On this day in history, July 9, 1800, the Mt. Vernon Gardens (theater) opens to host summer crowds of thousands. The downtown New York City theater would only be open for a few years and yet provided the model for large theater spaces, such as Madison Square Garden. 

At Madison Square Garden, from May 15th to September 1st, Billy Graham led a widely visited evangelism crusade at Madison Square Garden. There were two million attendees over the three months of his revival meetings; 600,000 commitment cards to Christ submitted and over ninety-six million people who reported watching Graham’s sermon on ABC. Graham, controversially, sought to diversify the audiences who attended and invited Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to pray and included African-American pastors and musicians to speak and worship. There was so much demand that the crusade even outgrew Madison Square Garden and Graham hosted a service at Yankee Stadium on July 20 and on the closing night, September 1st, there were crowds of over 125,000 in the streets.[1] 

This is not the first time that an evangelist has stood in a prominent place in the city to preach the gospel. In the Book of Acts, Luke documents when Paul traveled to Athens and stood in the midst of Areopagus ( in view of the Acropolis) to address the men of Athens to testify about the “Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man” (Acts 13:24) but “ Yet he is actually not far from each one of us (Acts 13:27). When he spoke of Christ’s resurrection from the dead some believed, like Dionysius the Areopagite others mocked (Acts 13:34). 

God moves when the gospel is preached. Whether Paul speaking in Athens in circa 51 A.D.or Billy Graham speaking in New York City in 1957 AD. Open-air venues seem to attract people who are open to hearing the gospel, or at least curious. Let that be a lesson from history/his story to keep declaring the gospel in gardens, baseball stadiums, streets and theaters. 

[1] – Haykin, Michael. “Billy Graham’s Madison Square Garden Campaign, 60 Years Later.” The Gospel Coalition. Last modified May 19, 2017. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org /blogs/evangelical-history/billy-grahams-madison-square-garden-campaign-60-years-later/.