Bob Shillingstad

June 8, 2023

The Power of One Person

We The Patriots USA Conference

Last weekend Jane and I attended the National Conference of “We The Patriots USA”  in Boise with several hundred fellow patriots.  This organization has moved their headquarters from Connecticut to the Boise area to escape as other refugees have done moving out of the coastal areas. It was a great conference that included Dr. Peter McCullough, Dr. Ryan Cole, Charlie Kirk, Steve Deace and many other speakers.  If there was one consistent message throughout it was this: Be courageous and don’t be silent no matter the cost, you can make a difference.

We saw this even in Kellogg, Idaho with Travis Lohr a high school senior denied the right to walk in high school graduation with classmates.  His crime? He spoke to the students in the lower grades the truth that “boys are boys and girls are girls”.  Physicians like Dr. McCullough and Dr. Cole have paid a higher price professionally for speaking out.  When asked if he would do it again, Dr. Cole responded, “In a heartbeat”.

It is incumbent upon all of is to speak out against the insanity but to frame it in light of God’s truth, ultimate truth.  The truths that our founders anchored our founding documents in. We need to be bold in our witness of the gospel.   Some may ask the question, “What good can one person do?”  There are dozens of examples in the Bible but also so many examples in our country’s history.  Let me tell you about two men you may have never heard of but their story should be taught to our children and grandchildren.  A free black man in the early 19th century who went by the name of “Black Harry” and another man by the name of Jeremiah Lampier who lived in the middle of the 19th century.

Black Harry, his preferred name, was born in North Carolina around 1750. After being converted, he discovered an immense preaching gift. Francis Asbury answered the call of John Wesley to advance the Methodist movement in America, and Black Harry was his traveling partner. Eventually Harry himself started preaching, often to groups of slaves and later to white churches.  He went off by himself to the “Northwest Territory” of the Ohio River region visiting communities and preaching in areas that would later become Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and other states.  Many years later travelers coming through this area would comment on various communities that they were “different”.  Nice settlements, few taverns and many churches.  When they asked about what made these places so different the answer was, “they are just a bunch of Hoosiers.”  You see “Black Harry’s” last name was Hoosier.  Now you know who made that difference and where the name “Hoosier” came from— especially in Indiana!

If you don’t know about Jeremiah Lampier you will be amazed what this layman accomplished by starting a simple prayer meeting in New York City.  The stock market crashed  and the panic of 1857 caused some to commit suicide, but others knew where to go to pray.  Slavery had deeply divided the nation. This prayer revival became the “third great awakening” in America. The unity among believers was simply amazing.  Pastors wept as they watched, for they were not the leaders but their job was to oversee what God had done.  One traveler reported that he had come from Omaha, Nebraska and encountered prayer meetings continuously for two thousand miles to the East Coast!  In three years one million out of a population of 28 million (4%) were saved in America alone.

The country still went through a terrible civil war and the division was deep as slavery was abolished.  What was the purpose of this revival?  Did it prepare us for the testing that lay ahead?  Out of this prayer revival did come leaders like Dwight Moody after the war and others who brought about much needed social change.

Our country in the same ways is facing another deep division and dividing into tribes. We saw hundreds of people volunteer to defeat library boards who wanted to groom our children. More work is needed this fall to reform school boards. The election in 2024 may be our most important since 1860 to save our country.  But the reminder is before us that one person, trusting in God, proclaiming truth, filled with His spirit, can effect much change.  Be bold, have courage and don’t be cowed into compromise.