James McGready (c. 1758–1817) was the Presbyterian revivalist whose Logan County, Kentucky, sacramental meetings ignited the Great Revival in the West (1797–1805) — the revival that culminated in Cane Ridge. He shaped Barton W. Stone twice over: his preaching at David Caldwell's North Carolina academy set off Stone's conversion crisis in the early 1790s, and his southern Kentucky camp meetings, which Stone visited in the spring of 1801, gave Stone the model he carried back to Bourbon County.
In 1796 McGready became pastor of three southern Kentucky congregations named for rivers — Red, Muddy, and Gasper. A brief awakening came at Gasper River by 1797; over 1798 and 1799 all three were awakened through a series of Scots-style sacramental meetings. In the summer of 1800 the marks of what became the Great Revival first appeared together: unusually large crowds, families camping on the grounds, and the physical phenomenon of persons "falling." Interdenominational participation and the bodily exercises entered the tradition at the same moment and under the same leadership — Methodists were included in the leadership of Presbyterian sacramental occasions in Logan County that summer.
McGready is a precursor rather than a founder. He never left the Presbyterian church, and he did not follow Stone out of it. But the sacramental occasion he intensified — a multi-day communion season, preached by ministers of more than one body, gathered around a table — is the form that Cane Ridge inherited and the Stone-Campbell movement grew out of.
Relationships
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Formed and influenced: Barton W. Stone
McGready's preaching set off Stone's conversion crisis, and his Logan County camp meetings gave Stone the model he carried to Cane Ridge.