A Beautiful Life for Others

Waymarkers: John Woolman and the Practice of Living Truthfully

It seemed to many that John Woolman was from another world. And in a very real sense, he was.

His life bore the imprint of another kingdom—a place where people and animals were treasured more than profits and things. Where conscience mattered more than conformity. Where loving others wasn’t a virtue to admire but a way of being in the world.

Woolman didn’t set out to lead a movement or champion a cause. What he did—at a critical moment in time—was choose to live a beautiful life. And the world changed.

Who Was John Woolman?

John Woolman (1720–1772) was a quiet, deeply spiritual Quaker who lived in colonial New Jersey. Long before Wilberforce, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, or the rise of the American abolitionist movement, Woolman was confronting the evil of slavery in both personal and prophetic ways.

Woolman is often called the American Saint—not because he sought recognition, but because his life embodied a radical love of God and neighbor. He traveled the 13 colonies, often on foot, not to promote himself but to plead with fellow Quakers to abandon slavery for the sake of their own souls and for the sake of those in bondage.

And it all began with a single moment of worship.

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How I First Met John Woolman

(And Why He Changed the Way I Follow Jesus)

I didn’t learn about John Woolman in my early years of education—not even in seminary.

I first “met” him by reading The Journal of John Woolman during graduate school. His life, so humble and so deeply rooted in Jesus, completely reoriented my sense of what it means to follow Christ in this world. Of all the voices I encountered during that season, none shaped me more than this quiet orchard grower from colonial New Jersey.

Later, while studying at Princeton, I discovered that Woolman’s farm was just 45 minutes away. On weekends, I made pilgrimages to the living history site in Mount Holly. Then, while pastoring in the D.C. area, I took others there too. We sat together in the very worship room where Woolman’s abolitionist journey began—where truth first pierced his soul and redirected his life.

Each time I returned, I found myself silenced—awed by the weight of a man who let truth change him from the inside out.

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1. A Worship Moment Changed Everything

Woolman’s transformation began in silence.

He was young, newly married, and juggling several jobs as he tried to find his way in the world. One of those income sources was writing legal documents—including bills of sale. One day, a fellow Quaker from his worshiping community asked him to write a bill of sale for a slave. While there’s no evidence Woolman had ever done so before, the request didn’t shock him. Slavery was such a common part of colonial life that he didn’t give it much thought. He wrote the document.

But days later, sitting in a silent, meditative Quaker service, the Spirit of Truth met him.

In that stillness, he saw with piercing clarity: You have participated in a great evil.

The realization hit hard. He didn’t grow defensive. He didn’t rationalize. He didn’t distract himself.

He confessed. He repented. And from that moment forward, his life changed.

In a culture that often dismisses worship as irrelevant, Woolman reminds us: one quiet moment in the presence of God can alter everything.

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2. He Let Truth Interrupt His Life

Many people feel conviction—but few let it rewire their direction. Woolman did.

He re-evaluated his goals. He stepped back from wealth and opportunity. He simplified his lifestyle. And he began to orient his entire life around the Spirit’s call to justice, compassion, and truth.

That’s what real truth does. It doesn’t simply inform—it transforms.

It interrupts. It reorients. It calls us out of cultural conformity and into courageous love.

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3. He Saw the Cloud Others Ignored

Woolman didn’t just see the personal evil of slavery. He discerned its deeper grip.

He saw how slavery had become a spiritual fog—blinding good, churchgoing people. It was not only tolerated in the culture; it was embedded in Christian economic systems.

And that broke his heart.

He saw it clearly: not just as a moral crisis, but as a soul crisis. Slavery damaged not only the enslaved—it deformed the souls of those who upheld it.

So he set out—not with a platform, not with a megaphone, but with a willingness to go—to knock on doors, meet with leaders, sit in living rooms, and speak the truth in love.

He appealed to wealthier, older, more influential Quakers with gentle but firm urgency. Most did not listen.

Slavery was too profitable to give up easily.

But Woolman persisted. He loved too deeply to be dissuaded. Truth is not easily cowed.

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4. He Didn’t Give Up—and History Changed

For nearly a decade, Woolman continued his quiet campaign of conscience. He traveled the colonies, often alone, often rejected. Many told him to return to his orchard in Mount Holly and stop disrupting the peace. But he could not unsee what had been revealed to him.

Then, in 1754, the moment came.

At the annual gathering of Quakers in Philadelphia—a gathering later called by poet Walt Whitman "the most important conference in American history"—Woolman was given permission to speak. Before him sat a room of powerful Quakers, many of them slaveowners.

He rose and pleaded with them: Christ will not tolerate this practice. If Quakers refuse to give up slavery, Quakers must stop calling themselves Christians.

There was resistance. Heated debate. Pushback. But slowly, hearts began to soften. Before the Revolutionary War, every Quaker in America had renounced slavery. Those who refused were removed from fellowship.

The first church I ever pastored was descended from a group of Quakers in North Carolina who gave up slavery as a result of the quiet—and bold—testimony of the orchard grower from Mount Holly, New Jersey.

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5. He Shows Us the Way Forward

In a world addicted to cultural rants, Woolman chose a different way.

He didn’t take sides—he took responsibility.

He didn’t divide the world into enemies and allies. He simply asked: What does love require of me?

His story still speaks—offering a path forward for anyone who wants to live truthfully today:

• Conviction doesn’t have to fade. When owned, confessional moments can become life-altering callings.

• Truth may interrupt your plans. Let it. Woolman’s greatest contribution began with disruption.

• You don’t need consensus to act. If God has revealed something to you, walk in it—even if no one else sees it yet.

• Love doesn’t look away. It dares to see what others avoid, and quietly moves toward justice.

• Lives poured out for others carry weight. The gravity of heaven rests on those who surrender to it.

What the Spirit did in Woolman’s soul—gently guiding him into truth—is still the work he longs to do in each of us.

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What About You?

The Spirit of Truth is still speaking.

And worship—real, undistracted worship—is still the place where truth often finds us.

So let Woolman’s story inspire you to ask:

• What have I accepted as normal that God might want to disrupt?

• Where has truth tried to confront me, and I’ve looked away?

• Who is waiting for me to live a life of weight—beautiful, surrendered, and full of courage?

You don’t need to be famous. Or loud. Or perfect.

You just need to be willing to listen. To receive. To act.

Like Woolman.

Like Jesus.

For a world still in need of truth.

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