Gypsy Smith : the forgotten evangelist by Bill Curtis
Seed Publishing Group (US), 2017 240 pages £12
ISBN 978 0 996 841 290
This is a study of Rodney Gypsy Smith (1860-1947) by an American Baptist pastor who earned a PhD doing this research. It bears all the necessarily pedantic hallmarks of academic research.
If you are looking for a detailed biography of Gypsy Smith you will be a little disappointed for the first chapter of about 40 pages is concerned with an all-too-brief summary of his life but, even here, attention is given to the Gypsy’s evangelism techniques and his sermon preparation, in addition to his life story.
The remaining 3 chapters are concerned entirely with his preaching style and that with a very academic emphasis.
Heavily referenced, as you would expect in a thesis, there are close to a thousand sources quoted, mostly American.
The interest in this work is mostly for preachers concerned with how a converted gypsy, with little or no formal eduction was so blessed by the Holy Spirit with such a distinctive, indeed unique, preaching style and delivery that, literally, thousands were brought into the kingdom.