George Started with Prayer
“Could God use me in the lives of others at the YMCA? I thought it was just a ‘gym and swim’?” This is the mindset of many. But if we look at the history of the Y, we see that it was started in order to help people know Jesus.
When we’re talking about helping people know and grow in Jesus in the Y, a great place to start is looking at the life of George Williams. This is the guy who started the YMCA. When George was young, he didn’t think about starting one of the largest Christian organizations in the world. He didn’t have vision for thousands upon thousands of lives transformed. Actually, he just saw a spiritual need and prayed that God would meet it.
When Goerge was 19, he moved from his family farm to London’s city life to work in a factory known as “Hitchcock and Rogers”. It was a drapery factory where young men his same age worked for sixteen hours a day with little pay, sleep and joy. Looking around, his overall assessment of his new job was “I See No Means of Grace”. In his book, “The Shining Light” David Newman records this moment by saying, “So he did the only thing he could do. He began to pray. He began to pray name by name for his fellow employees. Yes, it was a dark time. But light shines brightest in the darkness. One of the greatest global movements that the world has ever seen began because a kid did not know what to do.”
Pretty simple idea, isn’t it? Yet what keeps us from prayer? Maybe we are too busy? Boredom? Or maybe we just don’t believe it works?
In Luke 10, Jesus started talking about people turning to Jesus as a Harvest. His main call to his disciples in this passage is to “pray earnestly to the Lord of the Harvest” (Luke 10:2). This is what George did, and Jesus started bringing in a harvest at the drape factory.
George Williams and his buddy named Christopher Smith began to pray for their fellow laborers at the factory in their dorm room. Now, it is famously remembered as “Room 14” where God chose to move in great ways. As they prayed and as months went by, their little group began to grow and the young men of the factory began to place their faith in Jesus Christ.
An early biographer of George Williams said that when Williams came to Hitchcock and Rogers, “it was almost impossible for a young man in the house to be a Christian,” but three years later “it was almost impossible to be anything else.”
Word started spreading of the great work of God in “Hitchcock and Rogers” and pretty soon other companies were asking for help. The young men of room 14 started praying for further gospel movement for all of London. They received requests saying “Come over and help us!”
The invitation of “Come over and help us!” led not only to many more prayer meetings and people’s lives being changed, but it came to be the very spirit of a movement of people all around the world…a spirit that wants to help others know and grow in Christ.
One of the young men that met in George William’s room for prayer recorded a discussion that would shape the world. He wrote, “Thursday, June 6, 1844. Met in George Williams’ room for the purpose of forming a society, the object of which is to influence religious young men to spread the Redeemer’s Kingdom amongst those by whom they’re surrounded.” George William’s friend Christopher Smith suggested that they call it the Young Men’s Christian Association—the YMCA.
Below are a few questions for your own personal reflection or to use in your church and/or YMCA:
- George Williams saw a need and prayed. What are the spiritual needs you would like to pray for in your life, your church and your YMCA?
- George desired to see the spiritual transformation of the people around him. What would change if you moved from the mindset of “my YMCA is a place where I work out” to “a place to see spiritual transformation of people around you”?
- There are many ways to help people, yet consider their request of “Come over and help us!” They were asking for spiritual help. How might you take part in helping another person spiritually?