Titus Coan arrived on the island of Hawaii in 1835 to become the pastor of a church with 23 members. This church was about to see a massive change.

Coan was born in Connecticut in 1801, the child of a devotedly religious family. His mother was the aunt of Asahel Nettleton, the well known evangelist of the Second Great Awakening in New England.

Although exposed to the gospel most of his life, he did not surrender himself to Christ until 1829, during a revival in his hometown and after a prolonged illness. His surrender was wholehearted, and he began to pursue opportunities to involve himself in ministry.

In the summer of 1830, he met with Charles Finney and a number of his associates while working with a minister friend in New York. After two years of study at Auburn Theological Seminary, he married and soon after took his bride to become missionaries.

As a result of these experiences, Coan knew firsthand about revival and arrived in Hawaii believing God for revival there. His vision of revival was all-encompassing, and without it, revival in Hawaii probably would not have occurred.

In fact, Coan did the very things they had seen God use to bring revival in the United States. Dr. Rufus Anderson recorded:

The means employed were those commonly used during times of revival in the United States, such as preaching, the prayers of the church, protracted meetings, and conversing with individuals or small companies. . . . Much care was given to the plain preaching of revealed truths, with prayer in the intervals.

Coan had even jotted down some of the topics preached which were so effective in the revivals in the United States.

The rationale for reproducing what God had used in the revival movement in the United States is provided by Titus Coan, who found that "like doctrines, prayers and efforts seemed to produce like fruits." Not only did Coan take the success of the Finney revivals and reproduce it in Hawaii, he characterized what attitude a missionary was to have if they were to be used by God powerfully to bring forth a great harvest.

In particular, he exemplified love in action. Historian Gaven Daws comments that "love was the driving force in his life: he loved his wife, he loved Christ, and he loved his work."

In a letter Coan wrote to colleagues concerning the passion of his early Christian love, he stated:

When I came to these islands, and before I could use the Hawaiian language, I often felt as if I should burst with strong desire to speak the Word to the natives around me. And when my mouth was opened to speak of the love of God in Christ, I felt that the very cords of my heart were wrapped around my hearers, and that some inward power was helping me to draw them in, as the fisherman feels when drawing in his net filled with fishes.

S. E. Bishop spent his childhood in Hawaii, and Titus Coan was his spiritual father. He comments on Coan's "personal magnetism of love" that drew him, "sweetly and irresistibly, to the love of God in Christ." He goes on to mention how in later life he personally met Finney and was influenced by his intellectual and spiritual power, but he never met anyone that matched the "winning power of love" like that of his spiritual father, Titus Coan.

The incarnation is expressed so beautifully in John 1:14, "The word became flesh and dwelt among us." This is what Titus Coan attempted to emulate. His love for the people was expressed first by the mastery of the Hawaiian language and secondly by his desire to preach the gospel to everyone living in his district, which was around 16,000 people living within a distance of 100 miles.

In order to preach to everyone, in the fall of 1836 he decided to make a 30-day tour on foot of his entire district. In his autobiography, Coan tells about this tour and how he "preached three, four, five times a day, and had much personal conversations with the natives on things pertaining to the Kingdom of God." He goes on to share how in the Puna area, there was a great response among the people, all eager to hear the word of life:

Many listened with tears, and after the preaching, when I supposed they would return to their homes and give me rest, they remained and crowded around me so earnestly, that I had no time to eat. And in places where I spent my nights they filled the house to its entire capacity, leaving scores outside who could not enter.

This went on till midnight and would resume at the crack of dawn. In the most popular area of Puna, Coan preached ten sermons in two days while spending the time in between the services in personal conversation. A number of people were converted, one being the High Priest of the Volcano, a violent man who was a drunkard, adulterer, robber, and murderer. He broke and began to seek the Lord.

Coan went on these kinds of foot tours several times each year, attempting to personally touch every person in his parish for Jesus. He had a unique and thorough follow-up system in order to keep track of converts and new members. He states,

I had a faithful notebook in my pocket, and in all my personal conversations with the people, by night and by day, at home and in my oft repeated tours, I had noted down, unobserved, the names of individuals, apparently sincere and true converts. Over these persons I kept watch, though unconsciously to themselves; and thus their life and conversation were made the subjects of vigilant observation.

Coan goes on to tell how on his numerous tours he would take his book with him and call the roll of church members in every village:

When anyone did not answer the roll call, I made inquiry why. If dead, I marked the date; if sick, visited him or her, if time would allow; if absent on duty, accepted the fact; if supposed to be doubting or backsliding, sent for or visited him; if gone to another part of the island, or to another island, I inquired if the absence would be short or perpetual, and noted facts of whatever kind.

This personal care even extended to his parishioners who became sailors. When they returned he would check as to whether they lived for the Lord or not.

Dramatic Impact of the Revival

Hawaii's Great Awakening was marked by elements common to other recorded revivals:

1. Evangelism.
Both Titus Coan and Lorenzo Lyons, who was also a missionary on the other side of the island from Coan, were used mightily by God in the growth of the church. For example, from January to May of 1838, Coan admitted 639 new members, and Lyons 2,600. Their two stations combined were responsible for 3,239 of the 4,930 additions of formal members to the church in 1837-38.

