Falls Creek goes sweatless

[Okla-homey]

This was in the morning paper. Pretty cool (no pun intended) development at a place where an awful lot of us hillbillies spent some time in our youth. Now, attendees will be able to sit through the evening services without sweat.


A new 7,253-seat climate-controlled tabernacle has been constructed at Falls Creek Baptist Conference Center near Davis. The facility has a large auditorium, a chapel, a $1.9 million audio-visual system and counseling rooms. It will be dedicated during a service on May 26.

FALLS CREEK BY THE NUMBERS

1,800,000 people have attended Falls Creek youth encampments since 1917

44,002 youths attended its seven weeks of encampment in 2006

35 percent of Oklahoma pastors, evangelists and church staff members were saved or called to ministry at Falls Creek

21 percent of Southern Baptist missionaries with Oklahoma ties received the call to missions at Falls Creek

As you can see, there were no figures provided on the number of us who found first love in the pale moonlight at FC.

[OUinFLA]

Awesome.

I have great ties to FC.
Back in the early 1900's FC wasn't a church camp but a place where people went to vacation.
My grandparents built a cabin there and the family would spend weekends at the cabin during the summers.
At one point, my grandparents and about 6 other families who had ties to OBU approached the Baptist powers of the area and suggested they start a summer church camp.
That was when it all started. Churches from around the state begin to build their own cabins all over the area.
As it became a majority church camp, they enacted a rule that private cabin owners could keep their property for as long as they wanted but upon deciding to sell, they must sell to an established church.
My grandparents cabin, which by then was passed to my Dad and his siblings was the last cabin to be privately owned. If memory serves me correct, I think Wynnewood Baptist bought our property.
My family were all part of the volunteer group that built the dam for the lake.

It's great that the new facility is air conditioned. I remember how important it was for morning services to be there a bit early so you didnt have to sit on the fringes of the open air building, which meant you were going to be sitting in the sun. Not fun in July.

Thanks for the pic Homey, Im gonna pass that along to my sister.

[picasso]

I caught 3 different kinds of poison ivy from hiking around that place.

[Okla-homey]

I caught 3 different kinds of poison ivy from hiking around that place.

Serves you right! You should have been in your cabin studying scripture and stuff. I bet you tried to swim with the girls too you. I swear, all these artistes are flippin' libertines.

[picasso]

Serves you right! You should have been in your cabin studying scripture and stuff. I bet you tried to swim with the girls too you. I swear, all these artistes are flippin' libertines.

well yeah, we might a skipped Chapel a time or two.

and the Devil's Bathtub rocked as always.

[reevie]

I have a friend who's daughter is closing in going to FC for the first time. He's sweating it cause he knows what he did when he was there.

[TopDawg]

One year in high school our church and First Baptist from our town were there the same week. We were both in the single-elimination softball tournament. Both of our teams were composed of mostly freshmen and jr. highers. I was the losing pitcher for our team when we went up against a team of mostly juniors and seniors who put just about every pitch over the hill (we were playing in that "sunken" field) and I was the losing pitcher for FBC's team when they played the same team on the main field.

Thus, I think I may be the only person to be the losing pitcher twice against the same team in a single-elimination tournament.

We went to Centrifuge at Glorieta, NM the following year (our church did 2 years at FC and 1 year at CF rotation) and we convinced our church to go to Centrifuge every year after that. At Centrifuge, you didn't have to wear knickers.

[picasso]

Glorietta is beautiful. I've just been by there on I-25.

yeah, old school Falls Creek sucked just for the non shorts factor.

I'll never forget playing pickup basketball with the big city boys in those awful gray sweat pants. nearly overheated.

[reevie]

I went to Centrifuge at Glorieta twice. It was an every other year thing as well, but I think it just worked out that way. I think was there in 87 and 89. I liked it better than FC, it was more relaxed, smaller and not near as hot.

[PhxSooner]

Volleyball in sweats = bad.
Cruising after the night service with a snowcone= good.

A guy from our church worked security there every summer. He had a lot of stories about those abandoned cabins behind the tabernacle...

[Flagstaffsooner]

Not being Baptist, I never had the pleasure. I was on the other side of the highway at Camp Classen.

[birddog]

i think i went to red rock, or something in high school.
can't remember why. help me out. all i remember was a big cross up on a hill.

[Flagstaffsooner]

Thats Camp Classen, Vesper Hill. Red Rock is a GSA camp.

[Flagstaffsooner]

Or if the cross was on fire that would be Ku Klux Kamp.

[StoopTroup]

My Wife spent quite a few summers there as a kid before leaving the cult.

[Okla-homey]

When I was living in SC in high school, we went to a GA Baptist youth camp at Toccoa GA. I don't know if it's still there or not. Anyhoo, Band Of Brothers afficionados will recognize the location. It was on the site of the old airborne infantry WWII camp.

We never ran up Mt. Currahee, but I've been to the top of it.