A brush arbour revival,[A] also known as brush arbour meeting,[B] is a revival service that takes place under an open-sided shelter called an "arbour", which is "constructed of vertical poles driven into the ground with additional long poles laid across the top as support for a roof of brush, cut branches or hay".[1]
History
Methodists and Baptists widely use brush arbour revivals to communicate the Christian proclamation of salvation, which have historically contributed to the growth of these denominations.[2][3] For Methodists, this salvation message includes preaching the doctrines of the New Birth and Entire Sanctification, as well as calling backsliders to repentance.[4][5] They originated in the 1700s, being regularly assembled when itinerant preachers announced in advance that they would be arriving in an area; their design served to protect seekers from precipitation.[1] Though brush arbour revivals continue in the present-day, they are the forerunner of the Methodist campmeetings.[6] Their success has historically led to the planting of local churches, as was the case with Morris Chapel United Methodist Church in Walkertown and Swift Creek Methodist Church in Macon.[7][8][9][10] Many of the first Sunday Schools ran by Methodists were held under brush arbours.[11]
^Towns, Elmer L.; Whaley, Vernon M. (2012). Worship Through the Ages: How the Great Awakenings Shape Evangelical Worship. B&H Publishing Group. p. 161. ISBN978-1-4336-7257-6.
^Bucke, Emory Stevens (1964). The History of American Methodism. Abingdon Press. p. 187. True to his times in so many respects, Walden became a Christian and a Methodist by way of a typical brush-arbor revival in rural Ohio.
^Microfilm Abstracts, Volumes 8-9. University Microfilms. 1948. p. 111. The ministers believed that their teaching on the doctrines of regeneration, entire sanctification and the one New Testament Church definitely identified them with the original Apostolic Church of the first century... Most revivals were held in tents, brush arbors and rented temporary buildings.
^Boyd, John Wright; Lawrence, Harold A. (1986). A Brief History of Early Methodist Societies & Meeting Houses in the Broad River Valley of Georgia. Boyd Publishing Company. p. 12.
^Lawrence, Harold A. (1990). A Feast of Tabernacles: Georgia Campgrounds & Campmeetings. Boyd Publishing Company. p. 2. Many of the early societies formed as outdoor gatherings under brush arbors. Many churches of Methodism, in their historical accounts, point back to their origin in a brush arbor.
^Packard, Anne (October 16, 2018). History of the South Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church: 1866-2018. p. 305. ISBN978-1-4834-8758-8. Swift Creek Methodist Church originated from a summer brush arbor revival held near Swift Creek shortly after the end of the Civil War in 1865.
^Seaton, Richard A. (1984). History of the United Methodist Churches of Missouri. Missouri Methodist Historical Society. p. 96. In 1943 at a brush arbor revival just off Highway 5, in what is now Laurie, twelve members voted to build a church on land given by Mr. and Mrs. Billie Hibdon.
^Garber, Paul Neff (1939). The Methodists are One People. Cokesbury Press. p. 135.
