Category: Messages and sermons

To Understand Billy Sunday, You Must First Understand the American City

To Understand Billy Sunday, You Must First Understand the American City

“Billy Sunday didn’t simply preach against sin. He preached into a nation struggling to hold itself together.”

Background of image AI-generated

One of the greatest mistakes we can make in studying Billy Sunday is viewing him in isolation.

Too often, we imagine Sunday as a colorful evangelist—a former professional baseball player who sprinted across the platform, smashed chairs for emphasis, and denounced liquor with unmatched enthusiasm. Those things are certainly true. But if that is all we see, we miss the larger story.

Billy Sunday was not merely a personality. He was a product of his time, and perhaps more importantly, he became one of the defining voices responding to one of the greatest social transformations in American history.

To understand Billy Sunday, we must first understand the America in which he preached.

A Nation Turned Upside Down

Between 1820 and 1920, the United States experienced astonishing change.

Millions left rural communities for rapidly growing cities. Waves of immigrants arrived from around the world. Railroads connected distant regions into a single national economy. Factories replaced farms. Skyscrapers reshaped city skylines. Electric lights, streetcars, telephones, and mass-produced goods transformed everyday life.

For many Americans, progress was exhilarating.

For others, it was deeply unsettling.

The close-knit communities that had once provided moral accountability were disappearing. In their place emerged crowded neighborhoods where neighbors were strangers, saloons flourished, political corruption thrived, prostitution was visible, crime increased, and families often struggled simply to survive.

Many Americans wondered whether the nation’s moral foundations were beginning to crumble.

Paul Boyer and the Search for Moral Order

Historian Paul Boyer explored this remarkable period in his influential book Urban Masses and Moral Order in America, 1820–1920.

Boyer argued that countless Protestant leaders were driven by a single concern: how could moral order be preserved in a rapidly urbanizing nation?

They did not simply preach sermons.

They built institutions.

Sunday schools multiplied. Rescue missions opened. YMCA chapters expanded. Bible societies distributed millions of Scriptures. Temperance organizations grew. City missions sought to reach neighborhoods that traditional churches struggled to influence.

These efforts represented far more than isolated ministries.

Together they formed a broad movement attempting to answer one pressing question:

How do you preserve Christian character in a society that is changing faster than anyone imagined possible?

Billy Sunday Arrives

Into this world stepped Billy Sunday.

He did not invent concerns about drunkenness, gambling, prostitution, broken homes, or political corruption. Those issues had occupied Protestant leaders for decades.

What Sunday did possess was an extraordinary ability to communicate those concerns with unusual passion, clarity, humor, and urgency.

He could hold thousands spellbound.

He spoke the language of ordinary people.

He transformed moral conviction into unforgettable images and memorable phrases.

Most importantly, he persuaded millions that the battle for America’s future was not merely political or economic.

It was spiritual.

More Than an Evangelist

Modern readers sometimes reduce Billy Sunday to a caricature—a loud prohibitionist or an emotional revival preacher.

That misses the larger historical reality.

Sunday saw himself as calling individuals to faith in Jesus Christ. Yet he also believed transformed individuals could renew homes, churches, communities, businesses, and ultimately the nation itself.

His revivals therefore addressed both the soul and society.

When Sunday preached against alcohol, he was not merely attacking a beverage.

He believed alcohol destroyed families.

When he denounced dishonesty in business, he was defending integrity.

When he challenged men to become faithful husbands and fathers, he was calling them back to responsibilities he believed were essential to a healthy civilization.

Whether one agrees with every conclusion he reached, it is impossible to understand his ministry apart from these broader concerns.

The Organization Behind the Evangelist

There is another important lesson Boyer helps us see.

Billy Sunday’s ministry was astonishingly well organized.

Long before modern event management became commonplace, Sunday’s campaigns mobilized entire cities.

Committees recruited volunteers.

Thousands joined mass choirs.

Newspapers covered meetings daily.

Business leaders participated.

Churches cooperated across denominational lines.

Follow-up systems helped connect new converts with local congregations.

