From November 12, 1906 to March 1, 1907, the Baptist evangelist Mordecai Ham held one of his greatest revival campaigns. The services grew so much that they had to move from the Baptist church to a downtown skating rink that seated over 4,000 people. In one of the earlier sermons of this meeting, he stated: "There are a lot of Christian who are half-way fellows. They stand in the door, holding on to the church with one hand while they play with the toys of this world with the other. They are cautious, they want to be there in case of emergency, ready to jump in if Jesus should happen to come, but otherwise are having a good time with the rest of the sinners. That’s the reason why we can’t do any more work than we do. They are in the doorway, and we can’t bring sinners in. And until we get some of God’s people right, we cannot hope to get sinners regenerated.

"Now, they always accuse me of carrying around a sledge hammer with which to pound the church members. Yes, Sir, I do pound them, and every time I come down, I knock one of those halfway fellows out of the doorway. And every time I knock one out I get a sinner in."