According to historians, there have been 19 revivals on the campus of Yale in the city of New Haven since its founding in 1701. It can also be claimed that the first and second great awakenings in many ways originated or came through Yale and New Haven as well. Greats such as Jonathan Edwards, George Whitfield, Timothy Dwight (grandson of Jonathan Edwards) and D.L. Moody were all part.
Could a 20th revival be part of catalyzing or even leading the next great awakening prophecied to sweep across New England, America and beyond? Some have termed this long anticipated end-time harvest as the 3rd great awakening…
March 1-4 Event (click here)
Yale Revival History
- George Whitefield 1740 (gospel coalition)
- Gilbert Tennent 1741
- David Brainerd 1740-1747
- 1795 – Timothy Dwight became President of Yale. At that time there were 8 students out of 108 who were professing Christians. The French Revolution and enlightenment, universalism and Unitarianism movements had taken hold of the Nation and the student body. Post the Revolutionary war, the fires of the first great awakening were virtually gone. The campus climate was described one of scepticism, immorality, and disregard for religion.
- 1801 – Twenty-five students founded the Moral Society of Yale College
- 1802 – Early in the spring of 1802, two students were overwhelmed with conviction of their sins. That year nearly one third of the students came to Christ, which then spread more broadly to other universities. (beautiful feet)
- 1808 – another 100 students commit to Christ (think revival)
- 1812-1813
- 1815 – Students committed to pray for revival at 3:30am each morning
- 1820, 1821, 1822, 1823, 1824 – every year had a unique revival (Revivals of Religion at Yale)
- 1825 – 30 saved and temperance movement
- 1827 – for every student saved that year, 9 New Haven residents saved (1991 Yale Standard)
- 1828 – James Brainerd Taylor revival
- 1830 – yet another revival – over 100 students saved from 1827-1830
- 1831 – the “Great Revival” contemporaneous with Charles Finney upstate NY. 104 students became members of the college church while 900 others in New Haven were converted (revival at Yale)
- 1857-1878 businessmen’s Noonday Prayer revival of NYC hits Yale (Yale Under God, p150)
- D. L. Moody 1878 (revival history at Yale)
- Christian Social Union founded 1879
- YMCA 1881
- Dwight Hall 1886
- Yale Foreign Mission 1899
- more…
These revivals helped to solidify Yale’s reputation as a centre of evangelical Christianity and contributed to the growth of religious fervour throughout New England
Origin Story
In November of 2010, I was making my way upstate Connecticut to pick up my friend Rick McKinniss. Rick invited me to join him for a Vision New England (NE Church Unity group) leaders gathering up at Grace Chapel in Lexington, MA. I happened to grow up next door in Concord, MA and had been to Grace Chapel a few times over the years with my folks.
Does God really care About America?
Before continuing, it’s worth noting how important America is to God! Why do I say that? It’s personal.
Back in 2008 the Holy Spirit said as clear as day to me “Put on a concert here.” (walking across Westport Connecticut Veterans’ Green going to Town Hall). I was like, God is that you? If so, when? “April” What day? “The 19th”.
My first conformation that God was indeed speaking was this date in 2009 was the third Sunday of the month – a day each month God had shown me to set aside back in 2005 for purposes of prayer.
After putting my hand to the plow organizing this Church of Fairfield County festival, months later I figured out this very date of April 19th was Patriots Day – the shot heard around the world in 1775.
How did God reveal it? One day I walked into my house and saw a picture my folks had given us hanging in the vestibule. On the bottom, the title of the print says: “April 19th”. I was like – hey that is the date God gave me for the event! And of course, on that date in 1775, America began its journey to becoming a unique nation with biblical ideals, such as “all men are created equal” and “liberty and justice for all”.
But even more amazing, years later, I came to discover that Governor John Trumbull had prophetically declared a day of Prayer and Fasting ahead of time for – wait for it – April 19, 1775!
Let that sink in. All of Connecticut was praying and fasting the day the Revolutionary War broke out. God knew.
Now when America was founded, it was far from perfect. We had to fight a civil war to deal with not living up to these ideals, and we may be on the precipice of another. That is the very reason we need revival, to seek His face and His wisdom and to “turn from our wicked ways”. This starts in the church.
So, don’t let anyone tell you God has given up on America!
Westport CT is significant because it was the beachhead of the British raid on Danbury in 1777. Remember the infamous “separation of church and state” letter letter that came from the Danbury Baptists to President Jefferson?
It is one of the only locations a minuteman statue exists outside of Lexington and Concord MA – Compo Beach, Westport CT… I digress.
Back to November 2010… I made way up to Wellspring Church in Berlin Connecticut to collect Rick, taking the usual Route 15 which starts as the Merritt Parkway and changes over to the Wilbur Cross Parkway.
