When coming to the new world, the colonists brought religion from their homeland. But like many other institutions, religion was changed upon arrival to the new world. It took on different forms and different sects were formed. For example the Puritans of New England broke up into Congregationalists and Presbyterians. With this break came loss of piety. While people physically moved further and further away from their churches, so too did they spiritually move further and further away. .
The fathers of the Churches realized this problem as a significant one. They realized that if this trend continued, the center religion would be non-existent. They tried all different sorts of things to bring people back to religion and piety. They formed halfway covenants. The members of the churches were not fully Christian in the eyes of the Church rather descendants of former members of that sect. But after time this failed and the distinction between "official" Christian members of the church and the halfway covenant goers. The Church was opened to all Christians in an effort to revive the religion yet all these measures were to no avail. This gave birth to a religious revival known as "The Great Awakening.".
In the early 18th century the feeling of the loss of piety was occurring in other regions than New England. So the Great Awakening swept all colonies not New England. The Great Awakening occurred from circa 1730 to circa 1740. In this time the trend was changed from losing piety to gaining piety. People such as John and Charles Wesley who were the founding fathers of Methodism would travel the new world in hopes of reviving religion and preaching Methodism. George Whitefield, an associate of John and Charles Wesley also toured the new world preaching the importance of religion. Everywhere he went, thousands of men, women, and children would come to hear him preaching. Ultimately all priests and ministers preached to the members of their Churches of how religion was important and what it could do to help you.