The New Lebanon Conference of ministers was a meeting held in July 1827, in

New Lebanon, New York New Lebanon is a Administrative divisions of New York#Town, town in Columbia County, New York, United States, southeast of Albany, New York, Albany. The population was 2,514 at the 2020 census.US Census Bureau, 2020 census, New Lebanon town, Col ...

, to resolve disputes in the

Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a historically Reformed Protestant tradition named for its form of church government by representative assemblies of elders, known as "presbyters". Though other Reformed churches are structurally similar, the word ''Pr ...

churches concerning the so-called New Measures for evangelism instituted and popularized primarily by

Charles Grandison Finney Charles Grandison Finney (August 29, 1792 – August 16, 1875) was a controversial American Presbyterian minister and leader in the Second Great Awakening in the United States. He has been called the "Father of Old Christian revival, Revivalism ...

. "The organizers of the meeting appear to have been Nathan Beman and

Lyman Beecher Lyman Beecher (October 12, 1775 – January 10, 1863) was an American Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbyterian minister and Abolitionism in the United States, abolitionist. Father of 13 children, many of them became writer ...

." The week-long series of meetings did not achieve unity among those who attended, but it did clarify the differences. Heman Humphrey, William R. Weeks, and some others represented the traditional side which opposed the New Measures while Finney was present with some supporters from the other side. "

sahel The Sahel region (; ), or Sahelian acacia savanna, is a Biogeography, biogeographical region in Africa. It is the Ecotone, transition zone between the more humid Sudanian savannas to its south and the drier Sahara to the north. The Sahel has a ...

Nettleton, Weeks, and others, who were not willing to accept uncritically all that occurred during the Western revivals in Oneida County, have been often blamed for not providing more documented evidence against Finney. But the fact is that they were often unsure of who was primarily responsible for the various innovations that were being pressed on the churches by a large group of itinerants and their younger imitators who appeared in the wake of the revivals."Murray, Iain H., Revival and Revivalism: The Making and Marring of American Evangelicalism 1750 - 1858, The Banner of Trust Trust (Edinburgh: 1994), p. 239. These methods included: # criticism of specific individuals by name from the pulpit for sins which were not generally known, # urging those who were under conviction of sin to make their way to the front of the meeting room for counselling, # repeated singing of the same hymns for emotional effect to convince the audience to respond visibly to the preaching, # urging outward motions of the body to accompany alleged inner conviction, etc. This culminated in the revivalistic preaching of

Dwight L. Moody Dwight Lyman Moody (February 5, 1837 – December 22, 1899), also known as D. L. Moody, was an American evangelist and publisher connected with Keswickianism, who founded the Moody Church, Northfield School and Mount Hermon School in Mas ...

, Billy Sunday, and their successors. The original name for the technique of inviting hearers to come forward was the "anxious seat" but it later came to be called an "

altar call An altar call is a tradition in some Christian churches in which those who wish to make a new spiritual commitment to Jesus Christ are invited to come forward publicly. It is so named because the supplicants gather before the altar located at th ...

" or "the invitation" and was popularized in the twentieth century by

Billy Graham William Franklin Graham Jr. (; November 7, 1918 – February 21, 2018) was an American Evangelism, evangelist, ordained Southern Baptist minister, and Civil rights movement, civil rights advocate, whose broadcasts and world tours featuring liv ...

References

{{morecat, date=August 2024 Presbyterianism