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Halfway between O’Hare Airport and Rockford Illinois is a historical marker about a famous evangelist. Billy Sunday had given up professional baseball for the Chicago White Stockings in 1890 and began holding evangelistic meetings across the nation. During the summers he would take a break from the road – he wanted a place that felt like his hometown of Ames, Read more...
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Born in Virginia, and raised in Kentucky, Peter Cartwright (1785-1872) was a carnal frontier adolescent. At 16, he attended a revival meeting was “soundly converted.” To this meeting I repaired, a guilty, wretched sinner. On the Saturday evening of said meeting, I went, with weeping multitudes, and bowed before the stand, and earnestly prayed for mercy. In the midst of Read more...
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One moved two miles west and built the Bethel Methodist Episcopal Church (which was torn down in 1953). The other moved into the new village of Pleasant Plains, Illinois and constructed the current building in 1857. Two additions have been made, but the sanctuary is nearly the same as during Cartwright’s time. Featured Image Credit: “Peter Cartwright United Methodist Read more...
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Born November 27, 1862, Bloomfield, Iowa (birth name: Sarah Addison Pollard). Author of over 100 hymns and Gospel songs, Pollard was educated in Denmark, Iowa, Valparaiso, Indiana, at the Boston School of Oratory, and the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, Illinois. She taught in Chicago, and at the Christian and Missionary Alliance Training School in New York. She worked for Read more...
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This stop isn’t exactly a Christian historic site, but an interesting look at history from the Christian era. George Herman “Babe” Ruth (1895-1948) was called the “Sultan of Swat” An inaugural member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, and holder of records that still stand today, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously by President Donald Trump. In Read more...
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John Jasper (named by his mother, Tina, after the beloved disciple, John) was born on July 4, 1812, the youngest of twenty-four children. John’s father, Philip, was a Baptist preacher among the slaves of Fluvanna County, Virginia, located in the central part of the state just east of Charlottesville; unfortunately, John never knew his father because Philip died about two Read more...
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Thomas Obadiah Chisholm was born in a log house in Lake Spring (marked by the present Lake Spring Road) near Franklin, Kentucky, in 1866 – just after the Civil War. His boyhood was spent on a farm – and then at 16 he started teaching in the country schoolhouse he had attended. and in teaching district schools until he was Read more...
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Ken Ham, founder of Answers in Genesis envisioned a full scale replica of Noah’s Ark to “lend credence to the biblical account of a catastrophic flood and to dispel doubts that Noah could have fit two of every kind of animal onto a 500-foot-long ark.” Following the announcement of the plan on December 1, 2020, they proceeded to raise $100 Read more...
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Watch our interview at the Ira Sankey Collection at the Lawrence County Historical Society on OCH Born in Edinburg, PA, to a Methodist family, Ira Sankey (1840-1908) loved music from an early age. At 16 he was saved at the King’s Chapel revival meetings. At 21 he volunteered for the Union in the Civil War. At 23, he married Fanny Read more...
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For over 40 years, the Billy Graham Center Museum has welcomed tens of thousands of visitors annually. The first part of the museum is the History of Evangelism in America. See the first Bible printed in America – and it wasn’t in English, it’s the Eliot Algonquin Indian Bible. Colonial Puritan Cotton Mather’s sermon notes and books are on display, Read more...
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The Hobby Lobby family invested $500 million into an incredible museum in Washington D.C. The doors are almost 40 feet high, making it the largest brass gates in the world. And its based off of the first printed book in the world, the 1450 Gutenberg Bible. Once you enter the symbolism is everywhere – from the marble floor symbolizing going Read more...
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From Wikipedia: Sheffey was born near the hamlet of Ivanhoe, Wythe County, Virginia, of a locally prominent family, the youngest of five brothers.[2] His mother died when he was two, and he was reared by an aunt in Abingdon, Virginia. Sheffey attended Emory and Henry College in 1839–40, but “his early dislike for books and an aversion for profound study” Read more...
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Robert Sheffey (1820-1902), ministered in the Appalachian region, often seen as ‘unique’ by other parts of the country. But no matter what stereotypes Appalachia had, Sheffey was the most unique of all. Born into a respectable family and having attended some college, Sheffey was born again at a revival meeting and became a Methodist minister of sorts. Of sorts, because Read more...
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See Robert Sheffey Grave nearby for more info Featured Image Credit: Old-Fashioned Camp Meeting Historical Marker. 3 Nov. 2024, www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=41429. Read more...
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Most hotels include a Gideon Bible beside each bed. But inside the Hampton Inn & Suites in Goodyear, Arizona, you will find the only 24/7/365 Bible Museum operated by the largest dealer of historic Bibles in the world. I’m not sure why it’s located inside a hotel – my visit was late at night to see if this really was Read more...
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George Duffield Jr., came from a family of preachers. Jr. is a bit of a misnomer – he was the fifth such George Duffield. The first Duffield was a native of Belfast, the second was chaplain to the Continental Congress. The fourth was a Presbyterian minister, as was our subject, Duffield the Fifth. Interestingly he did not pass on his Read more...
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Bible museum facilities range from the $500 million Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C.; to the Bible Museum in the Hampton Inn & Suites in Goodyear, Arizona. But this museum is located inside a replica of the room where the King James Bible was translated. From BJU.edu: Dating from the late 14th century, the Jerusalem Chamber formed part Read more...
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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. 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. Read more...
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Founded by Clarence Sexton, pastor of Temple Baptist Church in Powell, Tennessee, the Crown College of the Bible opened in 1991. In 2020, Clarence Sexton was invited to the White House to preach the funeral of Robert Trump, brother of President Donald Trump. Robert Trump had discovered Sexton online as Sexton shared the connection between the Hebrides Revival and Donald Read more...
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John Clarke’s tombstone stands in the John Clarke Family Cemetery, on the west side of Dr. Marcus Wheatland Boulevard. The key to the cemetery’s padlock is available at the United Baptist Church office. Adjoining the cemetery, a small park has two Memorials to John Clarke: A plaque on a small rock, and a monument, erected by the Baptist History Preservation Society. Read more...