Every summer my family does something that most of the world thinks is crazy. We spend 10 days in July at Camp Meeting. I thought you might enjoy knowing more about what is important enough that we would voluntarily spend those 10 days without air conditioning in a place that is “rustic” at best.
While in seminary I learned so much more about church history. I cheered during the eras when we represented the faith well and wept when we did not. I was challenged by the zeal of the martyrs and humbled by the examples of the saints. However, I was disturbed by the very limited and negative account of my favorite summer pastime. I am not talking about baseball, although some would argue that it has Christian significance, I am talking about Camp Meeting.
In The Story of Christianity Vol 2, Gonzalez gives a single incidence of what I consider to be paramount to the Christian experience. He talks about a Camp Meeting in Cane Ridge Kentucky in 1801. The organizer was a local Presbyterian pastor who was trying to host a revival to “deepen the faith”. What he got was something totally different and probably not Presbyterian at all. Thousands gathered, but many had no interest in faith. Many came to gamble and to drink. It was noted by one critic that as many souls were conceived as were saved. However, the response to the repentance was overwhelming if somewhat unorthodox. There was weeping, laughing, trembling and even barking. The terms “evangelism” and “revival: are often associated with Cane Ridge.
Cane Ridge was not the results that the Presbyterians were hoping for. They frowned on such uncontrolled emotion and even sanctioned their pastors who had participated in gatherings like the Cane Ridge Camp Meeting. The Methodist and Baptist, however, liked the idea of these “celebration type” revivals and camp meetings. Camp Meetings began to be associated with the less educated ministers and parishioners. Those who were ruled by emotion and not by intellect.
This is a brief history of our Camp Meeting:
“It was during the time of reconstruction,* Dr. Gill Watson, observes, “The people suffered. They were “as sheep without a shepherd.” Churches had to be rebuilt but not in the opulent style of the columned Greek Revival architecture. Where once they had worshiped in lovely chapels before the war, now they were confined to plain-style houses of worship. Their carved pulpit furniture gave way to simple pine construction. Benches were heart pine boards built as cheaply and as quickly as possible. Their one-room white-framed structures were a constant reminder that even on the Sabbath, the hand of the oppressor had laid its weight heavily on the defeated. To this land ripe for revival came the camp meeting.” * Dr. Gill Watson is pastor of Northside United Methodist Church, Atlanta GA and resident historian of Morrison’s Campground. http://www.morrisoncampground.org/history.html
And so, between Rome and Kingston Georgia stands Morrison’s Campground – a monument to hope. It is a Methodist Campground founded in 1868, the days of reconstruction in the post-civil war south. At this time, churches in a circuit shared a pastor called a circuit rider. He would usually have 4 churches and would alternate riding to a different church in his circuit each Sunday. Once a year, those churches in the circuit would come together for a 10-day revival called Camp Meeting. Mr. Morrison, who was a Scotsman, was saved in one such camp meeting and gave part of his family farm to ensure that others in the North Georgia area would have that opportunity as well. There has been camp meeting in this place every year since its inception! In the early years the “campers” would pitch tents around a brush arbor. They came prepared to stay for the ten days of meeting with their livestock in tow. The chickens yielded fresh eggs as well as meat. The cows were milked and the milk was submerged in the cold water spring to keep it fresh. Like the first century church, they ate communal meals which were cooked in large pots over open fires. Services were held three times a day at 11am, 3pm and 8pm. Between services, families spent time together and the children played. It was here that the extended family of God was established and revisited year after year. Babies were born, and often lost. Young people married and the old and young alike died due to a variety of epidemics and hard life, but still they came every summer to gather, catch up and most of all to worship.
The faithful have come to this place for 148 years. The tents have been replaced with more permanent “cabins” and the brush arbor has been replaced with an open-air tabernacle. The milk is now stored in refrigerators and the cooking done in the individual cabins. Services are now only twice a day at 11am and 8 pm. And yet, the modern world would still consider the accommodation’s primitive at best.”
I first began to attend Camp Meeting at Morrison’s Campground as a 2-year-old foster child. The family I lived with were “tent holders” at the campground. I felt an instant sense of acceptance and belonging in this wonderful place as they adopted me as one of their own. As a child, I believed God lived at Morrison’s Campground. It made sense to me, I had never gone there and not found Him waiting. In this magical place, I grew and thrived and learned about the love of God through the community of His people.
In my lifetime, there have been years of great revival when the masses have come and we had to sit in lawn chairs because the arbor was full. But, there have also been years when only the “family” came “home” to worship. In this place, we have met Jesus as our savior and made Him Lord of our lives. In this place we have courted, married and brought children into the family. We have shared each other’s joys, celebrated each other’s triumphs and mourned each other’s sorrows. Many of our Campground saints have crossed the finish line into Glory. We continue to be both inspired and challenged “by so great a cloud of witnesses”, and look forward to the day when we will see them again.
I no longer live in the immediate area of Morrison’s Campground where I grew up. God’s dreams for my life have been much bigger than any I had for myself. As I have followed His path, I have lived in several places and attended different churches, but Morrison’s Campground has been always been my church home. I have not missed a single Camp Meeting in forty-seven years. Three of those years I drove from Boston, over 1200 miles, to attend. It is so much more than a ten-day revival meeting. I love these people and this place like no other. After all, they are my people; this is my place, my Bethel – because God lives here and for fifty-six years, He and I have met at summer’s end at Morrison’s Camp Meeting, where the faithful still come to worship.
Camp Meeting will be July 14-23 this year at Morrison’s Campground just outside of Rome Georgia. Everyone is invited to attend! Next year, we will celebrate 150 years of Camp Meeting in this sacred place.
Shirley Chupp
Lean into Jesus Ministries
#shirleychuppblogs
