Camp Meetings are part of the heritage of the Methodist movement. Think a church family reunion with all the food, the messages of hope, the music, and a revival of the Spirit. Camp CHAIR meetings will be our next step to share life together for September and October. With the time change in November, it’ll be too dark to meet outdoors which will offer a natural ending.

We will leverage the time and space of Thursday Drive-in Church for families to engage in small groups where children are fully integrated members of the inter-generational small group. For 30-minutes, 6-6:30pm, three families will meet in camp chairs in various locations to engage in an ice-breaker, a discussion question, and then break off into even smaller groups for prayer, all as an extension of the previous Sunday’s sermon message. the pilot groups will take place in the shaded back parking lot on campus. After a closing benediction, everyone will return to their homes to be challenged the next day by email with an action step that extends the small group experience even further into the weekend to move from the seat to the street.

Modality integration will look like this:
– Sermon delivered on Sunday in-person/online.
– Post sermon on podcast or closed Facebook page for Camp Chair Meetings to be viewed/reviewed on-demand on Monday/Tuesday.Post/email ice breaker or thought question on Thursday.
– Meet in camp chairs as a small group with opening prayer, ice breaker, discussion question, break up into prayer cells within the small group of women, men, and children (children will be led by the oldest who we will train and train up), dismiss with benediction/refrain.
– Follow-up action steps by email/posted on Friday to live out the discussion/message through the weekend.

Goals: Build connections between families (however the family unit looks as 10 or 1) and invite children to be fully integrated members of the inter-generational small group.

Joel Comiskey’s Children in Cell Ministry: Discipling the Future Generation Now speaks of intergenerational small groups as a group of three to fifteen people who meet weekly outside the church building for the purpose of evangelism, community, and spiritual growth with the goal of making disciples who make disciples that results in multiplication. (pg 51) The first step deals with a sermon/message (HEAD). The second step focuses on Bible application, prayer, games (HEART). Third step takes it from the seat to the street in Christian service in living it out and telling the story/testimony (HANDS & FEET).

We have eight families who have attended the drive-in church services on a regular basis who are not in our database. The stories are incredible of how they found out about what we were doing and became part of the parking lot sanctuary. This may be the vehicle to leverage Thursdays since that time is already part of their family routine to take the next step to building relationships with others in the church family. If folks connect in one way then into another, with others, that’s success.

“On arriving there, they gathered the church together and reported all that God had done through them and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles.” Acts 14:27