TENT REVIVALS
Tonight I was watching the tent revival from New Hope Baptist Church in Burlington N.C. Tent Revivals are not a new thing to me and it brought back many memories. As you all know my dad was an old time Baptist preacher. He owned his own tent and during the summer time the tent was set up at various places for Tent Revivals. I remember our tent laying in our front yard in front of the garage. Of course my brothers and sisters and I would play on the big pile of canvas. One day I was playing on it and fell and bit the inside of my bottom lip. So for over 60 years I have had a scar inside of my bottom lip from my fall on that tent. I can't remember all of the places my dad and his preacher friends and church members would set the tent up but I do remember two of the places. One was off Washington Pike in the Valley View Road area. Close to where Peanut King has his meat market and where the new Mexican Restaurant is now. And the other place was off Ridgeview Road on McNeally. The revival in Burlington is now in its 9th week and I don't remember any of ours going that long but I do remember them going for 3-4 weeks. They would set the tent poles up and stretch the tent over them and tie the ropes to hold the tent up. There would be poles down the middle and along the sides. They had side flaps that could be let down. After the tent was set up they would spread sawdust over the floor of the tent. I can still remember the smell of the sawdust. They would bring a pulpit and a piano. We did not mind the sawdust, the heat, the hard metal chairs or the length of the service. As it is happening in NC we would see many people kneeling in the sawdust alter to be saved and most of the people in the tent kneeling with them and praying. I distinctly remember two sermons that my dad preached in the tent revivals. One was about the Prodigal Son. ".......And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine, And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat; and no man gave unto him......Luke 15: 14-16. (To get the whole picture read verses 11-32) He was preaching, and if you ever heard my dad you rarely forgot a sermon he preached, and he went out of the tent still preaching and around to the back and never stopping preaching he came back into the tent with his pant legs rolled up and his shirt sleeves rolled up his shoes and socks off and a "slop" bucket in his hand where he had feed the pigs. As a kid I never forgot that and if I close my eyes and let my imagination go I can still see him. The other sermon that I remember so well was when he preached on Zacchaeus and he climbed up the tent pole in the middle of the tent and preached from the tent pole. The sermon came from these passages in the scripture. "And he sought to see Jesus who he was; and could not for the press, because he was little of stature. And he ran before, and climbed up into a sycomore tree to see him; for he was to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place he looked up, and saw him, and said unto him, Zacchaeus, make haste, and come down; for to day I must abide at thy house. And he made haste, and came down, and received him joyfully." St. Luke 19:3-5. He preached many other sermons at the church that I remember such as the lost coin, the lost sheep and the mustard seed but these two I remember vividly from the tent meetings. Those are memories that I cherish and am so thankful that I have them. My daughter Jennifer and her family have had the opportunity to attend one of the tent services in Burlington,NC. The meetings are being live streamed and if you have a chance tune in and watch it.
