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About the Book
"Strangers to Failure" by Benson Idahosa is a motivational book that encourages readers to overcome obstacles, embrace challenges, and see failure as a stepping stone to success. Through personal anecdotes and practical advice, Idahosa inspires readers to cultivate a positive mindset, persevere in the face of adversity, and achieve their goals. This book empowers individuals to see themselves as capable of great things and to view failure as a temporary setback rather than a permanent defeat.
Charles Finney
Childhood and Teen years
Charles Grandison Finney was born the year after Wesley died on 29th August, 1792 in Warren, Connecticut. In 1794 his family moved to New York state, eventually settling at Henderson, near Lake Ontario. Although he received only a brief formal education he decided to study law and joined the practice of a local lawyer, Benjamin Wright. He was also very musical, played the cello and directed the choir at the local Presbyterian Church pastured by Rev. George Gale.
His conversion
His conversion on October 10th 1821 reads like something out of the book of Acts. Smitten with conviction from Bible reading he decided to âsettle the question of my soulâs salvation at once, that if it were possible, I would make my peace with God.â (Autobiography)
This conviction increased to an unbearable level over the next couple of days and came to an head when he was suddenly confronted with an âinward voice.â He was inwardly questioned about his spiritual condition and finally received revelation about the finished work of Christ and his own need to give up his sins and submit to Christâs righteousness.
As he sought God in a nearby wood he was overwhelmed with an acute sense of his own wickedness and pride but finally submitted his life to Christ. Back at work that afternoon he was filled with a profound sense of tenderness, sweetness and peace. When work was over and he bade his employer goodnight, he then experienced a mighty baptism in the Holy Spirit, which was recorded as vividly as the day he experienced it, though it was penned some fifty years later.
The next morning Finney announced to a customer that he was leaving his law studies to become a preacher of the Gospel.
Charles Finney licensed to preach
He was licensed to preach in 1823 and ordained as an evangelist in 1824. His penetrating preaching was quite different from many local ministers and included an obvious attempt to break away from the traditional and, as he saw it, dead, orthodox Calvinism. He married to Lydia Andrews in October 1824 and was also joined by Daniel Nash (1774-1831), known popularly as âFather Nash.â Undoubtedly Nashâs special ministry of prayer played a great part in Finneyâs growing success as an evangelist.
Things really took off when he preached in his old church, where Rev. Gale still ministered. Numerous converts and critics followed! Similar results were experienced in nearby towns of Rome and Utica. Soon newspapers were reporting his campaigns and he began drawing large crowds with dramatic responses.
Soon he was preaching in the largest cities of the north with phenomenal results. Campaign after campaign secured thousands of converts.
The high point of Finneyâs revival career was reached at Rochester, New York, during his 1830-1 meetings. Shopkeepers closed their businesses and the whole city seemed to centre on the revivalist. Responding to his irresistible logic and passionate arguments many of his converts were lawyers, merchants and those from a higher income and professional status.
His Preaching
Finney openly preached a modified Calvinism, influenced with his own theology of conversion and used what were perceived to be ârevivalistic techniques.â
These âmeansâ included the use of the anxious bench (a special place for those under conviction), protracted meetings, women allowed to pray in mixed meetings, publicly naming those present resisting God in meetings and the hurried admission of new converts into church membership. Opponents viewed his preaching of the law as âscare tacticsâ and his persuasive appeals for sinners to come to Christ for salvation were seen as over-emphasising the responsibility of men and ignoring the sovereignty of God.
His theology and practise soon became known as the âNew Measuresâ and attracted many opponents from the Old School Presbyterians led by Asahel Nettleton (himself no stranger to true revival and , the revivalistic Congregationalists headed by Lyman Beecher.
Pastor at Chatham Street Chapel
Finney accepted an appointment as pastor of Chatham Street Chapel in New York City in 1832 where he remained until 1837. It was during this time that he delivered a series of sermons published in 1835 as âLectures on Revivals of Religion.â Here he clearly stated his views regarding revivals being products of the correct use of human means. Such was the controversy that he left the Presbyterian denomination and joined the Congregationalists in 1836.
Oberlin College
The next year he became professor of theology at Oberlin College (Ohio) where he taught until his death. He was President here from 1851 until 1866, but still continued regular revival meetings in urban settings (twice in England, 1848, 1851) until 1860. During his stay at Oberlin he produced his, Lectures to Professing Christians (1836), Sermons on Important Subjects (1839) and his famous Memoirs.
The Father of Modern Revivalism
There is no doubt that Charles Grandison Finney well-deserves the title âThe Father of Modern Revivalism.â He was an evangelistic pioneer whose model was followed by a long line of revivalists from D. L. Moody to Billy Graham. His writing have made a massive impact on the entire evangelical world and particularly the âLectures on Revivalsâ which has, arguably, ignited more fires of revival than any other single piece literature in evangelical history.
This âPrince of Revivalistsâ passed away peacefully at Oberlin on Sunday, 16th August, 1875 aged almost 83 years.
