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Billy Graham has been the greatest evangelist in American history – and arguably, the world. But Graham wasn’t the first world-famous evangelist from America. In fact, he wasn’t even the first world-famous evangelist from America named Billy! That honor belongs to Billy Sunday.
And like the umpires that officiated the game he once played, he “called ‘em like he saw ‘em.”
William Ashley Sunday barely survived his poverty-stricken childhood, but by the time he was 21, he’d won the right to play major league baseball, eventually taking the field for the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Philadelphia Athletics. He got off to a rough start, but in 1886, he was batting .261 and had stolen 84 bases.
Then Sunday met the Lord of the Sabbath.
The YMCA didn’t have to try very hard to convince him to leave baseball and begin preaching at their services (even though it was a considerable cut in pay). But Sunday didn’t have any formal training or education…and his preaching usually showed it. His language was “colorful” to say the least. His wife would even try to change his vocabulary by including words in her letters that she knew he would have to look up in a dictionary.
But, it didn’t do much good. Sunday remained a “blue collar preacher” and took aim at the common man. He prided himself on his simple, down-to-earth preaching. Prepare yourself; here are a few examples of his style:
I want to preach the gospel so plainly that men can come from the factories and not have to bring a dictionary.
I don’t believe your own bastard theory of evolution, either; I believe it’s pure jackass nonsense.
I’m against sin. I’ll kick it as long as I have a foot. I’ll fight it as long as I have a fist. I’ll butt it as long as I have a head. I’ll bite it as long as I’ve got a tooth. And when I’m old and fistless and footless and toothless, I’ll gum it till I go home to Glory and it goes home to perdition.
Sunday preached to millions and was responsible for leading roughly 300,000 people to Christ during his ministry. And he did all of it in a simple way that common people could understand.
Resource’s Origin:
131 Christians Everyone Should Know by Mark Galli. Broadman and Holman, 2000, Pages 73-75.
Topics Illustrated Include:
Athlete
Baseball
Evangelism
Evangelist
Language
Preacher
Preaching
Sports
Style
Transformation
Words
(Resource cataloged by David R Smith)