The following year, Coan admitted 5,244, and Lyons 2,300. This tremendous addition to the church brought criticism from some of the more conservative missionaries and from some back home in New England. Their concern was whether people were really converted, and could it be that people were brought into membership too quickly.

But Coan was convinced that what was happening was a work of the Spirit. His critics were silenced when, after a number of years, it was found that his losses were not any different proportionally than his critics', who were overly cautious in admitting new members.

2. Prayer.
The writers who recorded what happened during the awakening were struck by the tremendous emphasis of the people on prayer. Missionaries on each island reported a tremendous interest in prayer. On Molokai, Mr. Hitchcock noted that "a number were in the habit of rising an hour before light and resorting to the school house to pray for the coming of the Holy Spirit."

This was true not only for the adults, but for the children as well. Mr. Baldwin reported how, for a lengthy period of time in Lahaina, "one could scarcely go in any direction, in the sugar-cane or banana groves, without finding these little ones praying and weeping before God."

A unique aspect of the Holy Spirit's work in causing the people to pray was the kind of praying the people participated in. The prayer was united and verbal, each one expressing himself individually but all out loud together. Each one would intercede over what the Holy Spirit had impressed on their hearts to pray. They would pray earnestly and with much emotion, oblivious to the fact they had joined a whole chorus of people praying out loud together.

3. Repentance.
Repentance over sin was expressed openly. The people desired to be righteous. At times such emotion was evoked that the missionaries did not know how to handle it. Titus Coan reports such an incident while holding an outdoor meeting in Puna:

One man burst out in the middle of the meeting with much emotion and tears, saying, "Lord, have mercy on me; I am dead in sin." His weeping was so loud, and his trembling so great, that the whole congregation was moved as by a common sympathy. Many wept aloud, and many commenced praying together. The scene was such as I had never before witnessed. I stood dumb in the midst of these weeping, watching, praying multitudes, not being able to make myself heard for about twenty minutes.
 
This soon became a pattern in the meetings. The burden to be rid of sin through confession and restitution was real. Loud crying, shrieks, falling down, and wailing were not unusual in the meetings.

4. Hunger for God's Word.
The town of Hilo swelled to ten times its original size, growing from 1,000 people to 10,000. This was due to people moving in from outlying areas so they could attend church and hear God's Word.

Coan first saw this hunger manifested in his 1836 tour. He describes how people would hear him speak in one town and then walk with him to the next town so they could hear another message. He writes,

There were places along the routes where there were no houses near the trail, but where a few families were living half a mile or more inland. In such places, the few dwellers would come down to the path leading their blind, and carrying their sick and aged upon their backs, and lay them down under a tree if there was one near, or upon the naked rocks, that they might hear of a Savior.

Daily meetings became common in each of the stations. People could not get enough of God's Word.

5. Giving.
The generosity of the people was a fascinating mark of the revival. Coan remembered how, although extremely poor, his people did not want to come to church empty-handed. He writes,

Among their humble gifts, you will see one bring a bunch of hemp, another a pile of wood for fuel, a mat . . . a little salt, a fish, a fowl, a taro, a potato, a cabbage, a little arrowroot, a few ears of corn, a few eggs. The old and feeble and children who have nothing else to give, gather grass wherewith to cover and enrich the soil. Each gives according to his ability and shuns to approach empty-handed.

The giving was not just in things, but in time and talent. This was especially seen in the building of the churches. The building of a church building, whether it was made of timber thatched with grass or of stone or coral, was undertaken willingly and joyously.

The amount of work done for the building of a single structure was incredible. If it was a wood structure, the men who had axes went to the mountains and cut down trees, transporting the logs by hand to the building site. This task required hundreds of men and women to complete.

However, their giving was more than simply their time or resources; they gave of themselves to the work of the gospel. During the awakening it was not unusual to see people bringing others to the meetings with them. Some of them were blind or lame, elderly or infirm. Their concern for others to hear the Word motivated them to reach out and bring people to worship with them.

For all involved in this Great Awakening, it was clear that God had demonstrated in their midst the reality of Zechariah 4:6, "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD of Hosts."

The revival made a major impact on the nation and the Pacific. Hawaii became known as a Christian nation. In the law code of 1846, the Christian faith was established in this statement: "The religion of the Lord Jesus Christ shall continue to be the established national religion of the Hawaiian Islands."

The revival's effect in the Pacific was seen in that the native church became so strong, it sent out its own missionaries. The Hawaiian Society of Foreign Missions was formed in 1850, with the desire to share the gospel with other nations. On July 15, 1852, the first Hawaiian missionaries set sail for the Caroline Islands with a letter of greeting from King Kamehameha III to all the chiefs of the islands of the Pacific, urging them to receive the missionaries kindly and encouraging them to renounce their idols and worship the true and living God.

Titus Coan's wish was "to die in the field with armor on, with weapons bright." God gave him that wish, for in the midst of a revival, he suffered a stroke and died praising God. He had served the Lord for 47 years in Hilo and by 1870 had received 13,000 members to his church, the largest number by any pastor in his generation.

Copyright © 1999, 2000 by Gospel Truth Ministries (http://www.gospeltruth.net/hawaii_revival.htm).