Bibliography: I Will Pour Out My Spirit, R. E. Davies, 1997; Ed: A. Scott Moreau, Baker Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions, 2000; Dictionary of Evangelical Biography 1730-1860, Vol. 1, 1995.
Tony Cauchi
The Ordinary People God Chose - Learning to Love the Local Church
Iâm not athletic. Iâm not competitive. I donât like to sweat. I have trouble remembering the rules of games. The only organized sport on my lifeâs rĂ©sumĂ© is two years of collegiate synchronized swimming â a singular exception that only proves the rule. But for someone who doesnât like sporting events, I end up watching a lot of them. Iâve shivered on wooden bleachers during snowy college football games. Iâve sunburned in the outfield at minor (and major) league baseball games. Iâve covered my ears during deafening basketball games. Iâve flinched and winced at ice hockey games. Iâve arrived early for batting practice, and Iâve stayed late for the fireworks. And I donât just watch. I wear the team colors. I sing the team song. I bite my fingernails in the bottom of the ninth. When we win, I rejoice. When we lose, Iâm genuinely disappointed. My surprising conduct has an explanation: I love people who love sports. The people in my family delight in goals and strikes and penalty shots, and so, over time, Iâve learned to take pleasure in those things too. What they love, I want to love. At times, the local church can seem to us like a sporting event to a non-athlete, or a baking show to a microwave cook, or a book club to someone who doesnât like to read. It can seem like a big fuss over something insignificant and lots of work with unimpressive results. Week after week, the unremarkable people of our local congregations gather to do the same things in the same way, followed by stale coffee served at plastic tables in a damp basement. We may wonder, Why bother? The answer requires us to look beyond our own experiences and inclinations â it requires us to look to God himself. Having been redeemed by the blood of Christ and changed by the work of the Spirit, we love God. What God loves, we therefore want to love. And God loves the church. Our First Love We didnât always love God, of course. To begin with, we hated him. The Bible describes us as enemies (Romans 5:10), strangers (Ephesians 2:12), rebels (Ezekiel 20:38), and haters (Romans 1:30); impure (Ephesians 5:5), disobedient (Ephesians 2:2), hopeless (Ephesians 2:12), and ignorant (Romans 10:3). Our sins justly placed us under his wrath and displeasure (Ephesians 2:3). We rejected God, despised his authority, and ignored his good law. We were neither lovely nor loving. But he loved us. In the counsels of eternity, he set his love on us, and in time, he sent his beloved Son to die for us so that we might enter into a loving relationship with him. He brought us out of slavery into the joyful circle of his family and made us his privileged children. Because he loved us, we now love him. Our love for God is comprehensive: involving heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30). It controls us (2 Corinthians 5:14), and it compels us (John 14:15). Our days and hours and minutes are taken up with this love. Like the psalmist, we look around us and proclaim that there is nothing in all the earth we desire apart from God (Psalm 73:25). He is our first love, and he is our great love. Godâs Great Love Itâs appropriate, then, that we would ask ourselves, What does God love? For anyone who has ever sat in the creaking pews â or folding chairs â of a local congregation on Sunday morning, the answer might be surprising: God loves the church. Listen to what Paul tells the Ephesians: Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. (Ephesians 5:25â27) The glorious purpose of Godâs eternal plan of redemption is the gathering and perfecting of his people. Jesus came for the sake of the church. More than thirty times in the New Testament, the church is called âbeloved.â This is not because the ordinary and sometimes awkward people who gather on Sundays are themselves lovely, but because they are bound to someone who is. Christ is the one whom the Father âloved . . . before the foundation of the worldâ (John 17:24). He is the beloved Son. And as people who were created in him, redeemed by him, united to him, and given to him, we find our identity in him. Christ is the beloved, and in him, the church is beloved too. Loving the People God Loves Of all the games I watch, the sporting events where I have the greatest investment are the ones where my own kids are playing. When Iâm in the bleachers at their basketball games or beside the dugout at their baseball games, I canât take my eyes off the action. It might be Saturday morning T-ball, but itâs always the big game to me. When someone I love is on the team, Iâm all in. Likewise, if the one our soul loves has committed himself to the church, it changes everything about our own commitment. âBeloved,â writes John, âif God so loved us, we also ought to love one anotherâ (1 John 4:11). This means that we will seek to make Godâs great love for the church our own. We begin on Sunday by regularly showing up to worship together (Hebrews 10:24). Itâs our highest privilege to gather with the people of God before the face of God. In the church, we also work to promote one anotherâs holiness, to show affection for one another, to bear one anotherâs needs, to encourage one anotherâs gifts, and to join in the cause of the gospel together. The people of our church are often outwardly unremarkable, but in the mutual love of the local church, we affirm the love that God has for us. Thankfully, we donât have to muster up love for the church on our own strength. Before he went to the cross to redeem his people, Christ prayed for the church. He petitioned the Father âthat the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in themâ (John 17:26). Surrounded by the ordinary and yet extraordinary, sinful and yet holy, weak and yet ultimately triumphant people of God, we look for the Fatherâs gracious answer to the Sonâs request. And when the God who is love (1 John 4:8) dwells in us by his Spirit, we have everything we need to love the church. Article by Megan Hill
