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I was brought up in the Marine Corps and the Baptist church. I had thought that all Catholics were going to hell and that speaking of tongues was of the devil.
All that changed when I came here to farm-land here in south western Virginia. I started working with mom's kin and the people were very much joyful, happy, and alive. I started going to the Pentecostal church with them and then the Holy Spirit started speaking through me as well. Everything was warm, loving, just like episodes out of the Waltons.
I have come to learn that these revivals all started with John Wesley. And so Virginia come to develop its own unique brand of Methodism. To describe these services I must turn to George Clark Rankin who worked this areas Methodist circuit. Here is the url in which must be opened with IE...(http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/rankin/rankin.html) ... And a few excerpts...
I had associated with me that year a young collegemate, Rev. W. B. Stradley. He was a bright, popular fellow, and we managed to give Wytheville regular Sunday preaching. Stradley became a great preacher and died a few years ago while pastor of Trinity Church, Atlanta, Georgia. We were true yokefellows and did a great work on that charge, held fine revivals and had large ingatherings.
The famous Cripple Creek Campground was on that work. They have kept up campmeetings there for more than a hundred years. It is still the great rallying point for the Methodists of all that section. I have never heard such singing and preaching and shouting anywhere else in my life. I met the Rev. John Boring there and heard him preach. He was a well-known preacher in the conference; original, peculiar, strikingly odd, but a great revival preacher.
Page 241 The rarest character I ever met in my life I met at that campmeeting in the person of Rev. Robert Sheffy, known as "Bob" Sheffy. He was recognized all over Southwest Virginia as the most eccentric preacher of that country. He was a local preacher; crude, illiterate, queer and the oddest specimen known among preachers. But he was saintly in his life, devout in his experience and a man of unbounded faith. He wandered hither and thither over that section attending meetings, holding revivals and living among the people. He was great in prayer, and Cripple Creek campground was not complete without "Bob" Sheffy. They wanted him there to pray and work in the altar.
He was wonderful with penitents. And he was great in following up the sermon with his exhortations and appeals. He would sometimes spend nearly the whole night in the straw with mourners; and now and then if the meeting lagged he would go out on the mountain and spend the entire night in prayer, and the next morning he would come rushing into the service with his face all aglow shouting at the top of his voice. And then the meeting always broke loose with a floodtide.
He could say the oddest things, hold the most unique interviews with God, break forth in the most unexpected spasms of praise, use the homeliest illustrations, do the funniest things and go through with the most grotesque performances of any man born of woman.
It was just "Bob" Sheffy, and nobody thought anything of what he did and said, except to let him have his own way and do exactly as he pleased. In anybody else it would not have been tolerated for a moment. In fact, he acted more like a crazy man than otherwise, but he was wonderful in a meeting. He would stir the people, crowd the mourner's bench with crying penitents and have genuine conversions by the score. I doubt if any man in all that conference has as many souls to his credit in the Lamb's Book of Life as old "Bob" Sheffy.
It was about that time that the Methodist church began to take the Laodicean swing from hot-->lukewarm -->cold.
John B. Cobb, Jr., Ph.D. is Professor of Theology Emeritus at the Claremont School of Theology, Claremont, California... A Methodist theologian, he had this to say about the lukewarmness that has invaded the church (http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=295)...
John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, to which I belong, had strong views about money. In his later years, surveying the remarkable success of the movement he had started, he said that he had no fear about its continuation. His great fear was for its inner spirit. He had observed two things. First, although most converts to Methodism were poor, many moved into the middle class. Second, middle class Methodists divided their loyalties between God and the acquisition of wealth. For the latter I have chosen to use the word familiar to us from the King James and early revised versions of the Bible: Mammon.
The upward mobility Wesley observed with distress is easily understood. In the spirit of the earlier Reformers, Wesley taught that Methodists should earn all they could, save all they could, and give all they could. He himself earned quite a lot through his many publications, lived frugally, and gave away what he did not need. Hence he accumulated no private treasure to distract his attention from doing God's work. His followers became disciplined workers and lived frugally. Many of them were generous with their money. But this generosity did not prevent the accumulation of some capital and its wise investment. The security and growth of this capital became a matter of concern to them, competing for their attention with their service to God.
When we ask why Methodists have grown lukewarm, it is well to accept Wesley's own analysis as an important part of the answer. We have grown lukewarm because we have become rich. Despite Jesus' specific denial of this possibility, we try to serve both God and Mammon. I fear that, in this respect, we do not differ greatly from Baptists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and even Lutherans.
The Virginian Methodist revivals here in Virginia would turn to Church of God, Pentecostal Holiness, Congregational Holiness, and Assembly of God revivals. And I cannot fault the Methodist for we 'daughter denominations' took the same steps as the Methodist church and, in the words of the Methodist theologian John B. Cobb, "I fear that, in this respect, we do not differ greatly from Baptists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and even Lutherans."
Departure from revival is something that nobody wants to deal with these days and that is annoying to me.My personal fear is that the church is making the Laodicean swing from hot--->lukewarm---> cold. And there are plenty of people who have not experienced the mighty and powerful love and grace that exists within the Holy Spirit of God. I have often wondered if I were a seventeen year old in this time whether I would even bother with the church or not. Here is a little video I posted on the conversion of Robert Sayers Sheffey... Which, as a teenager of seventeen, I received in like manner.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnBmuxOByII
All that changed when I came here to farm-land here in south western Virginia. I started working with mom's kin and the people were very much joyful, happy, and alive. I started going to the Pentecostal church with them and then the Holy Spirit started speaking through me as well. Everything was warm, loving, just like episodes out of the Waltons.
