What does “the sin of neglect” mean for the Christian? We have the message of the Gospel and can save lives, but is it possible that Christians are involved in murder by neglecting to do so? Listen in as Dr. Clayton Shumpert illustrates this point and shares seven benefits to our churches having a Bible-based, missionary outreach.
In September, 2006, Faith Baptist Church of Champaign, Illinois, was going to be holding revival meetings. They had held revival meetings many times before, but this time was going to be different. Instead of just the evangelist showing up, God was going to show up, too.
Listen in as Pastor Bob Hassel tells the inspiring story of how God brought revival to his church.
Dr. David Smith is the son of Al Smith, founder of Singspiration.
In this episode, Dr. Smith tells the fascinating histories behind some of the most loved hymns of today.
A surprising number of Gospel songs in our hymnals come from central Pennsylvania. In this episode, Dr. Milton Loyer, the archivist for the Susquehanna Conference of the United Methodist Church, talks about these songs and the stories behind them.
Brian De Jong, pastor and archivist of the Midwest Presbytery of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, talks about the early history of the OPC and introduces us to some of the lesser-known characters, like John DeWaard and Arthur Franklin Perkins.
Brian De Jong, pastor and archivist of the Midwest Presbytery of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, introduces us to J. C. Ryle, a man who was a gifted writer and broke the mold of the stuffy clergy elite.
Dr. J. Gresham Machen was a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary when the crisis came. Was it merely theological issues… or was it a dividing line between truth and error?
Brian De Jong, pastor and archivist of the Midwest Presbytery of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, talks about the founder of the OPC, Dr. J. Gresham Machen.
Dr. David Saxon, professor of Church History at Maranatha Baptist University in Watertown, Wisconsin, talks about George Whitefield (1714-1770).
Friend to Benjamin Franklin and founder of an orphanage in Georgia, he preached over 10,000 times to millions in England and America.
Dr. David Saxon, professor of Church History at Maranatha Baptist University in Watertown, Wisconsin, talks about the Prince of Preachers, Charles Spurgeon.
Dr. David Saxon, Professor of Church History at Maranatha Baptist University in Watertown, Wisconsin, introduces us to Roger Williams, the founder of the first Baptist church in America.
Williams grew up Anglican, was persecuted in his family, attended Cambridge University, and eventually came over to America and founded Providence Plantations, now the state of Rhode Island.
In this episode, Bob and Mary Shaffer, of the Old Rugged Cross Church and Museum, invite us into the restored, 1913 church building where the beloved hymn was first sung.
They talk about how they took a collapsing barn and turned it back into a church, some of the other sites that claim “The Old Rugged Cross,” George Bennard, and more!
Ed Petrus of New Castle, Pennsylvania, tells the story of Ira Sankey and the inspiration for his song, “The Ninety and Nine.”
In 1963, the Pro Football Hall of Fame opened in Canton, Ohio. One year later, Pastor Harold Henniger was reading Hebrews 11, that great passage on faith and the heroes of the faith, and thought it would be a great idea to have a Hall of Fame for Christian heroes so, on April 12, 1966, Canton Baptist Temple instituted the Christian Hall of Fame. Listen in as Mike Frazier, senior pastor of Canton Baptist Temple, tells the story.
Bill Federer, author of America’s God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations, joins us to talk about the visit by Abraham Lincoln to Moody’s Sunday school; Moody’s work in the Civil War with the U.S. Christian Commission; P. T. Barnum’s hippodrome; and Booker T. Washington, the freemen schools, and his famous “Cast Down Your Bucket Where You Are” speech.
WATCH THE FULL EPISODE HERE on VCY.tv
Bill Federer, author of America’s God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations, joins us to talk about social impact ministry throughout history, especially as a result of Charles Finney’s initial work.
He talks about several Christians who founded global organizations, such as William Booth (founder of the Salvation Army), George Williams (founder of the Young Men’s Christian Association, aka the YMCA), Henry Dunant (founder of the International Red Cross), and Edgar James Helms (founder of Goodwill).
