The Man Who Prayed Alone: The 1857 Fulton Street Revival
At noon on September 23, 1857, a failed businessman named Jeremiah Lanphier sat alone in an empty church room in lower Manhattan. He had invited the whole neighborhood to come and pray. Nobody came. For thirty minutes, he prayed by himself. He had no idea he was sitting at the start of one of the greatest revivals in American history.
The Empty Room on Fulton Street
Lanphier was no preacher. He was a businessman whose business had failed, hired by the North Dutch Reformed Church to reach the laborers of a struggling part of the city. Nothing he tried worked, so he turned to prayer. At twelve-thirty that first day, one man finally climbed the stairs. Four more came before the hour ended. Six men. It looked like nothing.
When the Banks Crashed and the Nation Prayed
The next week twenty came, then forty, and the meeting became daily. Then the Panic of 1857 hit. Banks failed, fortunes vanished, and frightened people went looking for God. Soon a theater seating three thousand was packed at noon, and ten thousand men were praying daily in New York. The fire spread across the country, with shops closing at midday for prayer. In roughly eighteen months, close to a million Americans came to Christ.
Do Not Despise the Day of Small Beginnings
“For who has despised the day of small things?” the prophet asks in Zechariah 4:10. Heaven was not waiting on a crowd. It was waiting on one faithful man who would show up and pray when nothing seemed to be happening. Your small beginning matters more than you know, whether it is the class of three or the prayer no one hears but God.
Do not quit at twelve-twenty-nine. The first man may be climbing the stairs right now. And that, friend, is how God lifts up your day.
Keep Looking Up!
Pastor Rodney