Other "Thinking Drafts" and writing by Keith Drury -- http://www.indwes.edu/tuesday .

 THE FUTURE OF CAMP MEETINGS?

It's hard to "hold your own" as a camp meeting anymore. From what I have observed, camp meetings are either flourishing or they are dying out. In some districts they have already disappeared completely. In other districts they are holding on by the skin of their teeth, and in a few they are flourishing and even growing. But even where they are growing they face increasing opposition and lack of support. Some churches become "client churches" while other churches completely ignore the camp, and even try to close it down.

Why are camps having trouble in some districts? I don't have the answers. But after 23 years straight, speaking at several camps per summer, I'll venture a few possibilities. Here are some of the factors influencing decline in the camp meeting in my opinion:

Our people are better off than they used to be -- not just in the sense that we are all better off, but holiness churches have drifted up the economic ladder a few rungs. There are of course exceptions, but generally the higher up on this ladder your people get the less excited they'll be about camp meeting.

The camp meetings, which are declining, have no first rate planners ( who are usually running their own local church) and often, even few second tier planners/leaders. In the declining camp meetings, the program is run by third rate planners who couldn't get any other job. The first line leaders just do cameos for a few days or for the evening meetings.

In their heyday in the nineteenth century camps had outdoor toilets but people had outdoor toilets at home too. Few people today at home share their bathroom with strangers or walk 100 yards to take a shower. In some areas where the camping/hunting culture prevails this is no problem. But where such a culture does not exist, and the campgrounds haven't kept up, they are often declining.

The original purpose of the brush arbors was frontier evangelism. Then the holiness movement adopted the camp meeting as its "special" means of propagating a second work of grace. But few camp meetings do much serious evangelism anymore. And only a few still insist that every message be on holiness morning, afternoon and evening. Fellowship and unity-building/reunion are the only clear purposes for many camp meetings today, but even these purposes are not clearly articulated or promoted. Like the Sunday evening service, camp meetings are often a meeting without a clear purpose.

Fewer and fewer people will go away for an entire week or ten days for a camp meeting. Certainly not for two weeks. The best speakers in the nation won't come for 8 days, or even five days. So most camp meetings no longer get the best speakers. They are stuck with those willing to come for ten days or a week. Granted, some camps are now "splitting the camp" between speakers, getting one speaker for the first half of camp and a second one for the last 4 days. But even these camps still can't get the #1 speakers in the nation. The #1 speakers all go to Promise Keepers for one hour.

There was a time the camp supplied the best speakers and music any of the people heard all year long. This is no longer true. We now have a host of larger and mid-size churches that have better music, speakers, and programming than the district camps. Camp meeting no longer offers the annual benchmark of excellence in many districts.

Camp meetings have always been about going to the altar, making a decision. Camp meetings were first about "getting saved" and later about "getting sanctified" or some combination of both crisis experiences. As more and more holiness people and pastors adopted a more gradual approach to both sanctification and conversion, the need for the higher pressure hard-sell altar call of the camp meeting diminished.

Who speaks at camps? Professional evangelists? No. We now use pastors, district superintendents, college people, and headquarters people. These are all fine folk, but they are surely not the "hired gun" types of professional evangelists once used at camp meetings. In fact, most all of today's best "professional" speakers are one-shot-one-hour speakers. Thus events like Gaither's Praise Gathering or Promise Keepers scoops them up -- but not for an eight day series, but five or six of them back to back over two or three days, one hour each. Many "top notch" speakers are glad to come for an hour. (What a life!) The old professional evangelist stirred up loyalty to camp meetings. Though most will not admit it, many of today's camp meeting speakers do not even believe very much in camp meeting themselves.

Do you know a lot of people so spiritually hungry that they will take their vacation from work and go stay at a camp meeting to hear preaching and teaching three times a day for two weeks straight? My granddad did. And he did it before he was saved! I don't see that much hunger around today. I see some short bursts of temporary hunger maybe for some fast-food spirituality. But not much hunger for a two-week banquet. Camp meetings fight this lack now more than ever. A good swimming pool might help, but... preaching?

It is getting harder to keep a camp meeting grounds open for just a few weeks a year. It is still possible, but more difficult. And renting someone else's grounds loses that "sacred space" magnetism.

My own denomination, like others, does not have a consistent product across the church or even a district. We are not like McDonalds where a quarter pounder tastes like a quarter pounder in every outlet. We are old enough to have developed quite a variety of opinions -- many deeply held -- on worship styles, music, and even preaching. This "middle age spread" in styles is making it increasingly difficult to have a district camp meeting and present music, worship, and preaching which fills the bill for all churches. Some are likely to consider what you do quaint and old fashioned, while others believe you are "pushing the envelope" too far. So some camps find the safest common ground is to select the music and worship style of thirty years ago. Then the more progressive churches can bring their kids to show them how it used to be, like visiting a spiritual flea market.

When the people quit being willing to pay for camp, the district has to dip into their regular funds to subsidize camp. When this happens eventually some will come to treat camp meeting as a welfare mother living off subsidies. They will look for the day to swoop down on the camp and close it. The camps which thrive best are those where the people gladly pay for it.

What do you think? Is your camp meeting flourishing? Declining? With what have you replaced it? Is it better? What have you lost? Gained? What would you do if you were king and could decide for your entire denomination?

So what do you think?

To contribute to the thinking on this issue e-mail your response to Tuesday@indwes.edu