John Fawcett

The great evangelist George Whitefield spoke to an enormous Bradford, England crowd in September 1755. He preached at a makeshift outdoor pulpit on John 3.15 “that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him [Jesus].” John Fawcett (1739-1817) who worked as an apprentice to a tailor, listened intently and later wrote about that moment in his diary, “In the sixteenth year of my age it pleased God…to work upon my mind and give me a deeper sense of my lost condition.” John eventually quit his job to become pastor of a rural church in Wainsgate comprised of farmers and shepherds. He went wherever an open door presented itself and the “spirit of inquiry was excited.” This tiny church began to grow, and a gallery was added. Revival was in the air! John and his wife Mary lived in humble circumstances with their four young children. He was paid 25 pounds per year ($200), supplemented by parishioners giving them wool and potatoes. After seven years, he attracted the notice of a larger, more influential church in London. He consented to go, preparing for their departure by selling books and furniture. Yet, in the words of his biographer, “His affection for his little flock would not suffice him to leave them.” He resolved to stay and asked if the church could raise his salary to 40 pounds. Leaders weren’t confident they could raise the money and declined the offer. His biographer recorded, “His attachments to them were so firmly fixed that he concluded to cast himself upon Providence and live and die with them.” His sermon after the decision to remain was based on Luke 12.15, “Life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” He stayed another 47 years! Fawcett collected 100 of his songs written to accompany his sermons into a hymnbook. A friend said that the hymn Fawcett wrote in 1772, “Blest Be the Tie That Binds” commemorated his decision to remain at Wainsgate. When Fawcett joined the church and was baptized at 19, he wrote the following prayer in his diary: