MethodistThinker.com is on hiatus from posting new material for several weeks. During this time, we are showcasing podcasts from the fall of 2009.
Last year marked the 60th anniversary of the Foundation for Evangelism, founded in 1949 by Dr. Harry Denman.
Dr. Harry Denman
As young man in the 1920s, Harry Denman showed exceptional gifts in evangelism and administration — both in his service at the First Methodist Church of Birmingham, Alabama, and as a lay leader in the North Alabama Conference.
When The Methodist Church was formed in 1939 (through the merger of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Methodist Protestant Church, and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South), Harry Denman was elected to lead the new denomination’s evangelism program.
A decade later, he launched the Foundation for Evangelism as a means of supporting the evangelism ministries of The Methodist Church. (Today, the Foundation’s work includes supporting professors of evangelism at United Methodist-related institutions, sponsoring the biennial Harry Denman Lectures at the UM Congress on Evangelism, and honoring outstanding efforts in local church evangelism through presentation of the Harry Denman Evangelism Award.)
Dr. Denman retired from the Foundation in 1965 but continued his ministry of lay preaching and personal witness. Billy Graham once said that he “never knew a man who encouraged more people in the field of evangelism than Harry Denman.”
Harry Denman’s “body” died (that is how he always described physical death) in 1976. He was 83.
∞
This podcast features a sermon by Harry Denman that probably was recorded in the late 1960s. Listen using the audio player below (17:30) — or download an mp3 file (8.3 MB; on a PC, right click and choose “save as”).
∞
To subscribe to the MethodistThinker Podcast, use the link near the top of the right column.
Related posts |
|
| • | Dr. Billy Abraham on United Methodism: ‘There is no common faith among us’ | Harry Denman Lecture at the 2009 Congress on Evangelism |
| • | Sir Alan Walker: ‘Christianity at the Crossroads’ | Harry Denman Lecture at the 1980 Congress on Evangelism |
Related information |
|
| • | About the Foundation for Evangelism | Foundation for Evangelism |
| • | ‘I Delight to Do Thy Will, O My God’ | A sermon by Harry Denman (audio), recorded at Lake Junaluska, N.C. (early 1960s) (posted on the Foundation for Evangelism web site) |
| • | ‘Living and Believing’ | A sermon by Harry Denman (audio), recorded at Lake Junaluska, N.C. (August 1965) (posted on the Foundation for Evangelism web site) |
| • | ‘A Lonely Place for Prayer’ | A sermon by Harry Denman (audio), recorded at Lake Junaluska, N.C. (August 1965) (posted on the Foundation for Evangelism web site) |
| • | Prophetic evangelist: Harry Denman | Ronnie G. Collins, ImageBearer’s Weblog (May 27, 2009) |
Books about Harry Denman |
|
| • | Libraries that have Harry Denman: A Biography by Harold Rogers (Upper Room, 1977) | Where to buy a used copy |
| • | Libraries that have Prophetic Evangelist: The Living Legacy of Harry Denman (Upper Room, 1993) | Where to buy a used copy |
Thank you for making the work of Denman known.
We have lost the knowledge of who he is in Methodism today.