Today I will be summarizing the life of George Whitefield.
Whitefield was born in Lancaster, England in 1714. His parents were rather poor innkeepers, and George did not have the means by which to attend college. As a result he paid for his college by being a servitor at Oxford. It was at Oxford he later found the Methodist Church. Whitefield was initiated into the legalistic style of Christianity during his time at Oxford, but the lack of exercise felt very unnatural to him. After crying out to God in a prayer one day, he finally had a conversation experience, which was a live debate on the Methodist practice of Christianity. After this Whitefield visited the American colonies as a parish priest. While there he saw an orphanage in great need and decided that working for the orphanage, along with preaching, would be his life’s work. He returned to England to raise funds and continued preaching. Whitefield visited the colonies a total of seven times, and eventually died and was buried there. He was not assigned to a single church, but rather worked as a traveling priest. Some people thought his voice could be heard for five miles, allowing him to preach to thousands of people at once without amplification. Whitfield was loved by most, but he still had some haters that occasionally started riots.
Whitfield died in 1770 and is remembered for being the greatest man of the Great Awakening.
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