Keswick Convention
From BrethrenPedia
Contents
Intro
The original Keswick Convention is a periodic evangelical conference in the city of the same name in Cumbria, England, a locality that is widely considered "the adventure capital of England". It has attracted many Brethren since its founding in 1875. In fact, John Hambleton has been credited with influence in the 1860's of the eventual founders of the conference.
John Hambleton
Hambleton was raised in Toxteth Park in Liverpool in 1820, and though having a saved mother that "lived what she taught", he rebelled as a young man, and travelled Australia and California as an actor, theatrical manager, adventurer and gold digger. Returning to Liverpool, he tried to be "religious" in 1857, but eventually obtained peace with God and in answer to his mother's prayer, and with encouragement of a Liverpool lawyer named Reginald Radcliffe, became an evangelist, first in the Teutonic Hall with a dockworker named Edward Usher, and saw hundreds making professions, and eventually joined by Henry Moorhouse who he discipled, and they labored throughout England, Scotland and Ireland in open air, tents, halls, chapels, theatres, and circuses.
Hambleton also engaged in carriage work, thanks to Henry Moorhouse, with the backing of George Mueller. He was instrumental encouraging Richard Weaver, the converted prize fighter, who with Hambleton, Henry Moorhouse (who came to Christ in 1861), Edward Usher, Reginald Radcliffe, and Joshua "Fiddler Joss" Poole rented theaters in London and elsewhere for Gospel meetings. One saved among Hambleton's testimony was James Dowdle, the Commissioner of the Salvation Army.
Usher, Moorhouse and Hambleton came to Dublin in 1862, and Hambleton electrified an eighteen-year-old named Thomas John Barnardo with his testimony, and trusted Christ, and went on to study in Edinburgh, Paris and London. There in 1866 a destitute boy took Barnardo where he and eleven others were sleeping on the roof of an iron building under the stairs, and Dr. Barnardo responded by opening his door to these "street arabs". His motto was "admit first, inquire afterwards" and for forty years ran the Barnardo Homes housing almost 67,000 runaway or abandoned boys and girls.
Brethren Influence of Keswick Speakers
- Stuart Briscoe keynote speaker 1988, 1996, 2001
- Tamil David (1853-1923) was one of the fathers of the assembly movement in Kerala and South India, worked with Dwight L. Moody;
- Dr. Gershom Whitfield Guinness (1869-1927), son of Henry Grattan Guinness founder of Echoes of Service, brother of Paul Ambrose Grattan Guinness, founder InterVarsity Christian Fellowship
- Billy Graham (1918-2018) spoke at the centenary in 1975 for 15,000 at Keswick's "Crow Park".
- Joseph Gelson Gregson 1886 (1835-1909) Baptist preacher co-founder first Kerala Brethren assembly in 1896
- John Lennox apologist; keynote speaker 2013;
- Peter Maiden international director Operation Mobilization (following George Verwer); Keswick chairman 2001-2009; keynote speaker 2011;
- Stephen Olford introduced Billy Graham to Keswick in 1946, which he regarded in his autobiography to have been a "second blessing".
- Robert Pearsall Smith(1827-1898) Quaker turned PB glassmaker from Philadelphia who influenced the use of the American term "convention" (vs. the British term "conference"), which D.L. Moody also started using. Influenced founders Evan Hopkins & Harford-Battersby of "Higher Life" theology underpinning the first Keswick Convention, which was learned from his wife Hannah Whitall Smith.
- James Hudson Taylor (1832-1905), founder OMF International (China Inland Mission), spoke as Keswick and that was instrumental in Amy Wilson Carmichael's decision to dedicate her life to missions.
- Capt. Reginald Wallis 1938
Bebbington
David W. Bebbington, author of "Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s", in writing on Keswick on p. 158, writes of the affinity between Brethren holiness teaching in the 1860's-1870's and that of the Holiness movement, and "John Hambleton, 'the converted actor', one of the most popular Brethren evangelists of the 1860s, was propogating what has been identified as Keswick teaching in 1861."
He quotes a critic of Smith as "having been 'led astray (from the Quakers) by Plymouth Brethren and other ill-instructed Christians'. Pearsall Smith repudiated the charge, pointing out" the opposition from the Exclusives, but it is also noted that Brethren in Philadelphia were significant influence on his wife's developing thought with regard to "the importance of firm doctrinal convictions"... and "centrality of faith as the way of justification"...
He also notes that "in the wake of the 1859-60 revival (the Brethren) were expanding in numbers and seemed to be the avante-garde of keen Evangelicalism". He also made reference to an event in 1874 at Bethesda Chapel when someone rose at a communion service 'to say that he had lived in unbroken unclouded communion with Jesus for very many years', which gave evidence of the Brethren contribution in "fostering expectations of higher attainments in practical holiness"... another Brethren leader had said (on p. 159), "the blessed possibility of living in such unbroken communion with God... as that the flesh or the old man may not appear".
