What happened during the Great Awakening?

During the Great Awakening there was a shift in religious thought among the colonists in America. This shift focused on experiential religion and common ground between various denominations. Rather than focusing on the formal aspects of most religious services, or on the conformance to established religious doctrine, the Great Awakening increased the focus on the need to be saved by Jesus in a personal manner. It also increased personal piety. However, much like Protestantism before it, the Great Awakening empowered individuals to interpret Christianity themselves. While Protestantism had focused on accepting individual interpretations of the Bible (instead of merely accepting the Catholic interpretation), the evangelicals of the Great Awakening focused on accepting individual interpretations of Christian doctrines based on personal experience. This caused concern in most churches as it was seen as an attack on the ordered nature of established churches.