I have come to learn that these revivals all started with John Wesley. And so Virginia come to develop its own unique brand of Methodism. To describe these services I must turn to George Clark Rankin who worked this areas Methodist circuit. Here is the url in which must be opened with IE...(http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/rankin/rankin.html) ... And a few excerpts...
I had associated with me that year a young collegemate, Rev. W. B. Stradley. He was a bright, popular fellow, and we managed to give Wytheville regular Sunday preaching. Stradley became a great preacher and died a few years ago while pastor of Trinity Church, Atlanta, Georgia. We were true yokefellows and did a great work on that charge, held fine revivals and had large ingatherings.
The famous Cripple Creek Campground was on that work. They have kept up campmeetings there for more than a hundred years. It is still the great rallying point for the Methodists of all that section. I have never heard such singing and preaching and shouting anywhere else in my life. I met the Rev. John Boring there and heard him preach. He was a well-known preacher in the conference; original, peculiar, strikingly odd, but a great revival preacher.
Page 241 The rarest character I ever met in my life I met at that campmeeting in the person of Rev. Robert Sheffy, known as "Bob" Sheffy. He was recognized all over Southwest Virginia as the most eccentric preacher of that country. He was a local preacher; crude, illiterate, queer and the oddest specimen known among preachers. But he was saintly in his life, devout in his experience and a man of unbounded faith. He wandered hither and thither over that section attending meetings, holding revivals and living among the people. He was great in prayer, and Cripple Creek campground was not complete without "Bob" Sheffy. They wanted him there to pray and work in the altar.
He was wonderful with penitents. And he was great in following up the sermon with his exhortations and appeals. He would sometimes spend nearly the whole night in the straw with mourners; and now and then if the meeting lagged he would go out on the mountain and spend the entire night in prayer, and the next morning he would come rushing into the service with his face all aglow shouting at the top of his voice. And then the meeting always broke loose with a floodtide.
He could say the oddest things, hold the most unique interviews with God, break forth in the most unexpected spasms of praise, use the homeliest illustrations, do the funniest things and go through with the most grotesque performances of any man born of woman.
It was just "Bob" Sheffy, and nobody thought anything of what he did and said, except to let him have his own way and do exactly as he pleased. In anybody else it would not have been tolerated for a moment. In fact, he acted more like a crazy man than otherwise, but he was wonderful in a meeting. He would stir the people, crowd the mourner's bench with crying penitents and have genuine conversions by the score. I doubt if any man in all that conference has as many souls to his credit in the Lamb's Book of Life as old "Bob" Sheffy.
It was about that time that the Methodist church began to take the Laodicean swing from hot-->lukewarm -->cold.
John B. Cobb, Jr., Ph.D. is Professor of Theology Emeritus at the Claremont School of Theology, Claremont, California... A Methodist theologian, he had this to say about the lukewarmness that has invaded the church (http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=295)...
John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, to which I belong, had strong views about money. In his later years, surveying the remarkable success of the movement he had started, he said that he had no fear about its continuation. His great fear was for its inner spirit. He had observed two things. First, although most converts to Methodism were poor, many moved into the middle class. Second, middle class Methodists divided their loyalties between God and the acquisition of wealth. For the latter I have chosen to use the word familiar to us from the King James and early revised versions of the Bible: Mammon.
The upward mobility Wesley observed with distress is easily understood. In the spirit of the earlier Reformers, Wesley taught that Methodists should earn all they could, save all they could, and give all they could. He himself earned quite a lot through his many publications, lived frugally, and gave away what he did not need. Hence he accumulated no private treasure to distract his attention from doing God's work. His followers became disciplined workers and lived frugally. Many of them were generous with their money. But this generosity did not prevent the accumulation of some capital and its wise investment. The security and growth of this capital became a matter of concern to them, competing for their attention with their service to God.
When we ask why Methodists have grown lukewarm, it is well to accept Wesley's own analysis as an important part of the answer. We have grown lukewarm because we have become rich. Despite Jesus' specific denial of this possibility, we try to serve both God and Mammon. I fear that, in this respect, we do not differ greatly from Baptists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and even Lutherans.
The Virginian Methodist revivals here in Virginia would turn to Church of God, Pentecostal Holiness, Congregational Holiness, and Assembly of God revivals. And I cannot fault the Methodist for we 'daughter denominations' took the same steps as the Methodist church and, in the words of the Methodist theologian John B. Cobb, "I fear that, in this respect, we do not differ greatly from Baptists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and even Lutherans."
Departure from revival is something that nobody wants to deal with these days and that is annoying to me.My personal fear is that the church is making the Laodicean swing from hot--->lukewarm---> cold. And there are plenty of people who have not experienced the mighty and powerful love and grace that exists within the Holy Spirit of God. I have often wondered if I were a seventeen year old in this time whether I would even bother with the church or not. Here is a little video I posted on the conversion of Robert Sayers Sheffey... Which, as a teenager of seventeen, I received in like manner.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnBmuxOByII
