What began as a casual invitation to have a “gospel sing” a year ago has continued every month with an average of 90 to 100 people in attendance at the Camp Auction Barn on Arkansas Highway 72 and Patterson Road just east of town.
“We want to shepherd the community,” Jo Jones said. “Music is healing.”
Jones, her husband Danny, had joined Sharon and Derry Camp at a fish fry in May 2012 when the Camps asked the Jones to come back and “do a gospel sing.” So, they did.
Again and again, always the Saturday night after the Camps’ Thursday night auction, musicians and gospel lovers gather for the singin’.
The Jones also have a gospel singing in Centerton, which they began last November.
“We have the same core group of musicians,” Jones said. “We play anybody who wants to come and play. The Ashes have come - whoever wants to. We try to encourage them.
We want a place for all of them.
“We’re trying to keep Southern Gospel alive.”
“It’s open mic,” Jones said, and recalled children getting up and singing.
This past weekend, 132 people filled the auction barn. Everyone walked in, walked to the back and set food down on the table then found a chair. Many tapped their feet to the music, some sang along and many clapped.
“We grew up Southern Baptist,” Jones said of both herself and her husband.
“We were saved in the Baptist church at young ages, then experienced pentecost about 20 years ago when our daughter was singing a special at a little church in Bentonville.”
Jones, one of the women’s pastors at Harbor of Praise on Benton County 40, said she leads a women’s Bible study and is chaplain at Northwest Medical Center, Market Place chaplains USA out of Dallas, a chaplain for the Benton County Sheri◊’s O◊ce and works in corporate ministry.
“We’re there to love them through their crisis,” Jones said. The only female chaplain for the BCSO, she sometimes ministers to prisoners as well as administrators and staff. She said she is certified in Critical Incident Stress Management and the International Conference of Police Chaplains.
“Music is Danny’s ministry,” she said. “When we evangelize, I preach and he does the singing.”
The gospel singing is for both the churched and the unchurched.
Music is a healing place, she said, recalling different people to whom the couple has ministered during and after the singings.
One of the musicians wanted to play, but wasn’t sure if he would be allowed.
“One guy said he’d been playing country and western and in bars and asked if he was still welcome,” Jones said. “Of course he was. That young man got saved, he’s been ministered to. Lives are being touched. We’ve had miracles.”
“We are just loving the people and ministering to them through song,” she said.
“Our musicians are so talented … they can usually pick out any song requested.”
The singing begins at 6 p.m. There is time for food and fellowship about 7:30 and they usually end the evening around 9 or 9:30, but this past Saturday, they were still singing at 10 p.m.
“I think if you let them, they’d sing all night,” Derry Camp said.
There is no charge for admission.
News, Pages 1 on 06/26/2013