You probably wouldn’t be too surprised if I were to tell you that there was a time in the history of our country when nearly half of the population attended church on any given Sunday, the Bible was the best-selling book for years in a row, and Congress voted to make “In God We Trust” the national motto. But you might be surprised to know that such a revival of Christianity occurred within the modern era of electricity ...
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On the north shore of Medicine Lake in Plymouth, Minnesota, stands a site that is an undeniable testimony to God’s mighty working in the post World War II years. It’s a site past which hundreds of people walk, jog, and bike on any pleasant day. It’s a site which numerous Christian people pass daily, unaware, as one historian put it, ...
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If you had been a Lutheran pastor, evangelist, or lay leader in the upper Midwest in 1936, you might well have received several weeks before Christmas the following letter which read in part:1 Dear Co-workers for Christ: You are cordially invited to attend a general conference on Lutheran Evangelism to be ...
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On a certain Sunday afternoon many years ago, two friends were walking together and talking intently as they went. As would be fitting for any Christians to do on the Lord’s Day, they were discussing Jesus’ suffering and death and its meaning. And “while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and went with them . . . ...
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Throughout the centuries, it has often been a popular activity to compile genealogies or family trees. Although these are sometimes begun for no other reason than curiosity or hobby, they may aid those of a younger generation in understanding themselves through learning about their ancestral origins and formative influences. The recording of ...
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If its name was to be merely reflective of its largest and most widely-known work, the Lutheran Evangelistic Movement might just as aptly have been named the Lutheran Deeper Life Movement. It’s true that the original priority of the Lutheran Inter-Synodical Evangelistic Committee was the cause of evangelism, but as God expanded their work He very soon made ...
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What did the members of the Lutheran Inter-Synodical Evangelistic Committee believe was so indispensably distinctive about the work to which God had called them? By their own admission, “Various efforts to promote sound Lutheran evangelism [have already] been made at various times.”1 What was it then that gave the Committee the driving ...
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“It is our earnest prayer that our beloved church may in these days experience a heaven sent revival and showers of blessings. It is ‘Revival or Ruin.’”1 So said Evald J. Conrad on behalf of the whole Lutheran Inter-Synodical Evangelistic Committee in early 1940. Their prayer echoed that same heart cry which had been brought out ...
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There is perhaps a danger inherent in this history of the Lutheran Inter-Synodical Evangelistic Committee and Lutheran Evangelistic Movement. The focus is so much on the positive that the reader is liable to mistakenly get the impression either that there were no difficulties in the movement or that the story has been manipulated to appear unrealistically ...
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As World War II entered what proved to be its final months, the invisible hand of One who knew the future propelled the Lutheran Inter-Synodical Evangelistic Committee mightily forward into a vast expansion of their program. It was a time of urgent preparation and reorganization for what the Committee believed would soon be their greatest years of ...
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The spiritual revival for which the leaders of the Lutheran Evangelistic Movement were seeking the Lord during the 1940’s was not a need limited to their sphere of influence. It was a desperate national need. The World War II years were not a time of triumph for Christianity in the United States. In fact, even during the decades leading up to the war, ...
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According to written accounts of many who have lived during times of revival, one of the chief characteristics of such times has been the tremendous spirit of prayer preceding and accompanying them. Thus, older Christians who have observed revival firsthand have often exhorted future generations that to see a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit in their own day ...
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During the first eight months of 1949, the Lutheran Evangelistic Movement had witnessed in and around their areas of ministry mightier and more regular stirrings of God’s Spirit than had occurred for decades in the United States. Their leaders were active participants in a city-wide ministerial group under whose sponsorship a revival movement with national ...
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As witnessed by the national press, Billy Graham, the Lutheran Evangelistic Movement, and countless other Christian groups and individuals, the mid-century year 1950 was a remarkable year of heaven-sent revival across the United States. Even more importantly, it proved to be a door opened wide by God into a new and flourishing era of evangelism during which ...
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As has been recounted in the previous chapters, the Lutheran Evangelistic Movement was one of God’s mighty tools for revival during the post World War II years and a witness to many of His wonderful works. Yet the LEM was not, of course, without its problems and disappointments. Strange to say, many of those things seemed to surface especially during ...
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That God did indeed send revival to the U.S. during the ten or so years post World War II is quite clear. Dr. J. Edwin Orr, being one of the chief revival historians of all time and having lived during that era himself, referred to it in retrospect as “The Awakening of 1948 Onward,” citing not only the national evidences of revival mentioned earlier ...
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When Jesus Christ lived on earth some 2,000 years ago, He did not limit His ministry to one location. Rather He said, “I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also: for therefore am I sent.” (Luke 4:43 KJV) Similarly, God’s work on earth through the Holy Spirit whom Jesus sent after He ascended to heaven has never been confined ...
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It’s not unusual for people to have some type of belief system that motivates them throughout their lives, but it is quite unusual for people to have a belief system that gives them joy and eager anticipation as they face their last days on earth. Death is perhaps the biggest test of all on one’s faith. Many people with a so-called faith have ...
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Civilization has always been on the advance, but perhaps during no period has it ever progressed as rapidly as it did between 1900 and 1950. The advances made then in science and technology were enough to astound any American whose adult life spanned that half-century; for it was during those years that electricity, telephones, automobiles, airplanes, radios, TVs, ...
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Selected Bibliography America’s Hour of Decision. Wheaton, IL: Van Kampen Press, 1951. An Ongoing Revival. Warren, MN: Warren Sheaf Print, 1990, Harvey Dyrud, editor. Appasamy, A.J. Write the Vision! Edwin Orr’s Thirty Years of Adventurous Service. London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1964. Baldwin, Ethel May, and ...
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