He analyzes how Christian experience goes from a first generation convert, to a second generation legalist, to a third generation rebel.
Lastly, he tells the story of Jeremiah Lanphier and the Laymen’s Prayer Revival in New York City, which began on September 23, 1857.
He wrote Shall We Gather at the River, What Can Wash Away My Sin?, Low in the Grave He Lay, Jesus My Savior; as well as the chorus to I Need Thee, O I Need Thee WATCH THE FULL VIDEO HERE on VCY.tv
Transcript:
Reverend Robert Lowry was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on March 12, 1826. From a young age, he showed a deep love for music, often entertaining himself with various instruments.
He enrolled at the University at Lewisburg (now Bucknell University) in Pennsylvania, where he excelled academically and graduated at the top of his class in 1854. That same year, he was ordained into the Baptist ministry and began his pastoral career.
Lowry served churches in several locations, including West Chester, Pennsylvania; Bloomingdale Church in New York City; and the prominent Hanson Place Baptist Church in Brooklyn, New York. During his time in Brooklyn, he composed some of his most enduring hymns.
Later in life, he returned to Lewisburg, where he pastored the local Baptist church while also serving as a professor of rhetoric (and later literature) at his alma mater, Bucknell University. In 1875, the university honored him with an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree in recognition of his accomplishments as a preacher, educator, and especially as a prolific hymn writer. He composed both words and music for hundreds of gospel songs and edited numerous hymnals for the prominent publisher Biglow & Main.
Some of his most beloved hymns are still sung in churches today:
Robert Lowry passed away on November 25, 1899, in Plainfield, New Jersey, but his “sermons in song” continue to inspire and uplift believers worldwide. His work helped shape 19th-century gospel music and remains a cherished part of Christian worship.
On location in Whitewater, Wisconsin, we found the tomb of James Delaney, the Irishman saved in Burma who became a missionary to Wisconsin WATCH THE FULL VIDEO HERE
Transcript: We’re here in Whitewater, Wisconsin, exploring America’s Christian heritage. Today, we’re focusing on the remarkable story of James Delaney, a pioneering Baptist missionary and church planter whose life was transformed through a chain of divine encounters involving some of the 19th century’s most famous missionaries.
A former skeptic from Plymouth, Massachusetts—Eugenio Kincaid—went as a missionary to Burma (now Myanmar). There, in the British East India Company’s territory, he met and mentored an Irish soldier named James Delaney. Kincaid sent him to Bible college, and Delaney went on to become a key figure in planting churches across what was then the Wisconsin Territory.
Over a century ago, the Wisconsin Historical Society recorded Delaney’s passing with a brief biography, but it omitted his profound connection to one of the era’s most renowned missionaries: Adoniram Judson.
James Delaney was born in Ireland on February 1, 1804. Newspapers of the time noted that his parents had designated him to become a Catholic priest. But the early death of his parents left him in poverty, ignorance, and superstition. At age 22, following a financial panic in London that cost him his job, he enlisted in the British East India Company. In 1826, he sailed from Ireland with 224 other raw recruits bound for Madras, India, enduring a six-month voyage.
Upon arrival, his natural leadership and superior intelligence quickly made him a standout among his comrades. He was promoted from private to artilleryman. After four years in India, he was transferred to Moulmein, the capital of British Burma (captured by the British in the First Anglo-Burmese War). The soldiers were needed to maintain order in the newly occupied provinces.
Around this time, Delaney’s life began to change dramatically. He had a wild and reckless disposition; once, for resenting a petty insult from a superior officer, he was court-martialed, demoted, and sentenced to 200 lashes—though the flogging was later remitted. It was a rough season.
Meanwhile, Eugenio Kincaid—a doctor’s son from Connecticut—had arrived in Burma. While in college, Kincaid heard a sermon by Luther Rice that burdened him for missions. Initially rejected by the mission board, he preached in the States for eight years before being appointed to Burma. Kincaid settled in Moulmein, while Adoniram Judson (one of America’s first Protestant missionaries overseas) was across the gulf in Rangoon, translating the Old Testament into Burmese.
