and Sankey's gospel songs were sung in revival meetings everywhere.
What Was the Social Gospel?
As American cities filled with factories, immigrants and slums, some pastors argued that the gospel must change society, not just individuals. Leaders like Washington Gladden and Walter Rauschenbusch pushed for fair wages, safer factories and an end to child labor. In 1896 Charles Sheldon wrote a novel called In His Steps, about a church that pledges to ask before every decision, "What would Jesus do?" It became one of the best selling books of its time.
Christians have long debated the social gospel. Supporters say it took Jesus' words about the poor seriously. Critics say some of its leaders drifted from the gospel of personal salvation through the cross and focused only on social reform. That debate helped lead to the split between fundamentalists and modernists in the early 1900s. Moody himself stressed both: he preached conversion and also fed the hungry.
And the King will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me.' Matthew 25:40
Why It Matters for You Today
The Third Great Awakening shows what happens when ordinary Christians pray. A handful of businessmen on a lunch break helped spark a revival. A shoe salesman with bad grammar shook two continents. And the question "What would Jesus do?" went from a novel into the hearts of millions.
and if My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land. 2 Chronicles 7:14
The best revivals did both things Jesus commanded: they told people the good news, and they loved their neighbors in practical ways.
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Questions People Ask
What was the Third Great Awakening?
It was a period of revival and reform from the 1850s to the early 1900s. It began with the 1857 prayer revival and included D. L. Moody's preaching, a big growth in missions, and the social gospel. Some historians question the label, but the events are well documented.
Who was D. L. Moody?
D. L. Moody was an American evangelist who lived from 1837 to 1899. A former shoe salesman, he led huge revival meetings in America and Britain with singer Ira Sankey. Moody Bible Institute in Chicago is named after him.
What was the Fulton Street prayer meeting?
It was a noon prayer meeting Jeremiah Lanphier started in New York City on September 23, 1857. After the financial panic that fall, it grew to thousands of people praying daily. It helped spark a national revival in 1857 and 1858.
Where did the phrase What would Jesus do come from?
The phrase became famous through Charles Sheldon's 1896 novel In His Steps. In the book, church members pledge to ask What would Jesus do before every decision. The idea came back in the 1990s with WWJD bracelets.
Related
- About 1790 to 1840The Second Great Awakening
- 1792William Carey and the Modern Missions Movement
- 1901 and 1906Topeka and the Azusa Street Revival: Pentecostals Are Born
- 1949Billy Graham's Los Angeles Crusade