MORE ON THE TENNENTS

I noted below that the Tennent family was more important to the Great Awakening than George Whitefield, Glenda Beck's choice and now it's time to give that claim a little support.   My source is Triumph of the Laity (1988) by Marilyn J. Westerkamp

First, some background on the father:

The Tennents were probably the single most important clerical force in the progress of the Great Awakening. William Tennent senior, the patriarch, was born in Ireland, educated at Edinburgh, and, in 1704, ordained in the Anglican Church of Ireland by the bishop of Down. From the beginning he seemed uncomfortable with Anglicanism, for he never served in a parish church, but only as a private chaplain to an Irish noble. Moreover, he had married the daughter of Gilbert Kennedy, a well-known minister in the Ulster Presbyterian network. He migrated to America in 1718 and immediately sought out the Presbyterian synod. They demanded his reasons for leaving the .Anglican communion. Tennent listed several objections, primarily concerned with the antiscriptural government and discipline of bishops and their Arminian theology; his statement satisfied the synod, and he was accepted into membership. Initially settled in East Chester, New York, he moved to Bedford in 1720 and finally was called and established at Neshaminy in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.(p. 167)

William created an alternative to the Establishment schools like Harvard and Yale:

Within the first year of his tenure at Neshaminy, in 1726, Tennent opened a seminary for the education of ministerial candidates. Known as the "Log College" by its detractors, this seminary provided the only education available to ministerial candidates in the middle colonies. ... These graduates of the Log College were hearty supporters of the Great Awakening; they, along with Jonathan Dickinson, were the movement's most able preachers and polemicists. The most important of these Log College men was Tennent's eldest son, Gilbert) (pp. 167-68)

On Glibert and the other sons:

Gilbert did not rest upon his pastoral successes in New Jersey and Pennsylvania but embraced the role of itineracy. He was, next to Whitefield, the most successful preacher that toured the northern colonies. ... William and Gilbert Tennent were assisted by William's other three sons, William junior, John, and Charles, and by several Log College graduates, notably John and Samuel Blair and Samuel Finley;