Billy Sunday example essay topic

Greg Ivey 02-07-02 Billy Sunday The book I read was Billy Sunday. It consists of 189 pages and was written by William T. Ellis in 1959. Billy Sunday starts off with the author representing Billy Sunday as "one of God's tools". He is described in great detail as to how God used him to stir up millions to change their ways and "hit the sawdust trail". In 1862, William Ashley (yes, his middle name was Ashley) Sunday was born to a fatherless home in Ames, Iowa.

His father had died whilst serving for his divided country in the Civil War. Billy had received his name from his brave and valiant father. As a 20 year old youth in 1883, Billy played baseball in the lots of his neighborhood in Marshalltown, Iowa. One day the captain for the Chicago White Sox, A.C. Anson, was in the lots watching all the teenagers, young adults, and Billy Sunday playing baseball. Anson was so impressed with what he had seen in Billy's baseball performance that Billy was signed unto the White Sox soon after. According to the author, Sunday was a wonderful baseball player.

He was known to be the acknowledged champion sprinter in the National League. Sunday's teammates enjoyed him as well did the fans. Billy was described as a "man's man". ... I'll leave it at that. In 1886, Sunday was led to the Lord by a street preacher named Harry Monroe in Chicago.

Will this decision jeopardize his baseball career? Stay tuned for the next paragraphs. In 1891, Billy quit baseball forever to work as an Assistant Secretary in the Department of Religious Work at the Chicago Y.M.C.A. That decision probably flabbergasted his teammates, his fans, and sports columnists alike. But like Moses, sacrifices create victories that which most honor God. You would think that Billy would have rather preferred a position as Physical Director, since he was a professional baseball player. He was offered that position, but he refused due to his new found dedication to God.

After 3 years of working at the YMCA, Sunday had gone under the wing of evangelist Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman. Billy did basically the same things he did at the YMCA, except he was gaining evangelic preaching experience and confidence in speaking on a platform. In 1896, Dr. Chapman decided to throw in the towel and settle down as a pastor in Philadelphia. This decision had left Sunday unemployed with nowhere to go. At this time, Sunday had a wife and 2 children at this time. Billy decided to leave it to God to decide where He wanted Billy to go.

Soon after, Billy received a telegram from Garner, Iowa. The telegram invited Sunday out to lead special evangelistic meetings at the church in Garner, Iowa. After that telegram, Sunday never had to seek evangelistic work ever again. God brought them all to him. Billy Sunday held groundbreaking evangelistic meetings everywhere he went. Almost all towns and cities he visited had received a spiritual revival thanks to the leadership of Billy Sunday's influential speaking.

Billy's preaching was so intense, it was sometimes known as "acrobatic" preaching. One newspaper editor commented that Sunday's pacing up & down and across the platform would equal a mile in one night. Sunday's "acrobatics" further showed the emphasis that Billy intended on getting across. At the end of each of Sunday's services, floods of people rushed the platform to firmly grip Billy's hand to show their conversion to Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. What I had just described was known as "hitting the sawdust trail", since the floors of the churches were covered in sawdust.

After 20 years of traveling across the nation creating revivals from city to city, Billy Sunday had literally "burned out for Christ" and reached a period of exhaustion. At that time he was known to speak "as a dying man to dying men". On November 6, 1935, Billy had died in Chicago at Moody Memorial Church. With over 400,000 conversions for the Lord, Billy Sunday will never be forgotten for his great service to God.