JB Meyer was a pastor in London. He was intelligent, highly educated and looked at his beloved church as his intellectual kingdom. He was ashamed of the name of Jesus. He kept it out of his sermons and his church. Meyer’s congregation wanted to bring in a young evangelist named D L Moody to preach. Meyer reluctantly agreed. He disliked Moody. Moody was uneducated and talked of little else but Jesus. But many in Meyer’s church had their lives transformed at the teaching of Moody.
Meyer however, was jealous, embarrassed and angry. After several weeks, one of the Sunday School teachers in his church was telling Meyer of the transformation in his life and the lives of people in his class. Meyer broke down and wept. The Holy Spirit changed the life of JB Meyer that day and began a series of spiritual dominoes falling in people’s lives. Meyer influenced J Wilber Chapman, who impacted Billy Sunday, who inspired Mordecai Ham, who finally influenced Billy Graham; one of history’s greatest evangelists. No one could have foreseen the series of men whose lives would be changed by Christ from the ministry of JB Meyer, a pastor who was angry and, by his own admission, likely not a Christian.
Meyer’s life was transformed by Christ through an unnamed member of his congregation taking time to share the good things going on in the church. The ripple of the ministry of JB Meyer in Christian history began with a word of encouragement and good news that went a long way in the kingdom of Christ. Most of the ripples from a pastor’s ministry will never be known here on earth. But we can learn a lesson to share the good things happening in our lives and the lives of people in the church with our pastor and encourage the dominoes to start falling.