I was talking to the Lord about this VNE meeting and the New England Church, wondering: what is next Lord? We all were believing for revival. In Fairfield County had experienced an amazing measure of it over the previous decade in the 2000s.
As I passed the Derby Road overpass at exit 57/58, out of the corner of my eye I could have sworn I saw Hebrew letters passing overhead. I was like – that’s weird. I took note of it to research it later.
On the way up to Massachusetts, Rick and I spoke about what revival might look like in New England. One of my questions for the Lord was whether difficult economic times might relate to revival? (like what happened with Jeremiah Lamphere organizing the noonday prayer during the financial panic of 1857 in NYC)
One of the reasons Rick invited me was to meet his friend Jonathan Friz. Rick said, he’s like you – trusting God for provision by faith through prayer. I was like, OK that’s interesting, love to meet him. I had heard about Jonathan and later through the “60.12“ initiative which was done in partnership with Vision New England. 60 leaders meeting once a month for a year throughout New England.
The meeting went well with leaders from across New England. Jonathan I met afterwards in the parking lot. He shared the 10 Days of Prayer vision God had given him in 2004 upon asking Lord, what do you want me to do with my life? He then proceeded to share the conversation he had with God about it hearing the phrase “Babylon refuses to mourn…” Jonathan responded, “but Your people will mourn before Your return.”
I was blown away by this and excitedly shared that I’d been pressing in to understand the meaning of Babylon in the Bible, as it intersected with my testimony via Isaiah 52.
The phrase Jonathan heard is a paraphrase of Revelation 18, an entire chapter about the great Harlot Babylon who has caused the “great men of the earth” to “drink the cup of her abominations” conducting iniquitous global trade and economy in the end-times.
Specifically, God’s command in Revelation 18:4 is “Come out of her my people!”
Light and Truth
After I was back home, I researched those Hebrew characters I saw on the Rt. 34 overpass. Sure enough, it was the crest of Yale. The Hebrew letters I saw are known as Urim and Thummim (אורים ותמים) which translates to Yale’s motto of Light and Truth. We could also say it means Jesus’ parable of you are the salt and light of the world (Matthew 5).
(On the other side of the bridge is Harvard’s crest Veritas, which translates to Truth. These crests were apparently installed as a prank on Harvard in the Harvard – Yale rivalry, with Yale on the “right side of the road” and Harvard on the “wrong side of the road”. The Derby Road overpass of Rt. 34 leads to Yale in downtown New Haven.)
As I prayed through this, I sensed the Holy Spirit highlighting that Yale New Haven will prophetically be a center of future revival. And to contend in prayer for it.
And indeed, upon research, it historically has been. Apparently there have been 19 awakenings on the campus, with several of them led by President Timothy Dwight. In fact you can make the case that the first and second great awakenings came through Yale and New Haven as Jonathan Edwards was trained here, George Whitfield and D. L. Moody preached here. Even David Brainerd was expelled from Yale in 1741 to go on and lead great missionary work to the Indians during the first great awakening.
2012 Newtown
After the Sandy Hook Tragedy December 2012, I was seeking the Lord regarding the importance of national repentance, starting in the church. The premise being – unless we turn back to God in America, these senseless killings will continue.
Just weeks prior to that tragic day Dec 12, 2012, I was on the way home from praying for Connecticut up at the Capitol with the CCPN team in Hartford. I was redirected home via Interstate 84 due to traffic. Normally that means turning south on Rt. 8 at Waterbury. But GPS took me to exit 10, which is the Sandy Hook exit. I had never gone that way home before.
Whenever this kind of thing happens, I pay attention, knowing that sometimes God has me on a prayer assignment. So that day for whatever reason I claimed the land under the soles of my feet (tires of my truck) in prayer, just as Joshua did in the bible (Joshua 1:3). It was not a coincidence. I drove through Newtown past the flagpole in the center of the pavement and prayed for the town (as an aside – I live off “Newtown Turnpike” the old road from Westport to Newtown).
Two significant things happened to me in the wake of the Newtown shooting and out of that season of pressing in with God in prayer…
One, Jonathan Friz reached out to me early in 2013 to ask if I would be interested in spearheading 10 Days of Prayer in Connecticut. I accepted right away, because it was the answer to my prayer about the importance of repentance in the Connecticut Church.
Two, at some point later I discovered that Route 34 is defined as beginning in downtown New Haven and ending at Sandy Hook in Newtown. Interesting. This is that same route 34 overpass (Derby St.) that was highlighted to me with the Hebrew letters standing out on the Yale crest.
