Mr Taylor of Blackburn began a month's labour in the Congregational Church, Airdrie in July 1840. He found the congregation to be in a very low state and decided to take advantage of the immense crowd that turned up for a formal parade of the 78th Regiment one Sabbath afternoon, by conducting an open-air service immediately on the back of it. Around two thousand people heard the message, many adjourning to the chapel which was filled to the door. This became a pattern for the following fortnight - open-air preaching followed by a chapel service, These meetings excited much attention and not a few were led to the Saviour. From July 1840 to 1st January 1841 one hundred members were added to the congregation. In the following fourteen months, additions were made almost every week, so that by March 1842 the church had a membership of 300, a congregation of 700 and a Sabbath school of over 650.
'Early Congregational Independency in Lowland Scotland', by McNaughton, vol 2, 145-7.
Thanks to Tom Lennie's, 'Land of Many Revivals', page 365-6.
Their church was built in 1839 and was re-built in 1882. In 1842 the minister resigned and took much of the congregation to form a Baptist Church.