I had dinner with the deacons of the Greater New Jersey Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church - GNJUMC for short. (We Methodists - and most people in mainline denominations love making alphabet soup with our committees, boards, agencies and such!) Dinner was at conference headquarters and is simply an office building. And because traffic is what it is I either would arrive early, with time to kill or late. So I chose early and popped over to Ocean Grove's Great Auditorium. Ocean Grove is just across the creek from Asbury Park, and if you think you are suspecting a theme here, you might just be a Methodist - or know something about early American church history. Ocean Grove is home to one of the oldest Camp Meeting Associations in the country. In the 19th C, Protestants - especially Methodists and Baptists - would gather in large numbers on camp grounds in tents for a week or so of preaching and revival. Ocean Grove's Tent City surrounds the Great Auditorium and are quaint seaside Victorian era structures that are handed down generation to generation.
Tent City is only in operation between Memorial and Labor Day. These are the platforms that in summertime are covered in pretty colored canvases spanning the spectrum of a rainbow reminiscent of sherbet and salt water taffy.
Day's ice cream parlor - just your average Victorian era shopfront typical here on the streets of Ocean Grove - but the stores don't get packed away for winter.
I had dinner with the deacons of the Greater New Jersey Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church - GNJUMC for short. (We Methodists - and most people in mainline denominations love making alphabet soup with our committees, boards, agencies and such!) Dinner was at conference headquarters and is simply an office building. And because traffic is what it is I either would arrive early, with time to kill or late. So I chose early and popped over to Ocean Grove's Great Auditorium. Ocean Grove is just across the creek from Asbury Park, and if you think you are suspecting a theme here, you might just be a Methodist - or know something about early American church history. Ocean Grove is home to one of the oldest Camp Meeting Associations in the country. In the 19th C, Protestants - especially Methodists and Baptists - would gather in large numbers on camp grounds in tents for a week or so of preaching and revival. Ocean Grove's Tent City surrounds the Great Auditorium and are quaint seaside Victorian era structures that are handed down generation to generation.
Tent City is only in operation between Memorial and Labor Day. These are the platforms that in summertime are covered in pretty colored canvases spanning the spectrum of a rainbow reminiscent of sherbet and salt water taffy.
Day's ice cream parlor - just your average Victorian era shopfront typical here on the streets of Ocean Grove - but the stores don't get packed away for winter. 
1 comment:
cool! =D
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