Targeting Youth at Century Old Camp Meeting: Next Step for Unity Ministry after June Event Downtown

By Mandy Catoe

Sunday, August 21, 2016

The Lancaster City and Countywide Prayer Rally is dressing an age-old message in young hip clothes, and taking it to the historic annual Mount Carmel Camp Meeting next month.
The group, formed in June for a rally on the courthouse grounds that drew hundreds of participants, will have its “prayer warriors” at the camp meeting Sept. 9-10.
The meeting grounds, at Mount Carmel AME Zion Church in Heath Springs, have hosted annual camp meetings for more than a century. Thousands of people come from across the Southeast for the multi-day events – part camping vacation, part revival, part family reunion.
Prayer rally organizer Ollie Alexander said her group’s mission at the camp meeting is to get the attention of youth, with preaching, praying, worship and song.
“Our focus will be on the young people, with the ultimate goal of unity,” said Alexander, program director for My Hope of Lancaster, which is affiliated with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.
Experienced street-evangelism teams will be walking the grounds, witnessing and praying, she said, pulling young people toward the camp meeting pews worn smooth by their parents and grandparents.
They’re called Holy Spirit S.W.A.T. (Spiritual Warfare and Tactics) Teams and their work in the community will continue long after the camp meeting ends, Alexander said.
She said the Unity Next Generation Praise Team Choir, made up of mostly young adults, will perform during the event, using music with a youthful, upbeat tempo.
Ministers of music Chelsey Sims and Khaleek Chapman will be directing the choir. Sims is from City of Promise Church in Rock Hill and Chapman is from The Living Word Church in Lancaster.
“It’s powerful,” Alexander said of the music. “The youth are looking for something, and they will naturally migrate to the music.”
Young people with powerful messages are among the speakers for the event. Terrance L. Gallman, a former inmate and author, will give his testimony. Gallman will share from his book and soon-to-be movie, “There’s No Right Way to Do Wrong.”
Most of the ministers who were at the downtown prayer rally in June will be on hand, praying and preaching at the campgrounds, including Alexander. Thirty-three congregations took part in the June rally.
The prayer rally organizers are working collaboratively with Mount Carmel AME Zion and other area churches. Mount Carmel was founded in the late 1860s by former slave Isom Caleb Clinton.
The Mount Carmel Camp Meeting has been an annual event for more than 100 years. A complex of about 55 small cabins, still called “tents,” cover the grounds behind the church.
When it began, tents, log cabins and shacks spread over the grounds. Concrete two-story buildings have since been built for the worshippers. An open-air, wooden arbor with well-worn wooden pews and a rusty tin roof is still the heart of the complex.
The camp meeting will begin Wednesday night, Sept. 7, and end with a celebration Sunday morning during the regular worship service inside the church. At that final gathering, the officials will present a total number of saved souls and rededicated lives.
The traditionally black camp is open to all races, Alexander said.
“Anyone who wants to come,” Alexander said. “Our teams are mixed with blacks, whites and hispanics.”
This past Friday, Alexander walked the church grounds to pray, anchor herself, and align with the sanctity of the space.
Alexander has been coming to camp meetings at Mount Carmel since she was a little girl. She took a few minutes to visit a cabin deep into the grounds, trimmed in yellow, with the number 72 on it.
“This is my family tent,” she said, smiling.
Mount Carmel trustee Fulton Thompson stood nearby looking over the tents and reflecting on his many years of attending the camp meeting. He is 62 years old and says he is certain he has been to 62 and plans to keep on coming back.
“When I was a little boy, we used to get into a little devilment out here,” Fulton said. “We had water guns and we would spray people and run.”
Mount Carmel Minister Clemestine Alexander has been the liaison responsible for bringing the prayer rally onto the historic Mount Carmel campgrounds.
“I think it’s a wonderful thing they are coming,” Minister Alexander said. “I believe it will make a difference in the young lives as well as the old ones.”
Churches interested in participating in the prayer rally should contact Ollie Alexander at USA.SUMMIT@yahoo.com or call (803) 741-6401.

MANDY CATOE/mcatoe@thelancasternews.com

Pastor Ollie Alexander stands in front of several “tents” at the Mount Carmel AME Zion Campground, one of which she stayed in as a child.