Kincaid, still learning the difficult Burmese language, preached in English to British soldiers in Moulmein. Not all his ministry happened in churches. In one dramatic instance, a soldier insulted an officer and shot him, wounding the man. The soldier was sentenced to hang. Before the execution, Kincaid preached, prayed, and led the singing of Isaac Watts’s hymn “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.” The message of the cross touched the hardened 27-year-old soldier James Delaney.
Delaney had been avoiding the American missionary but began attending Kincaid’s services. He read the Bible and Pilgrim’s Progress, and prayed at night in the jungle. That year, about 100 soldiers were converted, and on March 23, 1831, Delaney was baptized in the Sittang River of Burma. His comrades initially thought his conversion was a joke, but when they saw it was genuine, they attacked and threatened him. Yet, as Proverbs 16:7 says, “When a man’s ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.”
Kincaid later moved to Rangoon to oversee mission schools, while Judson relocated to Moulmein. Judson spent time mentoring Delaney, encouraging his studies and helping build his theological library. In 1834, the Judsons raised $350 to purchase Delaney’s discharge from the East India Company. That November, they sent him to the London Missionary Society and then to America, to Hamilton Literary and Theological Institution (where Kincaid had studied).
Delaney arrived in New York in 1835 and trained for the ministry. To help with tuition, Sarah Judson (Adoniram’s wife) sent $25 from her own purse. He preached revival meetings across New York, including one on Lake Champlain with Baptist minister William Arthur (father of future U.S. President Chester A. Arthur). In 1838, Delaney held his first baptism service in New York—immersing 14 converts, even though the temperature was 15 degrees below zero!
Before leaving New York, he married Tirzah O. Platt in 1839. Soon after, he arrived in Wisconsin Territory—when there were only a handful of Baptist churches in the entire region. He immediately began organizing new ones in places like Madison and Janesville. He earned the title “exploring agent” and “general missionary” for the territory.
Looking back, contemporaries described him as filled with earnest piety and missionary zeal, a robust constitution, untiring energy, and unfailing moral heroism. His journeys along the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers were full of wild adventure, thrilling incidents, and heroic endurance—comparable to those of his mentor Kincaid along Burma’s Irrawaddy and Salween rivers.
In 1840, Wisconsin Territory had only about 30,945 people—smaller than modern Menomonee Falls or West Bend. Delaney’s family settled in the western part (Iowa and Lafayette Counties) at the time of the census. His son Arthur (born 1841, likely named after William Arthur) grew up to serve as a Wisconsin assemblyman, senator, and U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. He later joined the Klondike Gold Rush and became the first mayor of Juneau, Alaska.
In 1845—the year Sarah Judson died—Delaney wrote a missionary report on Wisconsin for the American Baptist Convention from East Troy, noting that while Easterners viewed Westerners as ignorant, Wisconsinites were discerning judges of preaching and demanded well-qualified ministers. Error and opposition were bold, so capable gospel preachers were needed more than ever.
In 1846, he helped form the Wisconsin Baptist State Convention on a purely evangelical basis, dedicated to evangelizing the territory through preaching and church planting.
By 1849, he was pastoring in Grafton. In 1850, his mentor Adoniram Judson died and was buried at sea. Delaney pastored for a time in Waukesha, with stints in New York and Vermont. Later, he served in Port Washington (Ozaukee County). By then, Kincaid had become a special envoy from the King of Burma to President James Buchanan, delivering a royal letter in an ivory box and returning with American gifts.
In 1860, Delaney lived in Hubbard (Dodge County) with wife Tirzah and children Arthur, Mary, and Frederick. The Civil War soon began, and he served as chaplain in the 18th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment.
In 1868, he moved to Whitewater, where he spent his remaining years. Census records show him here with Tirzah and daughter Mary. By 1872, his church had 72 members; he labored patiently and piously, enduring all for the elect’s sake. In 1875, he took over the church in East Troy (22 members, but 53 in Sunday school). By 1880, widowed, he lived in Whitewater with daughter Mary and son Alfred. He retired but preached occasionally.
