The Great Pioneer of Mass Evangelism

“George Whitefield -Pioneer of Open-Air Preaching”

George Whitefield was born at Bell Inn, Gloucester, where his parents were the keepers. At school his chief interest was drama and he was apparently a born actor; he took part in a number of school plays and was sometimes invited to make speeches before the town fathers. He left school at the age of fifteen to help his mother run the inn, but three years later was persuaded to enter Pembroke College, Oxford, where as a servitor he gained free tuition by serving his fellow students.

For some while Whitefield had begun to feel a hunger for God and became aware that He had some intention for his life. To prepare himself, he fasted regularly and prayed, and often attended public worship twice a day. At Oxford he planned to enter the Church of England ministry and associated with a number of others, known as “Methodists”, who had similar intentions.

The Wesleys had started a religious society, nicknamed the Holy Club, to promote the pursuit of personal religion, and Whitefield readily joined in the activities. Realizing more and more that his heart was far from God, however, he resolved only to read books that led him “directly into an experimental knowledge of Jesus Christ.” But it was not until three years later, during Lent 1735, that “God was pleased… to remove the heavy load and enable me to lay hold of His Son by a living faith.”

Whitefield was twenty-one when he was converted, and when his intention of entering the ministry was made known to Bishop Benson of Gloucester, arrangements were made for him to be ordained before the statutory age. The Sunday following, in 1736, he preached his first sermon at the church where he had been baptized. His evangelical fervor was apparent; some mocked but many were impressed. Afterwards there was a complaint to the Bishop that his sermon had driven fifteen people “mad” (i.e. they had been converted). The bishop's response was that he hoped that madness would not be forgotten before next Sunday!

Invitations to preach soon began to reach the young minister, and in both London and Bristol he spoke in churches and at many of the new religious societies that had been formed. But, while his message of the new birth and justification by faith “made their way like lightning into the hearts of the hearers' conscience,” others began to oppose him and refuse the use of their pulpits.

The following year Whitefield sailed for the colony of Georgia to support the Wesleys in their missionary outreach, but by the time he reached Savannah they had returned home. His stay was brief, only long enough to become aware of the need for an orphanage, and he returned to England to raise money for the building.

Open - Air

On a preaching tour in the West Country early in 1739, he discovered that many pulpits were still closed to him. At Bath and then at Bristol his request for use of a pulpit was turned down, and it was this refusal that led him to break with tradition and preach in the open-air. In Wales evangelists had already used the method with success, so one Saturday afternoon he determined to speak to the miners of Kingswood on their own ground.

Standing on a hillside, Whitefield preached to some two hundred miners and their families whom, he felt, were “as sheep having no shepherd.” He was thrilled with the experience and wrote in his diary, “I believe I never was more acceptable to my Master than when I was standing to teach those hearers in the open fields.”

Anxious to return to America, Whitefield approached the Wesleys and invited them to take over his work in Bristol during his absence. John Wesley, amazed at the large open-air meetings, agreed even though the two preachers began to realize they had deep theological differences. When Whitefield reached the colonies late in 1739, his reputation as a preacher had gone before him. In New England great crowds gathered to hear the twenty-five year old evangelist, and for over a month he spoke to as many as eight thousand people every day. Although opposed by a number of Anglican ministers, his tour was immensely successful and many were converted.

His gift of oratory was greatly admired and he had obviously not lost his youthful skill of acting. Benjamin Franklin, the famous publisher, inventor and writer, spoke enthusiastically of his preaching ability and declared, “It was wonderful to see the change soon made in the manner of our inhabitants.” Franklin himself once came under the influence of Whitefield's persuasive powers when, following an appeal for his orphanage, the writer- contrary to all his vowed intentions- put all the silver and gold from his pocket into the collection.

The height of the Awakening came in the years 1740-41 when both Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards were ministering in the colonies; thousands were converted and many new churches established as the revival spread South from New England to Virginia. One minister wrote, “Our lectures flourish, our Sabbaths are joyous, our churches increase and our ministers have new life and spirit in their work…”

Over the succeeding years Whitefield visited Scotland on fourteen occasions, the first in 1741. His second visit, the following year, proved quite remarkable, for revival had broken out at Cambuslang, near Glasgow, and he was able to share in the work of the Awakening. The climax of his visit was two communion services held in the open-air, one of which attracted 20,000 people.

A man of immense vigor and zeal, Whitefield maintained a tough schedule of travel and preaching tours, which eventually wore him out. He died during the night of 15th October 1770 at Newburyport, New England, where he was buried.

For thirty-five years as an itinerant preacher in Britain and America, Whitefield changed the conventions of religious preaching and opened the way for mass evangelism.


(Selected from 70 Great Christians by Geoffrey Hanks.)