A President’s Message
There is something almost instinctive about it — the feeling that draws God’s people away from the routines of ordinary life to gather together in a place set apart. It happened in ancient Israel. It happens still at Sebring Camp Meeting.
Alexander Maclaren, the great 19th century expositor, captured it well. Writing of Isaiah’s vision of God’s redeemed people, he noted that the pilgrims “do not plod wearily in silence, but, like the tribes going up to the feasts, burst out often, as they journey, into song.” That image — God’s people streaming toward a holy gathering, too full of joy to stay quiet — is exactly the spirit of camp meeting.
Years ago, in the early days of my presidency here, I had the privilege of conducting a study among camp meeting leaders, evangelists, denominational leaders, and scholars across the holiness tradition. I asked them a simple but profound question: Is there a unique biblical and theological basis for the camp meeting?
Their answers pointed, almost unanimously, to the same source — the great feasts of Old Testament Israel.
Those ancient gatherings were not incidental to Israel’s life with God. They were commanded. They were central. And when you look closely at what they were designed to do, it sounds remarkably familiar. They were times of remembering — calling to mind God’s great deliverances. Times of reconsecration — renewing commitment to the God who saved them. Days of rest and rejoicing — stepping away from ordinary life to be refreshed in His presence. Times of renewal — offering, worshipping, beginning again.
Jesus Himself affirmed the principle: “Come away to a quiet place and rest awhile.” The New Testament church carried it forward in the mandate not to forsake assembling together.
Camp meeting is not an outdated relic. It is the living continuity of something God wove into the very rhythm of His people’s lives from the beginning.
That study still shapes how I think about Sebring today. Camp meeting is most powerful when it keeps God’s people as its primary focus — with first-rate ministry to children and youth, a clear call to holiness, and the courage to let methods change while theology never does. The world our families navigate looks very different than it did a generation ago. The message of holiness is exactly the same.
Come expecting what God’s people have always found when they gathered in His name — days of remembering, reconsecration, rest, rejoicing, and renewal.
See you at Campmeeting Time!
Charles Nutt
1602 Linda Drive, S.W.
Clinton, MS 39056
615-775-4526
Chuck@SebringCamp.org
