Noah Asimow
On Saturday night at 10 p.m., Sen. Raphael Warnock was on Capitol Hill, fighting to pass a bipartisan infrastructure bill. On Sunday morning Reverend Warnock was preaching on Martha’s Vineyard.
Raphael Warnock
Union Chapel
Tabernacle
West Tisbury Congregational Church

2004

The Tabernacle, which celebrates its 125th birthday this season, still feels young. A structure suited to a vast range of human activity, the Tabernacle - which towers above Trinity Park in the heart of the Martha’s Vineyard Camp Meeting Association in Oak Bluffs - remains a living landmark.
 
The word tabernacle refers to a temporary shelter, such as the tent sanctuaries used by the Israelites during the Exodus. But the Camp Ground’s Tabernacle has proved anything but temporary.
 

2001

To keep abreast with the changing times, the Martha's Vineyard Camp Meeting Association has altered the way it brings in and hosts the summer programs at the Tabernacle in Oak Bluffs.

"Things have changed because public taste is changing," said program director Robert Cleasby. "Many of the groups that used to come wouldn't be of interest today. I have been here for many years, long before I became program director in 1991, and I have seen that people's tastes have gone upscale like the Vineyard has gone upscale."

1962

A near-capacity crowd turned out late Sunday afternoon at the Oak Bluffs Tabernacle to cheer an unprecedented event on the Vineyard - the first Freedom Fund rally to support equal rights for Negroes throughout the country. The sponsor of the affair was the Cape Cod branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

The site was highly appropriate, for Oak Bluffs and, more specifically, the Martha’s Vineyard Camp Meeting Association which operates the historic Tabernacle, have long epitomized the goals of equality that the NAACP actively promotes.

1926

At the Tabernacle at Oak Bluffs next Sunday evening the services will include the dedication of the huge electric cross which will hereafter surmount the edifice. The new lighting system will also be used for the first time that evening.
 
Mounted on the highest point of the Tabernacle will be the electric cross of white enamel with pure golf leaf border, 12 feet in height. On each side of the cross, 30 powerful lamps will flash their rays. This cross may be seen not only from all points on the Island, but from a distance of from 15 to 20 miles out to sea.

1879

The new Methodist Tabernacle was formally dedicated Wednesday forenoon, in the presence of a goodly number of the clergy and an immense congregation. Rev. Dr. Morrison had the general charge of the exercises, which opened with singing, followed by scripture readings by Revs. Messrs. Brown and Hamlin. Prayer was the offered by Rev. L. B. Bates, followed by singing, after which Bishop Foster arose and commenced his sermon, taking for his text Ephesians IV, 30: “And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.”
 

The months-long project to replace the aging roof of the Tabernacle in the Camp Ground of Oak Bluffs came to a close in June.

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