None of this happened accidentally.

Sunday inherited nearly a century of organizational innovation developed by evangelical Protestants seeking to reach growing American cities.

His campaigns represented the maturity of that movement.

Reading Billy Sunday with Fresh Eyes

When we understand the world Billy Sunday inherited, we begin asking better questions.

Instead of asking only, “Why did Billy Sunday preach so forcefully?”

We ask:

Why were millions eager to hear him?

Why did civic leaders invite him?

Why did newspapers devote front-page coverage to his meetings?

Why did entire cities build temporary wooden tabernacles capable of seating thousands?

The answers lie not simply in Billy Sunday himself but in the anxieties and aspirations of the nation he served.

America was searching for moral stability amid extraordinary change.

Billy Sunday became one of the most recognizable voices offering an answer.

Looking Beyond the Caricature

History deserves better than caricature.

Billy Sunday was neither merely a religious celebrity nor simply a crusader against alcohol.

He stood at the intersection of faith, culture, urbanization, and one of the most significant periods of transformation in American history.

Understanding that larger story does not require us to agree with every sermon he preached.

It does require us to appreciate why so many Americans believed his message mattered.

If we wish to understand Billy Sunday fairly, we must first understand the world that shaped both his audience and his ministry.

Only then can we appreciate why, for millions of Americans, Billy Sunday was far more than an evangelist.

He became a voice calling a rapidly changing nation back to what many believed were its moral and spiritual foundations. 

“To-morrow”: Inside Billy Sunday’s Last Day in Fairfield

Seventh in a series drawn from Lindsay Denison’s profile of Billy Sunday in The American Magazine, September 1907.

By the final Sunday of the Fairfield revival, Billy Sunday had already brought nearly nine hundred people to a public profession of faith — more than any of the town’s ministers had believed possible. It would have been a triumph to stop there. Sunday had no intention of stopping. Lindsay Denison describes him on that last day as gripped by a fierce, almost savage zeal to gather in everyone still outside the fold.

What followed was, in Denison’s words, an unforgettable experience — and it makes the emotional climax of this whole series.

Three services in one day

Sunday’s custom was to preach three times on his final Sunday. The first, at half past ten in the morning, was open to all. The third, at night, was for everybody. In between came an afternoon service for men only — while Mrs. Sunday or one of the other helpers held a parallel meeting for women in one of the churches.

The men’s meeting, Denison thought, was in one sense the most impressive of the three. Much of the Fairfield company of the state militia sat on the platform in full uniform, many of them already Sunday converts. A great block of seats held the workmen of the Iowa Malleable Iron Works. The Odd Fellows, the Red Men, and the Woodmen filled reserved sections. The big barn-like room was packed wall to wall, with hundreds of men standing in the aisles.

The subject was “Booze.”

The banker who went first

When Sunday finished — whispering directions all the while to Honeywell about clearing the front benches to receive converts — he threw out the challenge: who would be the first to stand up for God and lead the way?

The answer came in a figure no one could miss. One of the town’s leading bankers rose and strode down the aisle, head erect and eyes shining, and behind him came farmers, storekeepers, lawyers, physicians, farm boys, and laborers. Sunday leaned far out over the edge of the platform, swaying his arms rhythmically as if to sweep the entire congregation forward with him, while the ministers and personal workers moved through the rows laboring with those still in doubt. Eighty men were converted in that single afternoon meeting.

The effect reached past the tabernacle walls. The next day, the agents of the two express companies had to report that three barrels of beer consigned to Fairfield citizens were refused on delivery — and in the “remarks” column of their paperwork, they noted the cause plainly: the influence of Sunday’s sermons.

A town that couldn’t get in

The crowds began gathering for the night meeting almost as soon as the men’s meeting let out, a little after four o’clock — though the evening service would not begin until half past six. By six, long streams of disappointed people were already tramping back downtown through the rain, having failed to get close enough even to hear Sunday’s voice.