In 1886, with Whitewater’s population just over 3,000, a new church building was constructed a few blocks from downtown (later sold to the Norwegian Lutheran Church).
Delaney died in Whitewater on December 18, 1896, at age 92 (some records say 93). At his funeral, Dr. Hage (then pastor of the Janesville church Delaney had started) closed his eulogy with these words: “Servant of God, well done. Rest from thy loved employ. The battle fought, the victory won. Enter thy Master’s joy.”
Tim Schmig is at the grave of Adoniram Judson, telling the remarkable story of how Adoniram grew up in a Christian home, lost his faith in college, and how he returned to the Lord!WATCH THE FULL VIDEO HERE
Transcript:
What that means—and it’s often a Jewish tradition, though others pick it up too—is simply, “I came to visit you.”
In a military cemetery, if you see a coin on a headstone, each denomination carries a specific meaning as a way to honor the veteran and let their family know someone stopped by:
That’s the tradition, though it’s more symbolic than universal—similar to the old yarn about statues of men on horseback.
You know that one: If all four of the horse’s feet are on the ground, the rider died of natural causes. One leg raised means he was wounded in battle and later died from those wounds. Two legs up means he was killed in action. It holds for many equestrian statues, but not all—like the famous one of Andrew Jackson in New Orleans’ Jackson Square. There, the horse is reared up on its hind legs, and Jackson has his hat off in salute. The story some tell is that a Creole woman (half French, half Black) once confronted Jackson on the street for not tipping his hat to her, and he refused, saying she was beneath him. Years later, when the city commissioned the statue, her descendant supposedly sculpted it so Jackson would forever tip his hat toward her family’s home as poetic justice.
But historically, sculptor Clark Mills designed it to depict Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans, acknowledging his troops’ salute—nothing to do with that anecdote. Still, it’s a great story people love to share!
Now, speaking of powerful turning points… this is the grave of Adoniram Judson, one of the greatest missionaries in Christian history.
Adoniram Judson was born in 1788 into a pastor’s home in Malden, Massachusetts. At just 16 years old, he entered what was then the College of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (now Brown University) to study for the ministry. Back then, education worked by mastery levels—you advanced as soon as you completed each stage, like catechism and core subjects—not by age-based grades like our modern Franco-Russian model where everyone progresses together regardless of readiness. Judson was a brilliant student and graduated as valedictorian in 1807 at age 19.
While at Brown, he befriended a classmate named Jacob Eames, a convinced deist and skeptic who mocked Christianity. Eames influenced Judson to abandon his childhood faith, turning him into an infidel. After graduation, Judson didn’t tell his parents about his change of heart. Instead, he headed to New York City with dreams of becoming a famous playwright.
Just before leaving, he stopped home and had a big confrontation with his father: “I’m an infidel now. Jacob Eames showed me Christianity is foolish and childish.” They argued fiercely. The next day, Judson mounted his horse and rode toward New York.
Along the way, with no Holiday Inns back then, he stopped at a roadside inn for the night. The innkeeper said, “I have a room, but I’m hesitant—the man next door is dying, and it might disturb you.” Judson replied, “I’ll take it anyway.”
All night long, he heard shuffling feet, doctors coming and going, and the dying man screaming in agony, begging for forgiveness and crying out for his soul. Judson couldn’t sleep. He thought, “What would Jacob Eames say if he saw me worried about this? He’d call me a fool—there’s no soul, no afterlife, nothing to fear.” But the cries haunted him.
In the morning, the room next door fell silent. When Judson settled his bill, he asked the innkeeper, “Did he…?” The innkeeper confirmed, “Yes, he passed in the night.” Judson asked, “Do you know his name?” The reply: “Yes—a young man from Brown College. His name was Eames. Jacob Eames.”
