When People Pray: Prayer Can Birth Awakening and RevivalSýnishorn

The Corner of Fulton and Williams Street

In 1809, a powerful movement was birthed that would not be fully known or seen for 48 more years. It began in the heart of man but just like all men, it began as a baby.

The baby was named Jeremiah Lanphier. He grew up in upstate New York, and started learning to be tailor when he was 16, apprenticing in Albany. After his apprenticeship ended, he became a regular, ordinary businessman. 

Forty-eight years later, his life shifted completely when he was offered a new position. He took it without hesitation. He left his business and moved from his home into a small room in a small dying church on the corner of Fulton & Williams Streets.

Most people had moved from downtown to better areas. Other churches had left as well, and many thought that the Old Dutch Church should throw in the towel. Against the popular opinion, the trustees were determined to make a last stand. 

They picked Lanphier, hiring him as a lay missionary, because they were convinced he was the right man for the job. He was a merchant who had no experience whatsoever in church visitation work. He accepted a the position for a salary of less than $1,000 a year, and in a short time proved the trustees correct, as he was burdened for the people in the area. 

It was slow going at first, a few families came, but often Lanphier returned to his room in the church weary and discouraged. At one point after a discouraging day of ministry, it occurred to him that a mid-day prayer time might be something businessmen may be interested in.

On September 23, 1857, at exactly 12 noon, the tall, middle-aged former businessman climbed the creaking stairs to the third story of the Old Dutch church building in the heart of lower New York City. He entered an empty room, pulled out his pocket watch and sat down to wait. The sign outside read: “Prayer Meeting from 12 to 1 o’clock - Stop 5, 10, or 20 minutes, or the whole hour, as your time admits.” As the minutes ticked by Lanphier was completely alone and wondered if it were all a mistake. He waited ten minutes, then ten more. The minute hand of his watch pointed to 12:30 when at last he heard the sound of feet coming up the stairs. One man came in, then another and another until there were six. After a few minutes of prayer the meeting was dismissed with the corporate decision to meet again the following Wednesday.

Twenty men came to the second noon-hour prayer meeting. Then the Wednesday after that, forty. Lanphier then decided that the meetings would be held on a daily basis. 

Wednesday, October 14th, the nation was shocked by the worst financial crisis in its history. Banks closed, many were let go from their work, families were hurting in their unknown future, and many were even going hungry. Lanphier never even flinched, the meetings continued without fail, and they began to grow more and more.

In a short time, what had become known as the Fulton Street meeting had taken over the whole building with crowds of more than 3,000. Lawyers and physicians, merchants and clerks, bankers and brokers, manufacturers and mechanics, porters and messenger boys - all came. 

Within six months, 10,000 businessmen (out of a population of 800,000) were gathering daily for prayer in New York City. There were also prayer meetings being held in Virginia, Indiana, Massachusetts, Illinois, and many other states throughout the country. The revival was in evidence from coast to coast and there were tens of thousands of converts. By March of 1858, the movement had reached such heights that the news of its impact had traveled across the Atlantic. 

The awakening came first like a baby birthed from the womb of prayer, but the fruit of labor produced a powerful revival.

The initial meeting that took place September of 1857 was not extraordinary, just six ordinary men gathering to pray in small room on the the corner of Fulton and Williams Street. There was no evidence of a supernatural move of God beginning to take place in those quiet moments of united prayer. Lanphier had no way of knowing that it was the beginning of a great national revival which would result in an estimated one million persons coming into the Kingdom of God.