Walking along the path to the Tabernacle, waiting in line at the dining hall or sitting by your bed at camp, have you ever wondered what it was like to start a camp meeting?

What were the conversations that took place around campfires and after church services? Who were these people and why would they make such sacrifices?

Would you and I stumble into a holler in Ohio, along a farm road in North Carolina or down a long sugar sand path in New Jersey and say, “Hey, this looks like a great place to build a camp meeting?”

I have been thinking a lot about the boldness and faith of those who began the work that we have been blessed to join. I wonder if someone were to start a camp meeting today, 2008, what would it look like?

If I were to start or restart a camp meeting program today there are some key elements and some style things I would include.

First I would emphasize unashamedly the holiness message and the God-given potential for a person to live a life pleasing to God. I would make this distinctive distinct and pronounced in everything we did. There is really no reason for a person to go to the great lengths of coming a camp meeting unless they receive something of value that is also unique. Holiness is valuable; I hope we can all agree on that. The preaching and living of holiness in a 7 day or 10 day laboratory is highly unique.

Back when many of our beloved camps were founded there were plenty of churches, but few that preached entire sanctification and holiness, even fewer who did it well. People passed by many churches to come to camp and live in rustic conditions for the opportunity to be challenged, inspired and offered the opportunity to live a holy life.

Today, from my desk I can download text and audio of some great holiness preaching. I have a library of Schmul books that was inaccessible to my pioneer brethren. I have access to the holiness message should I choose to invest in finding it. Certainly we need to make the message more accessible online and in every way but I think it a fair point to say the message is much more readily accessible to the average American than it was 100-150 years ago.

What is unique about a camp meeting or at least should be present in a new camp is the embodiment of the message. When I come to a camp meeting I am looking to see the message lived out daily in the lives of people who are there. You can have seven preaching services a day but the proof is in the cafeteria line and the porch swinging and the after-glowing. I want to see people who are aspiring to live a holy life deal with the deaths of loved ones, losing their jobs, obstinate children, wonderful promotions, financial windfalls, personal victories, all of the blessings and trials of life. I want to learn from how they handle these issues so I can follow their lead on the Highway of Holiness.

When I look back on my first days visiting the campmeeting grounds twenty years ago, there are many memories that I replay in my mind. One which is a sacred memory to me is a of a man named Gilbert Stillwagon staying up until 3 a.m. one night, drinking coffee, listening to me, asking me probing questions and explaining the holy life to this 17 year old boy.

He was a minister from Urichsville, Ohio and not a young man but he took the time to talk to me that night rather than sleep. Over the next few days and years I would watch him to see if the things he said were evident in his life. I was not disappointed – he was a real person, a real person who answered questions honestly even when it did not paint him in the best light but also always pointed me toward his passion for the holy life.

We talked many times after that but I will always remember walking away from the dining hall at Delanco Camp that night thinking, “Why would this distinguished gentleman invest four hours of his life talking to some kid?”

The purpose of the campmeeting is at the heart of the answer to this question I think. If I were to build a campmeeting I would find a way to facilitate these kinds of conversations.

This is what I would look for in a campmeeting were I to start a new one today, or if I were considering making somewhere my “home camp” where I would invest my family’s ministry and vacations over the next 20-40 years.

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