Duncan Campbell (revivalist) - Lewis Awakening

Lewis Awakening

In 1949, he felt called to rejoin the Faith Mission, which provided him with a house in Edinburgh. However, his ministry took him back to Skye, where he had worked 25 years before, travelling to and from Edinburgh by motorcycle. This work was successful, leading to people being converted to Christ. He was thoroughly engaged in that work when he received the call to go to the island of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. He initially resisted this call, but doors closed in Skye, opening the opportunity for him to go.

The call came from the Reverend James Murray MacKay, at the prompting of two Gaelic-speaking sisters in their eighties, who had been praying for revival. It was only at the third invitation that he accepted. Almost immediately on his arrival, a move of God began with men and women calling on God and turning to him. Over the following years he travelled from village to village preaching with many people being converted.

On one occasion he was the main preacher at the Faith Mission Convention at Hamilton Road Presbyterian Church in Bangor, Northern Ireland, when he suddenly felt that he must leave at once, despite being engaged to speak at the closing meeting there the next day. He went (according to the call) to the island of Berneray off Harris, where he met an elder of the local church (then without a minister), who was so convinced that Campbell was coming that he had already announced the meetings at which Campbell was to preach. After several days of meetings, suddenly the island was gripped with a new awareness of God.

After unreliable reports of events on Lewis, he published a booklet, The Lewis Awakening, as an official account of this revival.