Background
Wilbur John Chapman was born on June 17, 1859 in Richmond, Indiana, United States to a Christian family of Alexander Hamilton and Lorinda (McWhinney) Chapman. His mother died when he was thirteen.
173 W Lorain St, Oberlin, OH 44074, United States
Chapman studied at Oberlin College.
555 N Sheridan Rd, Lake Forest, IL 60045, United States
In 1879 Chapman graduated from Lake Forest College.
Walnut Hills, Cincinnati, Ohio, 45206, United States
Chapman studied at Lane Theological Seminary.
1189 Beall Ave, Wooster, OH 44691, United States
John Wilbur received a Doctor of Divinity degree from the College of Wooster.
Grabengasse 1, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
John Wilbur studied in Germany at Heidelberg University.
John Wilbur Chapman.
(For more than one hundred years, The Secret of a Happy Da...)
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1899
(New York told me that in the old country he was a contrac...)
New York told me that in the old country he was a contractor putting up the large buildings which stand in many of the Irish cities. In constructing one of them he noticed that the workmen were building a little out of line, and, stepping back so that he could see the place plainly, he noticed that the workmen were standing in the way of his seeing plainly; and so he shouted to them to stand aside on the scaffolding. One of them stepped back and lost his balance. My friend said that he was powerless to help him, but there stood beside him another man who quickly sprung forward with upreaching arms. The falling man struck his hands, bounded off into the sand, and was scarcely injured but the one who had saved him was terribly hurt. His arms were driven into their sockets, his spine was pushed out of shape, and, when he rose from his bed of suffering, it was to be forever deformed.
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1900
(Christian home. A mong the many lessons which I have lear...)
Christian home. A mong the many lessons which I have learned as I have travelled along lifes journey is: that the power for good of such a home cannot easily be overestimated, and the influence for evil of a home not controlled by Christian influence is harmful indeed. Experience is a great teacher. The man who has passed middle life and is possessed of the memory of a home where Christ was honored, and the Bible loved, is able to speak with some authority concerning what a home should be and also as to what it may accomplish in the life of a child.
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1917
Wilbur John Chapman was born on June 17, 1859 in Richmond, Indiana, United States to a Christian family of Alexander Hamilton and Lorinda (McWhinney) Chapman. His mother died when he was thirteen.
In his youth John Wilbur attended a Quaker First Day School on Sunday mornings and the Grace Methodist Church Sunday School in the afternoons. In 1876 he united with the local Presbyterian Church, and left for Oberlin College soon after.
In 1877 he went on to Lake Forest University where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in two years. Then, in 1882, Chapman completed his training at Lane Seminary.
John Wilbur continued to study and was later given a Doctor of Divinity degree from the College of Wooster and a Doctor of Law degree from Heidelberg University in Germany.
John Wilbur completed the ordination into the ministry still being a student of Lane Theological Seminary. From 1882 he served as pastor of College Corner Presbyterian Church in Ohio and Liberty Presbyterian Church in Indiana. That was followed by the pastorate service in the Dutch Reformed Church in Schuylerville and the First Reformed Church in Albany.
Before starting active evangelistic work, Chapman also led Bethany Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. The next year he finally took on leading a number of evangelistic events and preaching with a famous American evangelist Dwight Lyman Moody. That lasted during three years. Then, for a short time, Chapman returned to the pastorate service in Philadelphia and later in New York serving for the Fourth Presbyterian Church.
At the end of 1895, Chapman was appointed Corresponding Secretary of the Presbyterian General Assembly's Committee on Evangelism. He directed the activities of fifty-one evangelists in 470 cities and also found time to write one of his numerous books, Present Day Evangelism. Besides, Chapman became head of evangelism committee of the Presbyterian Church and the director of the Winona Lake Bible Conference. Later, in 1903, he was made the executive secretary of the Presbyterian General Assembly.
From 1904-1909 Chapman began to develop and promote a new method of urban evangelism. His idea was to hold several meetings throughout a city simultaneously, thereby reaching more people. The first city to try Chapman's theory was Pittsburgh in 1904. The city was divided into nine districts with nine meeting places as the revival was conducted. Chapman took the central position and his assistants the rest. Another campaign was planned and executed in Syracuse, New York, in 1906. However, there were still unfinished details to be worked out for the method to be widely accepted.
In 1907 Chapman was joined by Charles McCallon Alexander, world famous song leader. They formed the "Chapman-Alexander Simultaneous Campaign." The first joint campaign was held in Philadelphia from March 12 to April 19, 1908. The city was divided into forty-two districts with twenty-one teams of evangelist-musicians. Three weeks were spent in each half of the city with estimates of eight thousand conversions. The following revival held in Boston from January 26 to February 17, 1909, is considered to be Chapman's most successful. The city was divided into twenty-seven districts and recorded seven thousand conversions.
The first Chapman-Alexander worldwide campaign included stops in Melbourne, Sydney, Ipswich, Brisbane, Adelaide, Ballarat, Bendigo, and Townsville in Australia; Manila in the Philippines; Hong Kong, Kowloon, Canton, Shanghai, Hankow, and Tientsin in China; Seoul, Korea; Kobe, Kyoto, Tokyo, and Yokohama in Japan.
Chapman continued his non-stop evangelistic efforts in both the United States and Europe in 1910, including a very successful Chicago meeting from October 16 to November 27. However, Chapman's technique of mass evangelism lost much of its popularity. A series of unsuccessful campaigns were conducted in Bangor and Portland, Maine, and Dayton and Columbus, Ohio.
Many services were conducted by the evangelist in the next couple of years in Australia, Scotland, Ireland, India, New Zealand, and the United States, averaging three to five sermons a day in many places. His career as evangelist ended with the Chapman-Alexander campaign in 1918. That year the Presbyterian General Assembly elected him moderator.
(New York told me that in the old country he was a contrac...)
1900(For more than one hundred years, The Secret of a Happy Da...)
1899(Christian home. A mong the many lessons which I have lear...)
1917Chapman joined the Richmond Presbyterian Church at the age of 17.
Quotations: "Anything that dims my vision for Christ, or takes away my taste for Bible study, or cramps me in my prayer life, or makes Christian work difficult, is wrong for me; and I must, as a Christian turn away from it."
Chapman was married three times. His first wife was Irene Steddom. She bore him a daughter, Bertha Irene Chapman, and died after a month of their daughter's birth. In 1888 John Wilbur remarried to Agnes Pruyn Strain. They had four children: Robert, John Wilbur Jr., Alexander Hamilton, and Agnes Pruyn.
In 1907 Agnes deceased. In three years after her death, Chapman became united in marriage with Mabel Cornelia Multon.