Every year we always end our camp meeting with a big Sunday School Rally on Saturday morning. The churches who participate make banners with themes. My church's theme was "As For Me And My House We Will Serve The Lord." Every church then puts on a skit or sings a song. We have judges and we just have a fun time seeing what other churches come up with. It is something that people look forward to every year.
This was the first year that my friend Buck and his church did a banner and it was great. Their theme was, "Who's Your Idol?" Their skit was like American Idol, they had different people stand up and tell things about their favorite idol. One said Johnny Depp, another said Oprah (LOL!!!), and every time my friend Buck (who played Simon) would say that's not what the world needs. Then a young man stood up and said that his Idol was Jesus Christ and Buck said, "That's what the world needs." Buck spoke after the skit and told people that Jesus wasn't an idol, but that he was God. They did an awesome job for their first year!!!
Bro. Paul Hagen's church's theme was, "Dear God, I have a problem." They made us all laugh with the first part of their skit (you had to be there to understand). Then they sung, "There Is A Remedy" and during their song they had things on a projector about problems that some of their people in their church had faced and every time a new name would come on the screen then that person would step forward. Here are some of the things that they showed on the projector. Brother Paul Hagen had brain surgery and they didn't think he would ever walk again, but he is walking. Greg was dying of cancer and he was healed. (I have known Greg and his wife Tomi for awhile and when he had cancer, I wanted to go and visit him in the hospital. Greg had beautiful thick hair and the day we visited him, I walked into that hospital room and saw a bald headed Greg. I almost felt like leaving the room and crying. But thank God he healed Greg and now Greg has his beautiful thick hair back.) Jerry had grew up in a barn and thanks to God he went from rags to riches. Kristina was in a Punk Band and now she is in a Praise Band. Judy (Paul Hagen's wife) had prayed for her family to be saved and now all of her family is Christians. Jim lived in sin for 62 years and now he is a Christian (Jim puts young people to shame, because he runs and shouts and worships God). There were more but I can't name them all. I love there theme and what they did, it was very uplifting.
Another church that my friends (Mark, Lisa, Emily, Ted, Faith and Nathaniel) go to. Did there skit to, "If We Are The Body." They had a man from their church dressed like Jesus walking around the people in their skit saying to them, "Help them, she is hurting, help him, I can make him something great." It was very beautiful, the whole skit made me think how I should be nice to people and go and welcome people when they come to our church. Some people would not know it, but I am shy around new people. I really need to start welcoming new people when they come into our church. All the banners, skits and songs were great. I really enjoyed my whole week at camp meeting. I probably won't post for a couple of days. I plan on resting.
3 comments:
I love the idea of that skit!
The skit idea is great. We've talked for a while about having a youth rally at our church with other churches and this would be a GREAT idea!! I'll be filing this one away in my brain!!
~Kristi
Dad was telling me all about the days he attended and said it was really good.
Camp meetings have become almost obsolete, so it's wonderful to see places that still do them.
I was curious about the history of the camp meeting and found it to be very interesting:
The camp meeting is a phenomenon of American frontier Christianity. The movement of thousands of persons to what had previously been trackless wilderness in the 18th century in America had led to something of a religious vacuum. Not only were there few authorized houses of worship, there were even fewer ordained ministers to fill their pulpits. The "camp meeting" was an innovative response to this situation. Word of mouth told that there was to be a religious meeting at a certain location. Due to the primitive means of transportation, if this meeting was to be more than a few miles' distance from those attending, it would necessitate their leaving home for its entire duration, or as long as they desired to remain, and camping out at or near its site, as usually there were neither adequate accommodations or the funds necessary to obtain them. At a large camp meeting, many came from over a large area, some out of sincere religious devotion or interest, others out of curiosity and a desire for a break from the arduous frontier routine, although many in this latter group often became sincere converts as well.
Freed from their daily routines for the duration of the meeting, unlike traditional religious events these meetings could provide their participants with almost continuous services; once one speaker was finished (often after several hours) another would often rise to take his place. These sorts of meetings were huge contributing factors to what became known as the Second Great Awakening. A particularly large and successful one was held at Cane Ridge, Kentucky in 1801, where the Restoration Movement began to be formalized. They gained wide recognition and a substantial increase in popularity in the aftermath of the American Civil War as a result of the first Holiness movement Camp Meeting in Vineland, New Jersey in 1867. Ocean Grove, New Jersey, founded in 1869, has been called the "Queen of the Victorian Methodist Camp Meetings." At the end of the nineteenth century, believers in Spiritualism also established camp meetings throughout the United States.
In 1815 in what is now Toronto, Ohio, the Rev. J. M. Bray, pastor of the Sugar Grove Methodist Episcopal Church, began an annual camp meeting that, in 1875, became interdenominational upon its purchase by what is now the Hollow Rock Holiness Camp Meeting Association. The association, which still runs the camp, claims that it is the oldest Christian camp meeting in continual existence in the United States.
Camp meetings in America continued to be conducted for many years on a wide scale and some are still held today, primarily by Pentecostal groups but by some other Protestants and Spiritualists as well. The revival meeting is often felt to be a modern-day attempt to recreate the spirit of the frontier camp meeting...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_meeting
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