Big Tent Revival

Big Tent Revival In Alabama – Four Week Event With 257 Professions Of Faith

Draw Of The Big Tent – Calera Church buys It’s Own Tent, Attracts Large Crowds To Revival; ‘Set People Free’ Pastor Says

By Greg Garrison
News staff writer
THE BIRMINGHAM NEWS

Singing, preaching and praying under a big tent rank as a classic summer phenomenon in the South, a camp meeting with a touch of circus atmosphere.  An old fashion tent revival.

“There’s something about a tent, I don’t know what it is, that just draws people,” said the Rev. Jerry East, pastor of Concord Baptist Church in Calera.

Under a 150-foo-long, 60-foot-wide tent with large blue and white stripes on the grounds of Concord Baptist, people sat in folding chairs, clutching Bibles and singing hymns during Memorial Day weekend services.  With many youths wearing blue jeans, the congregation listened to Arkansas evangelist William Blackburn trying to win over the unchurched and warn backsliding Baptist to follow the Bible.

“The Bible says we are all prone to backsliding,” Blackburn said.  “Man is a sinner, God is holy, and before man can be reconciled to God, he must repent.  A lot of folks want to bend God to meet their theology but man bend to meet God.  You must come to God His way or you can’t come to God at all.”

The Harvest Crusade tent revival at Concord Baptist on Shelby County 22 in Calera began Sunday, continues nightly at 7 and will go on at least another week, East said.  There are signs to the crusade from Interstate 65, Exit 231.  East said 450 people attended Monday’s night service and 52 came forward to give their lives to Christ on Sunday and Monday.

The church brought in guest evangelist Blackburn, who was fresh from a successful revival at Highland Baptist Church in Laurel, Mississippi.  “It lasted 10 weeks and nearly 1300 people were saved,” Blackburn said.  “The folks are hungry for a movement of God.  It’s a sign we’re living in the last days.”  See videos from Highland revival.

Blackburn said most of his revivals are in churches, not tents, but the tent lends an atmosphere that’s very conducive to winning souls.

“There’s a relaxed atmosphere,” East said.  “There’s something about the simplicity that allows people to worship the Lord; it sets people free.  The excitement of worship is just 10 times higher.”

Blackburn’s tent revival features conservative Southern Baptist theology and does not rely on the emotionalism common at many Pentecostal, charismatic or Holiness revivals.

“Our revival deals with repentance and salvation, not emotionalism,” Blackburn said.  It’ a major emphasis on winning people to Christ, on people who have lived against God coming to a realization they need God.”