Judson was stunned. His closest friend—the one who’d led him into unbelief—was dead, and by all accounts, died in terror without peace. The finality hit hard: “Lost! Utterly, irrevocably lost!” All his deistic ideas crumbled. God used that “coincidence” to pursue him relentlessly.
Judson turned around, went home, reconciled with his parents, got right with God, and soon felt called to missions. He trained at Andover Theological Seminary, married Ann Hasseltine, and in 1812 became one of America’s first foreign missionaries—sailing to India and then Burma, where he spent decades translating the Bible into Burmese, planting churches, and enduring imprisonment and hardship.
This happened around 1808, early in the 19th century. God’s story is full of these simple, providential moments that change everything. He can use the smallest “coincidence” to bring us back to Himself.
The K in James K Polk stands for Knox. His mother was Jane Knox, a direct descendant of John Knox, the Scottish preacher who faced off against Bloody Queen Mary. WATCH THE FULL VIDEO on VCY.tv
His mother, it is said, held to four things: the Bible, the Confession of Faith, the Psalms, and Isaac Watts’ Hymns.
His father on the other hand, scoffed at religion. He wanted carved on his tombstone:
Here lies the dust of old E.P. on instance of mortality
Pennsylvania born Carolina bred, In Tennessee died on his bed.
His youthful days he spent in pleasure, His latter days in gathering treasure
From superstition liv’d quite free, and practised strict morality…
To holy cheats was never willing To give one solitary shilling
First fruits and tenths are odious things And so are Bishops, Tithes, and Kings
James K Polk had two strong forces – one pulling him towards God and one pulling Him away. In 1833, James Polk was running for Congress and heard a crowd was gathering at the Campground near Columbia, Tennessee. Politicians and crowds are like moths to a flame, so Polk went! Evangelist John McFerrin was preaching. Polk was impacted – but McFerrin reports that “he went away from the camp-ground a convicted sinner, if not a converted man.”
Polk was re-elected to congress, he was hard-working, dedicated to politics, and ambitious. But not saved as best as we can tell, unlike his wife.
Later as Governor of Tennessee, Polk “used to hold many arguments with” McFerrin “and that he had promised him that when he did embrace Christianity, [McFerrin]… should baptize him.”
James Polk went on to be president, the ambitious lawyer was the youngest president America had ever had to that point. Many regard him as one of the most powerful – he stopped a potential war with Britain and started a war with Mexico. He annexed Texas and acquired California when the war with Mexico ended. While president he kept a diary, and while he attended church regularly with his wife, he never commented on the service. Except for one day, in which he made some surprising comments on the presidency.
Sunday, November 2nd, 1845. The day of his fiftieth birthday. This is from his very own diary:
“Attended the Methodist Church (called the Foundery Church) to-day, in company with my private secretary, J. Knox Walker. It was an inclement day, there being rain from an early hour in the morning, and Mrs. Polk and the ladies of my household did not attend church to-day. Mrs. Polk being a member of the Presbyterian Church, I generally attend that church with her, though my opinions and predilections are in favor of the Methodist Church. This was my birthday, being fifty years old. The text was from the Acts of the Apostles, chap. 17, verse 31: ‘Because He hath appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom He hath ordained.’ It was communion day, and the sermon was solemn and forcible. It awakened the reflection that I had lived fifty years, and that before fifty years more would expire I would be sleeping with the generations which have gone before me. I thought of the vanity of this world’s honors, how little they would profit me half a century hence, and that it was time for me to be “putting my house in order.”
Diary of President James K. Polk
Did you catch this? The president of the United States – thinking of the vanity of this world’s honors, and how little they would profit him in fifty years!
Yet nothing is written of what he did to put his house in order. For the next 4 years of his presidency, he records many church services that he went to, but no commentary on any of them.
Finally, 1849 came, and his one term as president came to an end. Acquaintances (he didn’t have too many friends) noticed that the presidency aged him incredibly. He would be dead in just three months.
Shortly before he died, he called for another pastor.