Inside, the air itself seemed to tingle. Sunday, hoarse from a week of open-air preaching in the surrounding towns, could at times barely raise more than a husky whisper — yet every syllable carried. He spoke of how doubting parents and hesitating children might save one another, of the double blessing that came to anyone who brought a loved one out of the darkness, and, above all, of the nearness of death.

His text was a single word: To-morrow.

The veil and the coffin

The closing was vintage Sunday — fear wielded with terrible precision. To-night, he told them, when the last song was sung and the lights switched off and the tabernacle stood dark, the sinner’s chance would be gone. To-morrow, he warned, the doctor’s buggy might be standing at your gate, the family gathered with handkerchiefs to their eyes, the doctor turning to say, “He is gone.” Borrowing a line from the evangelist Moody, he pictured the unrepentant carried off as a corpse without Christ, in a coffin without Christ, to a grave without Christ. If only God would draw back the veil between a man and his own coffin, Sunday cried, he would leap back in horror to find it within arm’s reach. But you say “To-morrow.”

Then came the appeal, and the slow hypnotic sweep of his arms out over the benches. They came from every direction — girls and old women, gray-bearded veterans and schoolboys in their first long trousers, rich men and poor. Honeywell and the Rev. Mr. Cole ran up the aisles with arms outstretched to welcome them, while Sunday reached down to take each hand and give his blessing and the choir glided from hymn to hymn, sometimes humming, sometimes shouting in triumph.

The picture that stayed

Denison confesses that the reporters stopped taking notes. Everyone in the room was on his feet; some were standing on the tables. And out of the whole turmoil, he says, one small picture stood clear.

Fred Seibert had broken through the crowd at the back, dragging by the collar a weak-faced, loose-lipped boy — shambling along shamefaced but not unwilling. Sunday clapped him on the back; Honeywell settled him three rows from the front. Then, from a far corner on the left, came a muffled scream. A shabbily dressed girl came crowding out into the aisle and ran forward, tears streaming down her face, her hat knocked askew and her red hair hanging loose over her shoulder. She barely touched Sunday’s hand. She ran to the third bench, threw herself on the boy’s shoulder, wrapped her arms around his neck, and hid her face against his. She was still there, motionless, when a shout from another corner announced one more soul won.

Denison had seen college football celebrations, the riots of joy after a Yale–Harvard boat race, a famous New York district attorney’s election-night headquarters. He had never, he wrote, seen a crowd more beside itself than the Fairfield tabernacle that night.

The noise was formless until Fischer took hold of it and shaped it. There were a hundred surges toward the platform and Billy Sunday; people kept calling for three cheers for him. And when the final tally was announced — 1,118 Fairfield souls won from the Devil for Christ — it seemed, Denison wrote, as though the very roof were tugging at its rafters.

Next in the series: What 1907 Tells Us About the Rise of Billy Sunday — a closing reflection.

“To-morrow”: Inside Billy Sunday’s Last Day in Fairfield

Seventh in a series drawn from Lindsay Denison’s profile of Billy Sunday in The American Magazine, September 1907.

By the final Sunday of the Fairfield revival, Billy Sunday had already brought nearly nine hundred people to a public profession of faith — more than any of the town’s ministers had believed possible. It would have been a triumph to stop there. Sunday had no intention of stopping. Lindsay Denison describes him on that last day as gripped by a fierce, almost savage zeal to gather in everyone still outside the fold.

What followed was, in Denison’s words, an unforgettable experience — and it makes the emotional climax of this whole series.

Three services in one day

Sunday’s custom was to preach three times on his final Sunday. The first, at half past ten in the morning, was open to all. The third, at night, was for everybody. In between came an afternoon service for men only — while Mrs. Sunday or one of the other helpers held a parallel meeting for women in one of the churches.

The men’s meeting, Denison thought, was in one sense the most impressive of the three. Much of the Fairfield company of the state militia sat on the platform in full uniform, many of them already Sunday converts. A great block of seats held the workmen of the Iowa Malleable Iron Works. The Odd Fellows, the Red Men, and the Woodmen filled reserved sections. The big barn-like room was packed wall to wall, with hundreds of men standing in the aisles.

The subject was “Booze.”

