Camp Meeting
A Jeremy Camp concert is like an old-fashioned camp meeting—lots of worship music and sharing the gospel story. Our conversation with him was a lot like that too.
by Andy Argyrakis | posted 4/05/2004
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With the release of Stay in 2002, the world was introduced to Jeremy Camp's gripping testimony of losing his wife Melissa to cancer—and the rebuilding of Camp's faith after her death. But Camp, who has since remarried, says leading worship is the ultimate pain elixir. Ever since his Bible college days, the 26-year-old would set up in any town with an acoustic guitar sharing his story through personal and praise-driven songs. Though Stay sold well and featured several hits ("Take My Life," "I Still Believe"), fans wanted Camp to release a worship album. After praying about the idea and brainstorming song choices, Camp recently released Carried Me: The Worship Project, and it's already climbing the charts. Here's more from our personal "Camp meeting" as his tour bus rolled from Las Vegas to Los Angeles on this spring's "Adoration Tour."
You started out as a worship leader, but your debut was such a personal album. What was that transition like?
Jeremy CampWhen you start as a worship leader, nothing you do is about you whatsoever. You're worshipping Jesus and leading people to do the same, so the focus can't have anything to do with you. When you enter the rock realm and start opening up lyrics about yourself, the tone changes a bit and you find people placing more attention on you. Suddenly there are lots of autographs and pictures and interaction that wouldn't be as constant if you were strictly a worship leader. I guess my decision to use my first record as more of a personal tone was to introduce people to my testimony. That didn't mean worship still wasn't a major part of the writing and performing process. I wanted people to get to know my story and how God used the passing of Melissa to strengthen so many believers and bring people to the faith.
Was the attention overwhelming at first?
CampThe first thing I did when Stay was released was to sit down and say, "Lord, I don't know what's going on here. All I know is you're blessing a lot of people with these words." I just prayed in every situation to keep the focus, even when the distractions come into the day. But yes, it was a little overwhelming—the whole autograph thing, interviews, travels and meeting so many new people every day. Don't get me wrong: I love all those amazing opportunities to share God's love with people. I just really want to have the wisdom and strength to lay my heart on the table every single day and be faithful to God's commission on my life.
What inspired you to go the worship route for your latest record?
CampIn going around the country so much and incorporating worship songs into concerts, people just started asking me to make a worship record. I could see onstage every night that this portion of the show was really affecting people, just by the body language and expressions on their faces. I also thought a worship record would bridge the gap from the way I started and reconnect me to those beginnings.
It's not just typical modern praise standards, and there are originals as well. Why did you steer away from the conventional route?
CampI wanted to use songs that aren't the everyday songs—the ones you hear every single Sunday that are on a lot of different compilations. I wanted to do some rarer songs, like "Trust In You" or "You're Worthy of My Praise," old songs that lead people to say, "I've never heard this song, but I'm really glad you introduced it to me." As far as originals go, I sought out corporate worship songs that can be brought to life, whether you're listening alone or live with other people.
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