SPECIAL FEATURE
The Ryman Auditorium: Rooted in Revival
By Randy Rudder with Will Dawson
The 700 Club
CBN.com
– It’s called the “Mother Church of Country Music” — the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. Hundreds of country music stars and even a few rock’n’rollers have performed here. The Ryman has hosted presidents, operas, and marriages, but it’s best known for being the former home of the Grand Ole Opry.
It all started with a steamboat tycoon named Tom Ryman and an evangelist named Sam Jones.
After the civil war, the railroad industry in the south took years to rebuild, but the waterways still flowed smooth and steady. As a result, entrepreneurs like Tom Ryman started steamboat businesses on the Cumberland and Mississippi Rivers. But along with the cargo, Ryman’s ships often carried gambling casinos, bar rooms and dancing girls. Tom Ryman’s life changed the night he met Sam Jones.
Jones was born and raised in Cartersville, Georgia. A promising career as a lawyer was derailed when the bottle got the best of him. Jones would go on drunken binges for days at a time, neglecting his family and business. He was thrown out of bars for his drunken uproars and for failing to pay his tab. Then one day, Jones caught a glance of himself in a saloon mirror. He didn’t like what he saw. He then remembered a promise he had made to his dying father.
You’ve brought so much heartache to my heart. Can I trust you? Will you promise me, Sam, that you’ll meet me in heaven?
Jones dropped to his knees and cried out to God so loudly that the bartender thought he was having a heart attack. A miserable drunk fell to the floor that night, but the person who stood up was a new man. He dried out for three days, took a bath, shaved, bought a new suit and went home to his wife.
Jones took up the ministry and began preaching in tent revivals all around the country. Over the next 20 years, he reached several million people and converted over 500,000. His plain and simple preaching style was effective in reaching the common man.
Musician Ricky Skaggs says, “He just didn’t have time for being dignified. He was just raw. He was real. He was pure. He was honest to a fault. I’ve read a lot of his sermons, and I’ve read a lot of his anecdotes. He was very funny in the pulpit.”
Jones’s unique combination of homespun humor and “fire and brimstone” drew thousands of people to his tent revivals. Jones once told a congregation in Toledo, “If the devil were mayor of this town, he wouldn’t change a thing.”
In May of 1885, Jones held a tent revival on this spot in Nashville and 10,000 people showed up. Legend has it that Captain Ryman showed up with his rowdy friends to heckle the evangelist.
Charmaine Gossett, author of Captain Tom: His Life And Legacy, says, “It’s an interesting story and it makes people remember him, but that’s not really what happened. At the time that Sam Jones came to town, Tom Ryman was married. He and his children, ranging from about 14 to 3, went to the meeting.”
Jones preached his heart out that night, and when the invitation was given, the steamboat was one of the first to respond.
“Tom Ryman had a real love for his mother,” Skaggs says. “Sam spoke on mothers, and it just cut Tom to the core.”
After the revival, Ryman gave the down payment for a tabernacle in Nashville.
“Tom Ryman told Sam Jones, when they built the auditorium, that he would never have to preach in a tent again when he came to Nashville,” Gossett says.
Three years later, the money was raised to begin construction on the Union Gospel Tabernacle. After he accepted Christ, Ryman no longer sold liquor or allowed gambling on his boats. But even without the revenue from these sources, Ryman became the most successful shipping magnate in the south. He built a mansion on nearby Rutledge Hill, where he could watch his ships sail up and down the Cumberland River.
Jones and Ryman became good friends over the next decade. When Ryman passed away in 1904, the man who gave the eulogy was none other than Jones. There, he called for a vote to change the name of the Union Gospel Tabernacle to the Ryman Auditorium. The response was unanimous.
Forty years later, the Grand Ole Radio Show moved into the Ryman. From 1943 until 1974, the Ryman Auditorium was synonymous with country music.
In 1993, Gaylord Entertainment began an eight million dollar renovation of the Ryman, and today, it is a favorite venue for concerts. For many years, a popular gospel music series was entitled, appropriately, “Sam’s Place”.
Skaggs says, “There’s something in that building. I really think it’s because of the great preaching of men like Sam Jones. Just thinking of the people that were so convicted by the message and bowing their head on that pew and giving their life to Christ... if those pews could speak and tell stories, just think of what they could tell. I don’t really think that Nashville, Tennessee, would be the city that it is – known for music, known for publishing — had there not been a major revival in the 1800s. To me, it’s the chief cornerstone of this city. I think it’s the most important building in Nashville.”
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