The banker who went first

When Sunday finished — whispering directions all the while to Honeywell about clearing the front benches to receive converts — he threw out the challenge: who would be the first to stand up for God and lead the way?

The answer came in a figure no one could miss. One of the town’s leading bankers rose and strode down the aisle, head erect and eyes shining, and behind him came farmers, storekeepers, lawyers, physicians, farm boys, and laborers. Sunday leaned far out over the edge of the platform, swaying his arms rhythmically as if to sweep the entire congregation forward with him, while the ministers and personal workers moved through the rows laboring with those still in doubt. Eighty men were converted in that single afternoon meeting.

The effect reached past the tabernacle walls. The next day, the agents of the two express companies had to report that three barrels of beer consigned to Fairfield citizens were refused on delivery — and in the “remarks” column of their paperwork, they noted the cause plainly: the influence of Sunday’s sermons.

A town that couldn’t get in

The crowds began gathering for the night meeting almost as soon as the men’s meeting let out, a little after four o’clock — though the evening service would not begin until half past six. By six, long streams of disappointed people were already tramping back downtown through the rain, having failed to get close enough even to hear Sunday’s voice.

Inside, the air itself seemed to tingle. Sunday, hoarse from a week of open-air preaching in the surrounding towns, could at times barely raise more than a husky whisper — yet every syllable carried. He spoke of how doubting parents and hesitating children might save one another, of the double blessing that came to anyone who brought a loved one out of the darkness, and, above all, of the nearness of death.

His text was a single word: To-morrow.

The veil and the coffin

The closing was vintage Sunday — fear wielded with terrible precision. To-night, he told them, when the last song was sung and the lights switched off and the tabernacle stood dark, the sinner’s chance would be gone. To-morrow, he warned, the doctor’s buggy might be standing at your gate, the family gathered with handkerchiefs to their eyes, the doctor turning to say, “He is gone.” Borrowing a line from the evangelist Moody, he pictured the unrepentant carried off as a corpse without Christ, in a coffin without Christ, to a grave without Christ. If only God would draw back the veil between a man and his own coffin, Sunday cried, he would leap back in horror to find it within arm’s reach. But you say “To-morrow.”

Then came the appeal, and the slow hypnotic sweep of his arms out over the benches. They came from every direction — girls and old women, gray-bearded veterans and schoolboys in their first long trousers, rich men and poor. Honeywell and the Rev. Mr. Cole ran up the aisles with arms outstretched to welcome them, while Sunday reached down to take each hand and give his blessing and the choir glided from hymn to hymn, sometimes humming, sometimes shouting in triumph.

The picture that stayed

Denison confesses that the reporters stopped taking notes. Everyone in the room was on his feet; some were standing on the tables. And out of the whole turmoil, he says, one small picture stood clear.

Fred Seibert had broken through the crowd at the back, dragging by the collar a weak-faced, loose-lipped boy — shambling along shamefaced but not unwilling. Sunday clapped him on the back; Honeywell settled him three rows from the front. Then, from a far corner on the left, came a muffled scream. A shabbily dressed girl came crowding out into the aisle and ran forward, tears streaming down her face, her hat knocked askew and her red hair hanging loose over her shoulder. She barely touched Sunday’s hand. She ran to the third bench, threw herself on the boy’s shoulder, wrapped her arms around his neck, and hid her face against his. She was still there, motionless, when a shout from another corner announced one more soul won.

Denison had seen college football celebrations, the riots of joy after a Yale–Harvard boat race, a famous New York district attorney’s election-night headquarters. He had never, he wrote, seen a crowd more beside itself than the Fairfield tabernacle that night.

The noise was formless until Fischer took hold of it and shaped it. There were a hundred surges toward the platform and Billy Sunday; people kept calling for three cheers for him. And when the final tally was announced — 1,118 Fairfield souls won from the Devil for Christ — it seemed, Denison wrote, as though the very roof were tugging at its rafters.

Next in the series: What 1907 Tells Us About the Rise of Billy Sunday — a closing reflection.

