God doesn't get caught up in numbers. Remember Gideon? An "army" of 300? This is the story of a prayer meeting that changed a nation.
Don't Despise The Day Of Small Things
July 8, 2008
“Once again I will yield to the plea of the house of Israel and do this for them…then they will know that I am the Lord.” Ezekiel 36:37,38
James Waddell Alexander – the New York Awakening
‘In order to mighty and enexampled (original, not a photocopy of elsewhere) revival, what we especially need is for the whole church to be down on its knees before God.”
On September 23, 1857, a small group of New York City businessmen gathered to pray in the North Dutch Reformed Church on Fulton Street, not far from where the World Trade Center would later stand. Jeremiah Calvin Lanphier, a lay missionary hired by the consistory of the Collegiate Church, had challenged "men engaged in active business to devote a portion of the time usually given to rest and refreshment at mid-day to devotional purposes."
He invited "merchants, mechanics, clerks, strangers and businessmen generally" to come to the Fulton Street church on Wednesday, from noon to one o'clock, to "stop and call upon God amid the daily perplexities incident to their respective avocations."
One of the keys to the success of the Fulton Street gathering appears to have been their balance between spontaneity and order. The agenda was simple: "the salvation of the soul." The meetings began with singing and Scripture reading and ended with a hymn, but otherwise proceeded as the Spirit led. The rules were short but strictly enforced, and spelled out on a placard hung in a prominent place:
Brethren are earnestly requested to adhere to the five-minute rule. Prayers and exhortations not to exceed five minutes in order to give all an opportunity. Not more than two consecutive prayers or exhortations. No controverted points discussed.
For half an hour, Lanphier waited for someone to arrive. Then the first person arrived, followed by a few others. The group was small, though its members represented five denominations.
The following week, however, twenty people arrived. The third week, there were forty. By the fourth week, they had decided to hold a meeting every workday. Within months, meetings were being held throughout New York City and in other U.S. cities from coast to coast.
The influence of the prayer meetings has since extended beyond the borders of the United States, and historians estimate that as many as one million people may have come into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as a result of this prayer movement.