The Awakeners

Rode a quarter of a million miles on horseback to preach in open fields, because the churches had locked him out.

Watched revival sweep his town, then taught the church how to tell the Spirit's true work from its counterfeits.

Preached in the open fields to crowds no building could hold, on both sides of the Atlantic, for thirty years.

Coughed blood through four years among Native villages and left a diary that has sent thousands to the mission field since.

Preached to six thousand people a week in London and left more printed words behind than any Christian writing in English.

A shoe salesman with no ordination and no education who shook two continents with plain speech about Christ.

Wrote short, blunt tracts for working people by the million, and became Liverpool's first bishop at sixty-four.

Ran Scotland Yard by day and worked out the arithmetic of Daniel's seventy weeks by night.

Retold Pilgrim's Progress in words small children could follow, and generations met Christian there first.

Spent forty years writing a commentary on the whole Bible while riding the Methodist circuits.

Wrote Bible notes for his own Sunday school class that ended up selling more than a million copies.

Catalogued every figure of speech in the Bible so readers would stop missing what the writers were doing.

Proved from the manuscripts themselves that the earliest Christian letters were genuine, against the skeptics of his day.

A Lutheran pastor who taught Americans to read Revelation, the pyramids, and the stars as one story.

Argued his own way back to Christianity in public, and made the faith look like the most obvious thing in the world.

The Oxford atheist who came in kicking and struggling, then explained the faith to a whole century.

Preached in person to more people than anyone in history and never once handled the offering himself.

An engineer and intelligence officer who taught the Bible as one integrated message from outside of time.

Kept teaching the Old Testament in Germany when the regime was demanding the church throw it out.

Wrote Knowing God, and kept the Puritans in print for a century that had forgotten them.

A philosophy professor who taught the church that following Jesus is something you actually practice, not just believe.

Taught ordinary people the holiness of God until they felt the floor move under them.

Planted a church in the middle of skeptical Manhattan and preached to doubters without ever flinching.

Argued his friend Lewis back toward Christ on a midnight walk, then spent his life telling the true story sideways.