William ashley billy sunday biography timeline

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After three years of work at the YMCA and acting as assistant to Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman, Sunday began preaching in his own services. Billy Sunday's first platform appearance was in Garner, Iowa, in 1896. In 1883 he joined the “White Sox,” becoming a professional baseball player; he played in the major leagues for seven years. His blazing-fisted bare-handed evangelism lives in American history.

You can bury the man, but character will beat the hearse back from the graveyard and it will travel up and down the streets while you are under the sod. Some people are even proud that they aren't proud.

God likes a little humor, as is evidenced by the fact that he made the monkey, the parrot -- and some of you people.

Yank some of the groans out of your prayers, and shove in some shouts.

Don't look as if your religion hurt you.

If you want milk and honey on your bread, you'll have to go into the land where there are giants.

The Bible was not intended for a science any more than a crowbar is intended for a toothpick.

After Billy's death in 1935, she traveled extensively throughout the country helping to raise money for rescue missions and similar Christian ministries, addressing youth rallies, and was active in the work of such Christian ministries as Bob Jones University, Youth for Christ, and the Voice of the Andes radio station. He moved to nearby Nevada, Iowa, where he became acquainted with Colonel John Scott, a leading citizen and the state's Lieutenant Governor.

Billy Sunday attended Nevada High School, also working as a janitor and doing chores for Colonel Scott, who provided him with room and board.

Listen to Billy Sunday's theme song, Brighten the Corner Where You Are (mp3 format).

View more photos of the Cory Family Cemetery.

Billy Sunday website -Includes timeline of his life.

Billy Sunday — Biographies and Information

William Ashley (Billy) Sunday (1862-1935) was an American evangelist born in Iowa.

I want people to know what I mean, and that's why I try to get down where they live. He was converted to Christ in 1886 through the street preaching of Harry Monroe of the Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago.

Sunday gave up his baseball career in March, 1891 to become an assistant YMCA secretary. During the early years of his ministry, she and the children (Helen Edith, George Marquis, William Ashley, Jr., and Paul Thompson) were separated from him for long periods of time.

Billy rose to the major leagues in 1883 after trying out for the team. Associated with J. Wilbur Chapman from 1893 to 1895. His reputation as a ball player provided natural appeal to the young men he worked with. Sunday was noted for acrobatic feats on the platform as he preached.

The worst ever said of him was that he occasionally let his humor run wild; the best ever said about him was that he reached a million lives for Christ – the drunken, the down and out, the homeless, the common man.

Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, c1991.

Billy Sunday: Home Run to Heaven by Robert A. Allen.

william ashley billy sunday biography timeline

His trademarks were pointed, sometimes earthy and always quotable one-liners, and theatrical antics at the podium. Adultery is adultery, even though you call it affinity. Then don't put these new converts, "babes in Christ," into refrigerator churches.

Don't give a pug-nosed bulldog the love a baby ought to be getting.

I don't believe there are devils enough in hell to pull a boy out of the arms of a godly mother.

It is not necessary to be in a big place to do big things.

I'm against everything that the devil is in favor of.

The carpet in front of the mirrors of some of you people is worn threadbare, while at the side of your bed where you should kneel in prayer it is as good as the day you put it down.

Some homes need a hickory switch a good deal more than they do a piano.

The Church gives the people what they need; the theater gives them what they want.

Your reputation is what people say about you.

He was ordained to the ministry in 1903 by the Presbytery of Chicago. He continued to play noteworthy baseball in Nevada, and in Marshalltown where he moved to take a job in a furniture shop. He remained a professional baseball player from 1883 to 1890 for Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia. The boys attended a one-room school (Clearview School) just west of the farm where their teacher, C.G.

McCarthy, first instilled a love of baseball.