When is a revival needed? – Billy Sunday

Colorized picture from 1915. This was Billy’s favorite picture at the time.

“A revival is needed when the worldly spirit is in the church of God. It isn’t necessary to do something grossly inconsistent. A ship is all right in the sea, but all wrong when the sea is in her. The church of God is all right in the world, but all wrong when the world is in the church. Some people come to church on Sunday morning and on Monday morning they take a header into the world and the church never sees them again until Sunday morning. They squat and take up a little space in the pew and stay there and put a little money on the plate, but you never see them again until Sunday morning. I tell you, I believe half of the church members could die and the church wouldn’t lose anything of its spiritual force; it would lose them in numbers, but it wouldn’t lose anything in spiritual power.

I tell you, my friends, we need a panic in religion; the world don’t need informing; it needs reforming. We are going to the devil over culture clubs, as if the world needed informing; it don’t need anything of the kind. There are people who go to church and go to a certain denomination because their wife goes there. They got their religion and their property in their name. They go to that church.”

Cited in: Philadelphia Evening Public Ledger. January 6, 1915:6.

From a sermon on A Defense of Revivals, from Habakkuk 3:2. January 5, 1915. Philadelphia.

What a revival does? – Billy Sunday

Cited in: The Evening Public Ledger. January 5, 1915: 5.

“What is a revival? Now listen to me. A revival does two things. First, it returns the church from her backsliding; and, second, it causes the conversion of men and women; and it always includes the conviction of sin on the part of the church. What a spell the devil seems to cast over the church today!

“I suppose the people here are pretty fair representatives of the church of God, and if everybody did what you do there would never be a revival. Suppose I did no more than you do, then no people would ever be converted through my efforts; I would fold my arms and rust out. A revival helps to bring the unsaved to Jesus Christ.

“God Almighty never intended that the devil should triumph over the church. He never intended that the saloons should walk roughshod over Christianity. And if you think that anybody is going to frighten me, you don’t know me yet.

“I will cram it down their throats in this town for the miserable lies they hurl against me up and down the streets of this city. Don’t you forget it. You bet your life. You bet, and they will get it.

“When is a revival needed? When the individuals are careless and unconcerned. If the church was down on her face in prayer they would be more concerned with the fellow outside. The church has degenerated into a third-rate amusement joint with religion left out.

“When is a revival needed? When carelessness and unconcern keep the people asleep. It is must the duty of the church to awaken and work and labor for the men and women of this city as it is the duty of the fire department to arouse when the call sounds. What would you think of the fire department of Philadelphia if it slept while the town burned? You would condemn it and I will condemn you if you sleep and let men and women go to hell. It is just as much your business to be awake. The church of God is asleep today; it is turned into a dormitory, and has taken the devil’s opiates.”

Sermon: When chickens come home to roost

One of Billy’s favorite sermons was When chickens come home to Roost. He would preach it often and usually in the first 1-2 weeks of a revival.

What was the sermon about?

In “Chickens Come Home to Roost,” Billy Sunday argues that sin is never isolated or harmless—it inevitably returns with consequences that grow over time. What begins as a small compromise develops into habit, then character, and ultimately destruction. He emphasizes that sin corrupts the individual internally before it manifests outwardly, dulling the conscience and weakening the will. Sunday also stresses that sin is not merely personal; it affects families, communities, and even nations. He dismantles common excuses—denial, delay, and comparison—and insists that no one escapes moral accountability. The sermon builds toward an urgent appeal: repentance must happen now, before sin’s consequences fully mature and bring irreversible damage.

Representative Quote:
“Your sin may seem quiet tonight, but it will rise up tomorrow and demand its wages.”

How did Billy’s Baltimore revival sermons compare to his Trenton campaign (both in 1916)?

From Trenton to Baltimore: How Billy Sunday’s Preaching Evolved in 1916

When Billy Sunday concluded his revival campaign in Trenton, New Jersey, in February 1916, he had already delivered an extraordinary number of sermons in just a few winter weeks. Soon afterward he moved south to begin what would become an even larger campaign in Baltimore, Maryland.

