Andrew A. Woolsey, Channel of Revival; A Biography of Duncan Campbell (affiliate link). Edinburgh: Faith Mission Publishing, 1974; reprint ed., 1982. 191 pages.
I have long been an admirer of Duncan Campbell. God used him mightily, and his ministry has had a major impact on my own life.
This biography is excellent but short. Due to its brevity, it does not thoroughly cover every area of Campbell’s life, yet it provides a good overview.
Campbell was born in the highlands of Scotland and spoke Gaelic. He had a strong Gaelic accent that English speakers sometimes struggled to understand.
Campbell’s parents were converted under the ministry of some women preachers (18). His mother, Jane, was a praying woman (20). The author notes that “Jane Campbell, from the moment of her conversion, walked consistently with the Saviour and lived a beautiful Christlike life” (21).
In 1913, Duncan Campbell was gloriously converted. He was a bagpipe player who performed at dances and secular parties (26). The powerful conviction of the Holy Spirit came upon him while he was playing at a dance. The author notes, “Terrible conviction of sin seized him, and a sense of desolation and lostness swept over him” (27). So powerful was the Spirit’s conviction on his life that he announced that he was done playing the bagpipes and headed home. Campbell passed a church on his way and saw that the lights were on. He went inside and found his father praying for him (30). When he arrived home, he found his mother on her knees in the kitchen praying (31). Upon Campbell’s conversion, his mother exclaimed, “Oh God, you are still the God who answers prayer” (31).
Campbell was immediately seized by God’s call on his life. Woolsey notes, “God became real. It was more than a decision. It was an encounter with the living God” (32). Campbell became passionate about leading people to Christ.
He served in World War I. Facing what appeared to be imminent death, he cried, “Oh God, get me out of here and I will serve you with my whole heart!” (45). While many young soldiers undoubtedly prayed a similar prayer, Campbell meant it.
In April 1918, Campbell participated in one of the last cavalry charges of the British Army (50). He was wounded and fell to the earth unable to move. A Canadian soldier rode past, discovered Campbell, and brought him to a medical tent. Campbell was so overcome by the presence of God that he began to quote Psalm 103 in Gaelic (51). So powerfully did the Holy Spirit come upon him that at least seven Canadian soldiers were saved that day, even though they undoubtedly could not understand what Campbell was saying. Woolsey notes, “A new thirst for God, a thirst for revival, a thirst to see repeated manifestations of God’s saving power took hold of Duncan Campbell as he left an earthly battlefield, to devote himself to a spiritual war from which there is no discharge” (53).
Campbell was committed to spending the rest of his days serving the God who had saved his life on the battlefield. He could not see the value of investing 5-6 years in academic study before beginning his ministry, so he entered a small training center in Edinburgh to receive rudimentary instruction in evangelism (55). Campbell, like many great men of God who came before him, was largely self-taught.
When he was criticized for not publicly addressing popular political issues of the day from the pulpit, Campbell replied, “Gentlemen, when so many are speaking to the times, permit one poor brother to speak for eternity” (64).
Throughout Campbell’s ministry, he faced a wide variety of opposition. Once when Campbell began to pray during a service, someone released two ducks he had smuggled into the building under his coat, and they began to quack loudly (66). A young lady was enlisted to lure Campbell into a compromising situation, but an experienced minister recognized the subterfuge and intervened. One minister wrote to Campbell urging him to depart because he was disturbing the peace. Campbell responded that there was peace in a graveyard (70). Woolsey states, “many had already come to scoff and stayed to be saved” (73). Yet Woolsey notes that “Behind each victory was a hard-fought battle” (69).
Campbell proposed to a woman, but she declined because she was set to go on a two-year mission assignment (79). Upon her return, they got married. I would have liked to know more about his wife, as she seems to have been a remarkable woman.
Campbell and his wife ultimately had three boys and two girls (91). He left the itinerant ministry and spent 17 years as a parish minister in the Presbyterian Church. Woolsey notes, “To outward observers Duncan at this stage was a diligent, faithful pastor but inwardly there was dissatisfaction. He had lost something. God was still using him but there was not the conscious communion with God that he had once enjoyed” (95).
Campbell, in his own writing, tells how his daughter asked him one day where the power of God had gone in his life. Shaken by her question, he cloistered himself in his study until God met him early the next morning. Woolsey writes that “Instantly a new consciousness of the love of God swept over him like waves of the sea until he wondered if he could endure it any longer. The inner cleansing he had experienced as a wounded soldier was a reality once more, bringing healing to his spirit” (97).
From that time on, Campbell’s ministry moved to a new plain. At first he struggled with the cost of leaving a comfortable parish ministry to become an itinerant evangelist. After all, he had a wife and five children. Yet he knew it was God’s path for him.
Campbell’s greatest ministry occurred in the Hebrides Islands to the north of Scotland. On the Isle of Lewis, people were praying fervently for revival. God used Campbell mightily there.
On a number of occasions, Campbell experienced the supernatural. There was a young woman who had trance-like visions that she would pass on to Campbell. Woolsey notes that all of her visions proved true (135). I must confess, I am cautious with such experiences, as was Campbell. But he believed it bordered on blasphemy to attribute such workings of the Spirit to Satan.
In 1952, Campbell was preaching at a large conference in Bangor, Ireland. Suddenly, he was gripped with the sense that he should immediately go to a small island of Berneray, which had a population of around 400 people (139). He knew no one on the island and did not send word he was coming. When he arrived, he discovered that a godly elder had prayed a few days earlier for revival on his island. God assured him that Campbell would come to preach. The man trusted that God would send Campbell, though he never contacted him. The elder had announced that there would be a meeting that evening at 9:00pm and that Campbell would preach. Revival soon came.
Woolsey does not shy away from discussing the problems Campbell faced. Some believed he exaggerated what happened (144). Campbell did not take accurate notes, in part because he was extremely busy during periods of revival. He was also quick to accept what others told him as true, even when it was not. Nevertheless, Campbell was a man of integrity, and he never said anything he knew to be untrue.
Campbell spent many hours a day in prayer (155). “The prayer life must be fought for,” he insisted. “Everything will mitigate against it” (156). He noted that “The tide of battle turns in the closet” (156).
Campbell was plagued by various physical ailments throughout his life. At one point he struggled with Meniere’s Disease (175). Yet he was passionate about preaching, even as he grew increasingly frail.
In 1969, Campbell was invited to preach at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Saskatoon, Canada (182). He told the pastor, Bill McLeod, that he believed revival was coming to Canada soon and that it would begin in his church. The following year, my father, Henry Blackaby, visited Saskatoon in view of a call to Faith Baptist Church, which was about a mile from Ebenezer Baptist Church. McLeod told my dad what Campbell had said, and that prophetic statement played a significant role in helping my father decide to move from Los Angeles to Saskatoon. My father began praying with McLeod for revival. In 1972, revival swept across Saskatoon and around the world. Much of what my father wrote about in his book Experiencing God was influenced by the revival Campbell had prophesied.
I enjoyed this book. It is well written and includes many inspiring statements. I am also deeply appreciative of Duncan Campbell’s ministry. He had no formal education, but he prayed so powerfully that the presence of God upon his life more than made up for any educational shortcomings.
Some of the stories in this book might appear strange or hard to believe. Yet many people who have been used powerfully by God share similar accounts of how God worked in unusual ways. Perhaps these testimonies provide an indictment that if we seek God in prayer as fervently as Campbell did, such experiences might not seem so strange anymore.
I highly recommend this book. It will challenge you and make you hunger for more of God in your life as well.
Rating: 4
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