Is the Vineyard poised to become the launch point for the next American Great Awakening?

Ask Squire Rushnell and Louise DuArt, the celebrity entertainers and authors who are the masterminds behind Inspiration Weekend 2009, which runs this weekend (June 5 to June 7), at the Tabernacle in Oak Bluffs, and they’ll tell you it just might be.

“We’re gonna light that fire again,” says Ms. DuArt, a well-known comedic impressionist who appears on national television as everyone from Judge Judy to George Burns.

Although both the Tabernacle and Cottage City stand as testimony to the Vineyard’s historic central role in the religious life of the nation, when Oak Bluffs was home to the Methodist revival movement that swept the nation in the mid-19th century, the 21st century may seem unlikely soil in which to plant the seeds of faith.

And while the centerpiece of Inspiration Weekend, Dr. Charles F. Stanley, is not exactly a household name here, his television program can be seen on 204 stations and seven satellite networks in this country, and his radio, shortwave, and television broadcasts reach every nation on earth.

In short, Mr. Rushnell and Ms. DuArt, who were interviewed by telephone this week, have high hopes.

“Today it [the Vineyard] may be spiritually dormant,” Mr. Rushnell said, adding: “But I think Dr. Stanley likes a challenge. He doesn’t like to preach to the choir.”

Additionally, Ms. DuArt points to the huge recovery community on the Island, and the couple has made a special effort to reach out to this group for the weekend event. “You open the paper and see about 70 twelve-step programs,” she said.

Both Island summer residents (Ms. DuArt’s Island roots reach back for four generations), Mr. Rushnell and Ms. DuArt are a double act that hit a stride in the last few years by embracing that distinctly American amalgam of show business and God. Mr. Rushnell is a television executive and author of the best-selling book When God Winks; his wife is a talk show host and coauthor with Mr. Rushnell of Couples Who Pray.

They became fans of Dr. Stanley while on the road. “Nomads that we are, author entertainers that we are,” said Mr. Rushnell, “we’ve been on the road all the time . . . and all during these periods of time we couldn’t go to church.” Listening to Dr. Stanley’s broadcasts served as their “spiritual diet” in their mobile life, he said.

Getting Dr. Stanley to come and speak at the Tabernacle, however, was something of a coup for the couple. Or, as Mr. Rushnell called it, “an extraordinary God Wink.”

“We never thought we would get a chance to meet Dr. Stanley,” he said. The opportunity arose when members of Dr. Stanley’s church in Atlanta, Ga., asked Ms. DuArt to perform her comedy act at their Christmas party.

In addition to the ministering hand of fate, the couple said they used the further enticements of good photography prospects, bird watching (Dr. Stanley enjoys both as hobbies), and the Vineyard’s history of religious revival as lures.

And they landed him.

In addition to appearances by Dr. Stanley, Inspiration Weekend will feature Mr. Rushnell and Ms. DuArt’s Evening of Inspiration and Comedy, and a great lineup of musical performances that includes Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr., the Annie Moses Band, Wampanoag tribal drummers, the Brazilian youth choir and the NAACP choir.

With open-air preaching and the prospect of a religious experience that is immediate, emotional and personal, Inspiration Weekend shares plenty of territory with the Methodist camp meetings of the past.

As its name implies, however, the event is nondenominational, and use of the word God has been intentionally omitted.

“We’re nondenominational. God has given us the peace of mind we long for. What we want to do is share a gift that we have found,” Ms. DuArt said, adding:

“It’s something we can give back, as a gift. What we want to give is people’s faith and people’s hope.”

She likes to use the metaphor of God as a guest waiting outside the door to describe the individual and deeply personal choice about faith. “He’s a gentleman, he won’t push and shove,” she said. “You have to open the door.”

Mr. Rushnell prefers a simpler metaphor. “I’m pure denim. I have no designer label. I believe in God,” he said.

Inspiration Weekend begins tonight and runs through Sunday. Tickets are $10 and may be purchased at Aboveground Records in Edgartown, daRosas in Oak Bluffs and the Martha’s Vineyard Chamber of Commerce in Vineyard Haven. Complete details appear in the Calendar section today on Pages Four-A and Five-A. For information call 1-800-468-6824, or visit marthasvineyardmethodists.org.