Carnival of Preachers and Informal Prayer

Pentecost to the Present – Book Two: Reformations and Awakenings: “One remarkable feature of the early camp meetings was the informal prayer groups that formed between the regular meetings. In these prayer groups, any man, woman, child, white or black, educated or not, could spontaneously exhort anyone within hearing distance. This earned the camp meeting its unofficial title ‘a carnival of preachers.’ In the regular meetings, Presbyterian, Baptist, and Methodist preachers took turns speaking as camp meetings were attended by all denominations, and all denominations experienced their fruit. In Kentucky alone between 1800 and 1803, the Baptists added 10,000 to their rolls, while the Methodists added 40,000. Peter Cartwright, an original convert of the Cane Ridge revival, wrote, ‘The work went on and spread almost in every direction gathering additional force till our country seemed all coming to God.‘”