Communion
By 1930, the Brethren had been rallying up to seven hundred attendees for the Lord's Supper, and were permitted in 1934 to start holding their own communion onsite at Keswick, subsequent to a central communion that was started in 1928. The 1937 Keswick volume reports that "the Brethren, whose numbers have greatly increased in recent years, held their morning meetings in the Pavilion which was well filled."
Kansas City Keswick
On June 18-30, 1934, Dr. Walter Lewis Wilson, Brethren founder of Central Bible Chapel in Kansas City, and founding president of what is now Calvary University organized a Central Keswick Conference at Ivanhoe Temple which included Brethren such as Dr. Harry A. Ironside (then pastoring Moody Memorial Church in Chicago), Dr. Charles J. Rolls (early Dean of students at Calvary Bible College, from New Zealand). Invitations were sent to 15,800 churches and advertised magazines such as "The King's Business" in Los Angeles.
Other notable speakers included Dr. Robert G. Lee (Bellvue Baptist @ Memphis, TN), Dr. Norman B. Harrison (Oliver Presybyterian @ Minneapolis, MN), Dr. B.B. Sutcliffe, and Dr. Charles G. Trumbull.
Caribbean Keswick
The following is from the first chapter of Raymond Anglin's "For Such A Time As This: A Project of South Florida Keswick Convention":
In 1958, Rev. Dr. Gerald O. Gallimore was invited as a youth to the Mandeville Keswick, along with several other young people from his Bethel Baptist Church youth group in Half-Way-Tree, Kingston. Morning Bible readings were held at the Methodist chapel, and evening meetings at Ridgemount United Church. It was founded in 1900 as the first overseas Keswick Convention, and is also the oldest Keswick outside England. Dr. Stephen Olford, Brethren itinerant then serving as pastor of Calvary Baptist, was the speaker that year, and Gerry was one who of scores who remained for an after-meeting, where he experienced true surrender.
He was accommodated along with other youth at Jamaica Bible School for sleeping quarters, and he and his friends from Bethel forged friendships with others from Galilee Gospel Hall, and the twenty altogether returned to Kingston on fire for the Lord, and still remembers Olford expounding on the "exchanged life" punctuated with Gal. 2:20 and Luke 3:5-6, and it became an "annual fixture" in his life. Jamaica Bible School was founded in 1945 by Arthur & Oscar Lord, and Ernest Clark, in partnership with the North American based "West Indies Mission", and in 1965 changed to Jamaica Bible College, and in 2012 became Regent College of the Caribbean.
Of Brethren teachers, he remembers sitting under Olford, as well as Dr. Paul Rees. Of other teachers, he recalls Dr. Sidlow Baxter, Dr. Alan Redpath, Dr. Francis Dixon, Dr. Harold Okengay, Dr. Paul Smith, Dr. Alec Motyer and others from England. He indicates that in time, Keswick in Jamaica started inviting evangelical leaders from the Caribbean such as Dr. Sam G. Hines, Dr. Wingrove Taylor, Dr. Burchell Taylor and Dr. Rex Major.
In 1961, the Kingston Keswick Convention was started by George DaCosta, Dr. Cleve Grant, Rev. David Clark and Harold Wildish, the latter credited with having planted many Brethren assemblies in Jamaica. The first convention was held at Ardenne High School Hall in the evenings, and Webster Memorial Church in the mornings. It was at this first Kingston convention that Gerry felt called into full-time Christian service, a life's work with Youth For Christ, and he was also involved with the early days of the Kingston Keswick Council alongside Cleve Grant, Kathleen McFarlane and George Webster.
Gerry eventually served as national director of Jamaica YFC, area director for YFC International/Americas, president and then ambassador-at-large for YFCI. He was also senior pastor of Metropolitan Baptist Church in South Florida until his retirement from full-time ministry in 2007. He has ministered in more than ninety countries as a world-renowned conference speaker, evangelist and Bible teacher. He holds an MA from Denver Theological, and an honorary doctor of divinity from Caribbean Gradate School of Theology.
In 2002, Gerry and several others started the South Florida Keswick Convention at Sierra Norwood Calvary Baptist Church, with Dr. Burchell Taylor of Bethel Baptist in Kingston as the speaker, and Gerry continues to serve as a council chairman. Speakers have included Dr. David Larsen, Dr. Al Whittinghill, Rev. Hainsley Griffith, Dr. Rex Major, Dr. Sam Vassell, Dr. Raymond Chin, Dr. Stephen Clark, Rev. Kevin Smith, Rev. Everard Allen, Dr. Joel Edwards, Dr. Edward Foggs, Dr. Marcus Davidson, and Dr. Stuart Briscoe.
Both Dr. Briscoe and his wife Jill were raised within the Brethren, and in 2016, Jill served as convenor of a special ladies' meeting, the impact of such has inspired them to add that as a regular staple.
Also see
Keswick
- "Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s" by David W. Bebbington; 1989: Routledge, 380 pp.
