The great awakening and Theodore Frelinghuysen
The great awakening was a series of revivals all across the New World or New England. Sharp sermons were perched and thousands of people were forgiven of their past sins and turned toward Christ again. Before the great awakening, the thirteen colonies were in a lax spiritual state, meaning they weren’t very fruitful in their Christian lives, they didn’t have high moral status, and they weren’t living in a very godly way.
Word got out to Germany that the thirteen colonies needed some converting. Thankfully Theodore Frelinghuysen, a Dutch-Reformed minister, was done with his teachings in Germany, so he went on the next boat back to New Jersey and started a new missionary there. Once Frelinghuysen got to New Jersey, he was quite shocked on how the people acted. He was one of the first preachers to see a problem with the state of Christianity.
When Frelinghuysen preached, he was very strait forward with his congregation and began to preach direct messages calling them to repent. He stuck to this tactic despite the resistance from his congregation. The town’s folk of New Jersey were quite ticked with Frelinghuysen because we, as humans, don’t like being told that we are wrong, and that was exactly Frelinghuysen was doing! So the people repented against him, but things changed.
Despite the initial response, Frelinghuysen led people to the lord. And even centuries later, people were still impacted by Mr. Theodore Frelinghuysen, best priest in the thirteen colonies.