“Sir, if I had suspected twenty years ago that I should come to my death-bed unprepared, it would have made me a wretched man; yet I am about to die and have not made preparation. Tell me, sir, can there be any ground for a man thus situated to hope?”
The minister talked with him of the gospel, President Polk was quite familiar with the Bible, but probably just on a head-basis, not a heart-basis. Unfortunately, the illness took over and Polk was unable to continue talking with the minister.
The next day, Polk in a moment of clarity, remembered his conversation with the Evangelist McFerrin, and summoned him – finally ready to get his life in order.
James K Polk is a story of an ambitious politician – who as best as we can tell, kept pushing off his relationship with the Lord, until it was almost too late.
The sermon he heard while president that almost drove him to give his life to Christ was from Acts 17:31. The previous verse tells us God “now commandeth all men every where to repent.” Don’t wait until its too late!
For more information on James Polk, check out:
Join us as we go on location to West Bend, WI to learn about the Wisconsin Gospel song,
“Wonderful Peace!”
This hymn is a uniquely Wisconsin hymn. The words were written by a pastor buried in Wisconsin, and set to music by a pastor born in Wisconsin.
Rev. Warren D. Cornell was born in Michigan but left at 19 to teach and preach in Texas. At 23 he came to Wisconsin, where he’d spend the next 40 years of his life in pulpit ministry and civic service. He pastored in the greater Oshkosh area for awhile and 1889 found him as pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Berlin, Wisconsin. He later founded an independent church in Fond du Lac, the same city where he’s also buried.
In the 19th century, Camp meetings were an opportunity for churches to come together for singing and fellowship, but primarily preaching the way of Salvation, with the Mourner’s Bench prominently at the front.
Rev. William G. Cooper was pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church in West Bend, Wisconsin, he’d later go on to pastor several Baptist churches, but in 1889, his church in West Bend held their annual summer camp meeting from Wednesday night to Sunday night. According to the church historian, the families would gather at the farm of Francis Gansel, a Prussian immigrant to America, who became Town Chairman of West Bend.
We’re standing on the site of the original Francis Gansel farm where the camp meetings were held, although now it is the Bicentennial Park in West Bend.
Rev. Cornell came down from Ripon as a guest speaker at the camp meeting, and on Sunday, the last day of the camp meeting, took a walk down the Milwaukee River just a mile to our east, over by the church building.
Many hymns come from personal tragedy. This hymn however comes from a time of happiness, reminding us that the same God who sends times of sorrow also sends times of joy. Rev. Cornell was so filled with joy after five days of camp meeting spent fellowshipping and eating with believers, testimonies, singing, and preaching, that the words flowed out of the overabundance of his soul. According to a couple of sources, as he walked, Rev. Cornell grabbed the back of an advertising flyer and penned these words along this river:
Far away in the depths of my spirit tonight
Rolls a melody sweeter than psalm;
In celestial strains it unceasingly falls
O’er my soul like an infinite calm.Peace, peace, wonderful peace,
Coming down from the Father above!
Sweep over my spirit forever, I pray
In fathomless billows of love!
Rev. Cornell put the paper back in his pocket and walked back to the campground for the evening service, surrounded by His Father’s love
Back here at the campground, after the evening service, the host pastor, Rev. Cooper, was cleaning up the grounds when he saw a paper lying on the floor. He read the words, took the paper to the organ, and began composing a tune for the words. As he played on the organ, the words to another stanza began to form in his mind, this stanza an invitation to unbelievers to partake of this peace:
Ah soul, are you here without comfort and rest,
Marching down the rough pathway of time?
Make Jesus your friend ere the shadows grow dark;
Oh, accept this sweet peace so sublime!Peace, peace, wonderful peace,
Coming down from the Father above!
Sweep over my spirit forever, I pray
In fathomless billows of love!
Three years later, in 1892, Rev. Cooper and his friend Robert McCabe published the hymn in their songbook, Pearls of Paradise, with the note, Dedicated to the M.E. Church, West Bend, Wisconsin, that hosted that camp meeting that gave birth to this beloved hymn, Wonderful Peace.