Background and Description

​          Towards the end of the eighteenth century, many people didn’t attend church services as much as they used to. This was the result of several factors:

           -  People simply didn’t believe in God anymore and/or didn’t believe that God impacted

               their life as much as previously thought

           -  Some thought church attendance had no significance to God, instead God would

                judge someone by his/her life on Earth

           -  People became so involved in everyday life that they had little time to worship God

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          Due to this change and partially because religion was taken out of the control of political leaders, a multitude of religious faiths sponsored religious revivals. These revivals were generally in the form of famous camp meetings. These camp meetings led thousands of worshipers to convert through listening about God. These meetings were conducted by American preachers James McGready, John McGee, and Barton W. Stone in Kentucky and Tennessee.  It was said to be extremely exciting to attend one of such meetings. Soon they became not only religious services, but also served as social gatherings. It was a form of communication and trade among the people living in rural areas. One young man who attended the famous 20,000-person revival at Cane Ridge, Kentucky, in 1802, expresses his experience at the camp meeting:

          “The noise was like the roar of Niagara. The vast sea of human beings seemed to be

          agitated as if by a storm. I counted seven ministers, all preaching at one time, some on

          stumps, others on wagons ... Some of the people were singing, others praying, some

          crying for mercy. A peculiarly strange sensation came over me. My heart beat

          tumultuously, my knees trembled, my lips quivered, and I felt as though I must fall to

          the ground.”

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          While the Second Great Awakening was gaining momentum, the Restoration Movement - made up of non denominational churches committed to what they thought was the original, fundamental Christianity of the New Testament -  also began.