A comparison of the sermon lists from the two cities reveals something fascinating about Sunday’s preaching strategy. While the evangelist was famous for repeating certain signature sermons from city to city, the Baltimore campaign shows a noticeable shift in emphasis and structure compared with Trenton.

The Baltimore Tabernacle

The Trenton Campaign: Classic Revival Preaching

The Trenton sermons follow the pattern of a traditional evangelistic revival. Many of the titles focus directly on conversion, repentance, and the urgency of salvation. Messages such as What Must I Do to Be Saved?, After Death, Judgment, Rich Young Ruler, and What Shall the End Be? formed the backbone of Sunday’s preaching.

These sermons were part of Sunday’s well-known revival repertoire. In Trenton he rotated them rapidly, returning to the themes of judgment, repentance, and personal decision again and again. Titles like Backsliding, Get Right, Choose Ye This Day, and Be Sure Your Sins Will Find You Out show how directly he pressed the audience toward a response.

This approach reflected the classic revival method: present the danger of sin, call for repentance, and invite listeners to make a public decision.

Baltimore: A Broader and More Structured Campaign

When Sunday arrived in Baltimore later in February, the preaching program became noticeably broader. While the evangelistic messages remained, the sermon list shows a wider range of topics and a more deliberate sequence of themes.

Several sermons addressed revival within the church itself, including The Need of Revivals, Revive Thy Work, and The Restoration of the Church. Others focused on Christian living, such as Following Christ, Positive and Negative Religion, and Show Thyself a Man.

New Sermons Appear

The Baltimore list also introduces several sermons that do not appear in the Trenton campaign. Messages such as The Authenticity of the Bible, God’s Battle Line, The Temptation of Christ, Love Your Enemies, and The Incarnation of Christ reveal a more doctrinal dimension to the preaching.

In other words, Baltimore was not only about winning converts. It also included teaching aimed at strengthening believers and encouraging churches.

The Core Sermons Remained

Despite these differences, Sunday’s core sermons appear in both campaigns. Titles such as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Fig Tree, Samson, The Atonement, Choose Ye This Day, and What Must I Do to Be Saved? were staples of his preaching for years.

These messages formed the foundation of Sunday’s evangelistic ministry, and he carried them from city to city with remarkable consistency.

A Larger Revival

The Baltimore campaign also dwarfed Trenton in size. By the time the meetings ended in April, reported attendance had reached 1,376,000 people across the entire series of services.

Such a large audience may explain the broader range of sermons. A major metropolitan revival like Baltimore required not only evangelistic appeals but also teaching, church renewal, and special meetings addressing different audiences.

Two Cities, One Evangelist

Taken together, the Trenton and Baltimore sermon lists provide a revealing glimpse into Billy Sunday’s methods. Trenton shows the evangelist operating in his classic revival mode—pressing the claims of the gospel with urgency and repetition. Baltimore shows him expanding that message into a wider program of preaching that addressed both unbelievers and the church itself.

In both cities, however, the heart of the message remained the same. Whether speaking in a smaller industrial city like Trenton or in a large urban center like Baltimore, Billy Sunday continued to deliver the message that had defined his ministry from the beginning: a call to repentance, faith, and a transformed life.

How did Billy Sunday sum up his own theology (c.1916)?

“My theology is really summed up in four letters: H-e-l-p. I am here to do my best to help the people in this old world live better, and to show them the way to do it. Some people can see no way out for the sinner except through the police court or the potter’s field. I have come to tell you there is another way—through repentance and belief in the Lord Jesus Christ.

“Some people have put their trust in government, but there is no salvation through government. They all have failed to suppress vice and develop virtue, America as well as the rest. Others put their trust in education. You can dot every hill with a schoolhouse and put a university in every block and it will save no one unless it is combined with virtue and faith.

Source: April 13, 1916. Baltimore Sun (p.6)

Sermon: David and Nathan, 2 Samuel 12

Billy Sunday preached the sermon of David and Nathan often during 1915-1916, using it in Kansas City, Baltimore, Philly, and Omaha.