It was like God was decrypting a message through Isaiah 35…
A highway shall be there, and a road,
Isaiah 35:8
And it shall be called the Highway of Holiness
Given that:
- New Haven was a historic and future center of revival, and
- Sandy Hook was a place of national death and tragedy
It’s like God is saying there shall be a highway of holiness (Rt. 34) for this nation to walk on. That out of revival (New Haven), comes healing and salvation (Newtown). This highway of holiness is traversed by the means of repentance as “the unclean shall not passover it.”
If we want healing, we must have revival. If we want revival, we must have repentance. And it starts in the church.
Fast Forward to 2020
So, we have held state-wide 10 Days of Prayer meetings every fall from Rosh Hashana to Yom Kippur now for more than 13 years in Connecticut…
In 2020 – our eighth year of 10 Days in CT – my friend Joellen Putnam created a 10 Days of Prayer walk along the Farmington canal trail – an old canal path that went from New Haven to Northampton Massachusetts.
We started the head of the year off by beginning our prayer walk in New Haven on the campus of Yale on September 18, 2020 at St. Mary’s Church.
We prayed in that old beautiful (if not old-fashioned) church. Impressive with it vaulted ceilings, stain glass windows, array of candle stations. No one else was there as it was a Friday morning.
We rolled out onto the “canal trail” which began right on canal street adjacent to the church. This is in the heart of Yale all be it a few blocks from “old campus”.
We wound north through interesting neighborhoods of New Haven turning into North Haven. We passed many other Yale buildings in the beginning of the walk. We passed parks, a variety of churches (old and new, small and large), various neighborhoods.
We pressed on to reach south Hamden, the end of our journey day 1. As we reached the end of the walk, I received the phone call no parent ever wants to hear.
Bridgette was reporting to me what the doctors had just discovered. Ryan, our first born son, had been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.
What a gut punch. Everyone I was with prayed for us. But I quickly departed. Calling my parents and a few friends on the way back to Norwalk hospital. My task was now to help transfer Ryan from Norwalk Hospital to Yale Smilo Cancer Center in New Haven. Right back to where I just was.
I got Ryan loaded into the Ambulance and followed behind in my truck as an escort. The Ambulance pulled in to the emergency entrance. I gave my truck to an attendant. It was not the day I had assumed it would be. Rosh Hashanah 2020 (year 5781 in Hebrew Calander).
We prayed desperately for Ryan’s healing. At first, he improve drastically with his liver almost completely healed. Ryan fought valiantly and outlived his prognosis by 9 more months than the doctors originally thought. It was a gruesome and tortuous way to die.
Only 19 years young. (Recall those 19 revivals?) We fervently prayed for his healing.
Another woman at our church St. Paul Westport was miraculously and completely healed by God in 2003 of the same type of stage 4 cancer – which had so rotted her spine she couldn’t really walk. So we had faith that God could do the same for Ryan. “They will lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover” Mark 16:18.
Yet, Ryan died at Yale New Haven hospital on June 30, 2021. The same New Haven I had received word of his diagnosis some 10 months earlier. We even prayed for him to be raised from the dead right there in the hospital. But it wasn’t meant to be.
Later, I was given this scripture as a way of comfort and understanding, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.” John 12:24. I felt the Lord was saying Ryan’s life was that seed in the ground for harvest at Yale and in New Haven for America’s sake, especially among his generation. I believe Ryan is interceding together with Jesus from heaven for his generation.
The Great American Prayer Revival
This year, revival prayers will be going up all across America in the first ever 50-state Great American Prayers for revival from March 1-4.
The first GAP initiative was in 2024. It was a non-partisan National prayer effort during election day that was live streamed all day across America’s time zones – prayers to return to God. Here was our contribution to those prayers recorded at the Statue of Liberty
When seeking the Lord about Connecticut’s role in GAP this year, it was quickened to me that the very revival we have believed in and prayed for at Yale New Haven these past 15 years, related to this Great American Prayer iniative. This is that. This is why we desire to pray for repentance and revival at Yale New Haven during this time. March 1-4. When a remnant all across America will be praying with us and for us. That the bowls of heaven will be full of the prayers of the saints (Rev 5:8).
Interestingly, March 4 was America’s inauguration day for nearly 150 years before it later became January 20th. Also, March 2nd-3rd is Purim on the Jewish calander. Remeber those Hewbrew characters on Yale’s crest?
The Great American Prayer is spearheaded by former State Senator from Alabama Hank Erwin, who was featured in his sons’ movie Woodlawn as the high school football team chaplain (played by Sean Austin). Hank’s sons, the Erwin brothers have made films such as Jesus Revolution, I Can Only Imagine and the current TV series on Amazon, The House of David.
Hank is a man of faith, who deeply believes we are in desperate need – and on the precipice of – a great turning back to God in America.
May God be glorified in his Son. Sent to die for us – for America. Let US turn back to Him!
That all of America shall be saved!
– Reinhart Bonkee
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