WHY I BELIEVE CAMP MEETING IS IMPORTANT

Why do I believe in camp meeting? Let me count the reasons why:

1. I believe camp meeting is important because it brings me into contact with God’s people throughout the Conference. This is important because it helps me to keep my perspective. My vision and outlook is too often confined to the congregation with which I fellowship each week. It is easy to gradually begin to think that my church is the only church, that the needs of my church are the only needs. Thus, camp meeting provides me the opportunity to get the larger picture.
2. I believe camp meeting is important because it provides me with the opportunity to rejoice as I hear what God is doing in other churches around the Conference.
3. I believe camp meeting is important because it allows me to listen, live, to speakers who might only be a picture on 3ABN otherwise. We are fast becoming a culture of isolation, walled up and “protected” by our internets and televisions. We communicate by texting or emails, less and less face-to-face or even by phone.
4. If I stay in the dorms or camp in the North Woods, I am able to meet new friends from around the Conference. This is not an insignificant blessing.
5. The workshops in the mornings and afternoons provide the opportunity to meet and discuss various topics that appeal to me with others who share my special interest.
6. It provides an opportunity for my children to meet others of their own age and to gain friendships that could well last for years as they grow up together—meeting only at camp meeting.
7. Camp meeting is not unlike the old festivals to which the ancient Israelites would travel to Jerusalem. There they would lay down their worldly concerns and concentrate exclusively on what God had done for them during the time they had been apart. It is good for us to remember God’s blessings in our lives. We are told:

"In reviewing our past history, having traveled over every step of advance to our present standing, I can say, Praise God! As I see what the Lord has wrought, I am filled with astonishment, and with confidence in Christ as leader. We have nothing to fear for the future, except as we shall forget the way the Lord has led us, and His teaching in our past history." (Life Sketches, p. 196)

BY PASTOR SHERMAN MCCORMICK

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MINNETONKA, MN 55345
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