Billy was fond of using narrative passages of Scripture to apply to a gospel sitting.

In this sermon, Billy Sunday argues that the Bible’s credibility is demonstrated by its honesty in revealing both the virtues and sins of its central figures. This transparency proves Scripture is not fabricated but divinely truthful. From this foundation, he emphasizes the universality and progressive nature of sin, showing how it enslaves individuals and shapes character over time. Sunday rejects the idea that morality, religious rituals, or personal effort can remove sin, insisting that only Christ provides true forgiveness and transformation. Genuine salvation, he argues, results in a changed life, not mere outward reform. The sermon builds toward an urgent appeal for repentance and new birth, calling listeners to abandon self-deception and receive the cleansing and renewal that only God can provide.

June 4, 1916. The Kansas City Star.

Here are some noteworthy quotes from the sermon

“God tells both sides of the story. He doesn’t whitewash His saints—He shows you the black spots as well as the bright.”

“A man doesn’t become a criminal in a day; he practices himself into it. Sin is a habit before it is a headline.”

“You can’t whitewash your heart with good works—sin soaks through. It takes the blood of Christ to make it clean.”

“If a man is born again and lives like the devil, then either he isn’t born again—or the Bible isn’t true.”

“Revivals Grew by Little”: How Billy Sunday’s Campaigns Slowly Expanded, c.1916

When the revival campaign of Billy Sunday reached Kansas City in 1916, observers could easily assume that the evangelist’s enormous crowds and national reputation had appeared overnight. But a reflective article in the The Kansas City Star reminded readers that Sunday’s success had actually grown slowly and deliberately over many years.

The Baltimore Tabernacle

The paper explained that there was nothing sudden or “mushroom-like” about the rise of the Sunday revivals.

“There is nothing ‘mushroom’ in the growth of the Billy Sunday meetings.”

Instead, the evangelist’s methods and audience steadily developed over time. In the early years, when Sunday first began holding revival meetings, his audiences often found little that seemed unusual.

“Early audiences found nothing spectacular in the sermons of the revivalist.”

Those early campaigns were also modest in scale. At first, Sunday and his team believed that smaller communities were the natural limit of their work.

“We used to think that the town of ten thousand population was our limit.”

As the years passed, however, confidence grew. The team gradually moved into larger towns and then into major cities. The article recalled how Sunday’s organization expanded step by step—building larger tabernacles and reaching larger crowds with each campaign.

“All the time we were gradually adding to our party and building larger tabernacles.”

By 1916, the scale had changed dramatically. Cities once thought far beyond reach were now the focus of massive campaigns.

“Here we are and New York City is in sight with a tabernacle seating twenty-five thousand.”

The article also emphasized that Sunday’s preaching style had developed its own distinctive character. His revival methods were not borrowed directly from older traditions but shaped by his own personality and experience.

The writer noted that Sunday had “thrown out the life line in a fashion distinctly unique.”

Another aspect of his ministry that caught the attention of reporters was the structure of the campaigns themselves. A typical revival lasted about a month, with the message unfolding gradually over time.

In the early weeks, Sunday often avoided direct appeals for conversion, instead using stories and humor to gain the attention of his audience. Only later did the preaching intensify.

By the third week, the article explained, Sunday would devote his sermons to confronting sin and pressing listeners toward repentance. The final week focused on urging people to make a decision.

Even the physical setting reflected Sunday’s distinctive approach. Unlike some revivalists, he rejected the traditional “mourner’s bench” used in earlier revival meetings. Instead, converts were invited to come forward and sit in chairs while he spoke with them personally.

The article also noted that Sunday was not closely tied to any one denomination. While he often expressed appreciation for various churches, his ministry remained broadly interdenominational.

By the time Kansas City hosted the campaign in 1916, Billy Sunday had become one of the most recognizable religious figures in America. Yet the newspaper’s reflection reminded readers that the movement had not been built in a single moment.

It had grown—campaign by campaign, city by city, and year by year.

And in the process, Billy Sunday had created a revival method that was unmistakably his own.