1801 - The Great Revival
Got a minute for a Woodland Memory?
It is historically significant that Lexington’s Woodland Christian Church is part of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) – a denomination which began its spiritual life at Cane Ridge, outside Paris, Kentucky, following the Great Revival of 1801.
There were still a few people living who remembered the “Great Awakening” of the 1740s when Jonathan Edwards, George Whitfield, and other preachers prompted an “outpouring of the Holy Spirit” in America. But the Great Revival of 1801 was the first to reach out to the “unchurched” among the western settlers. The camp meeting tradition came from Scotland where they were known as “Holy Fairs.” Multiple congregations would gather for a week or so to celebrate the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.
The Revival was also remarkable for the striking physical manifestations seen among thousands of worshippers, many of whom were overtaken by spasms, rocked back and forth, or fell prostrate on the ground – as hundreds of conversions occurred.
There on the new frontier, Cane Ridge Pastor Barton Warren Stone led his followers to remove themselves from the Presbyterian Church, and found the Christian Church. The Christian Church movement would continue to grow, and following a union with Alexander Campbell’s’ Disciples of Christ, in 1832, they would affect the religious landscape of America. While Campbell resisted what he saw as the spiritual manipulation of the camp meeting, the Great Revival ultimately shaped the practice of evangelism in the west, and the new movement made rapid progress. The Cane Ridge Communion quickly became one of the best-reported events in American history, and according to Vanderbilt historian Paul Conkin, “arguably ... the most important religious gathering in all of American history.”
Let’s keep the memory, and Woodland’s ministry alive.
It is historically significant that Lexington’s Woodland Christian Church is part of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) – a denomination which began its spiritual life at Cane Ridge, outside Paris, Kentucky, following the Great Revival of 1801.
There were still a few people living who remembered the “Great Awakening” of the 1740s when Jonathan Edwards, George Whitfield, and other preachers prompted an “outpouring of the Holy Spirit” in America. But the Great Revival of 1801 was the first to reach out to the “unchurched” among the western settlers. The camp meeting tradition came from Scotland where they were known as “Holy Fairs.” Multiple congregations would gather for a week or so to celebrate the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.
The Revival was also remarkable for the striking physical manifestations seen among thousands of worshippers, many of whom were overtaken by spasms, rocked back and forth, or fell prostrate on the ground – as hundreds of conversions occurred.
There on the new frontier, Cane Ridge Pastor Barton Warren Stone led his followers to remove themselves from the Presbyterian Church, and found the Christian Church. The Christian Church movement would continue to grow, and following a union with Alexander Campbell’s’ Disciples of Christ, in 1832, they would affect the religious landscape of America. While Campbell resisted what he saw as the spiritual manipulation of the camp meeting, the Great Revival ultimately shaped the practice of evangelism in the west, and the new movement made rapid progress. The Cane Ridge Communion quickly became one of the best-reported events in American history, and according to Vanderbilt historian Paul Conkin, “arguably ... the most important religious gathering in all of American history.”
Let’s keep the memory, and Woodland’s ministry alive.
- William Henry Perrin, History of Bourbon, Scott, Harrison and Nicholas counties, Kentucky. P. 48
- https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/revival-at-cane-ridge/
- https://landmarkevents.org/cane-ridge-revival-1801/