The third and fourth revivals inspired by the Great Awakening occurred between 1880-1910 and in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This article covers the First and Second Great Awakening which occurred in Colonial America.

The First Great Awakening
The First Great Awakening focused on the church congregation - people who were already church members. It changed their piety, their rituals and their self awareness. The First Great Awakening sought to make reforms to the church. It also sought to make conversions within the church community. The First Great Awakening led to a division between the "Old Lights" and "New Lights." Revivalists, or the "New Lights", split off from the Congregationalists, Anglicans and Presbyterians and formed their own denominations. Many "New Lights" became Baptists and Methodists, and a new revivalist Presbyterian denomination was formed. The First Great Awakening emphasized personal freedom and repudiated slavery.

The Second Great Awakening
The Second Great Awakening enrolled millions of new members focussing on the belief that every person could be saved through revivals. The focus shifted from traditional evangelism and conversion, to recruitment into different denominations. In the North, the First Great Awakening resulted in the creation of voluntary, reformist societies, which led directly to the abolitionist movement in the middle of the 1800's. In the South, white evangelicals began to preach that the Bible supported slavery, a notion that was in the interests of the Slave Plantations.