joshuabgood wrote: ↑Sun Aug 13, 2023 7:25 am
George R Brunk
Agreed. We attended one of his tent meetings in the 70's. And even at my young age, at the time, he left an indelible impression on me. My Dad relayed that when he first came to Lancaster County with his tent revivals, in the 50's, he was all appalled at all the tobacco fields he saw. For that reason he called Lancaster county a "hell hole". It convicted many Mennonite farmers about growing tobacco.
Many years later as an adult, we attended the Gospel Express Tent Revivals. At that time I would say that Nelson Coblentz was a populist personality.
We had a few in our church circles in the 1950s; the young people used to say, “The world has Elvis Presley but we have Elmer Sommers Sr. and [some name I forget]”. They have very fiery tent revival sermons and attracted many followers.
Our church took a turn away from this kind of personality and preaching after the 1950s and hasn’t really returned to it since, as it didn’t seem to produce good quality fruit in the long term.