Church of God in Christ
The Church of God in Christ is an international Holiness–Pentecostal Christian denomination and a large Pentecostal denomination in the United States. Although an international and multi-ethnic religious organization, it has a predominantly African-American membership based within the United States. The international headquarters is in Memphis, Tennessee.
The current Presiding Bishop is John Drew Sheard Sr., who is the senior pastor of the Greater Emmanuel Institutional Church of God in Christ in Detroit, Michigan. He was elected as the denomination's leader on March 27, 2021. On November 12, 2024, Bishop Sheard was re-elected by acclamation to serve another four-year term as the presiding bishop and chief apostle of the denomination.
Background
Holiness origins
The Church of God in Christ was formed in 1897 by a group of disfellowshipped Baptists, most notably Charles Price Jones and Charles Harrison Mason. In 1895, Jones and Mason were licensed Baptist ministers in Mississippi who began teaching and preaching the Wesleyan doctrine of Christian perfection as a second work of grace to their Baptist congregations. Mason was influenced by the testimony of the African-American Methodist evangelist Amanda Berry Smith, one of the most widely respected African-American holiness evangelists of the nineteenth century. Her life story led many African-Americans into the Holiness movement, including Mason. He testified that he received entire sanctification after reading her autobiography in 1893.In June 1896, Jones held a Holiness convention at Mt. Helm Baptist Church in Jackson, Mississippi, attended by Mason and others from several states. Protestant doctrinal debates about Calvinism and Wesleyan perfectionism affected how even local African-American Baptist pastors responded to new Christian movements at the time. Some of these African-American Baptist pastors in local Southern areas such as Mississippi, Tennessee, and Arkansas considered Jones and Mason to be controversial. The leadership of the Mississippi State Convention of the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. intervened and expelled Jones, Mason, and others who embraced the Wesleyan teaching of entire sanctification.
In 1897, Mason founded the St. Paul Church in Lexington, Mississippi, as the first church of the new movement. At its first convocation, held in 1897, the group was identified as the "Church of God". Many Holiness Christian groups and fellowships forming at the time wanted biblical names for their local churches and fellowships, such as "Church of God," "Church of Christ," or "Church of the Living God". They rejected denominational names such as "Baptist", "Methodist", or "Episcopal". Since so many new Holiness groups and fellowships were forming that used the name "Church of God", Mason sought a name to distinguish his Holiness group from others.
Later in 1897, while in Little Rock, Arkansas, Mason stated that God had given him the name "Church of God in Christ" for the group. He believed that the name, taken from 1 Thessalonians 2:14, was divinely revealed and biblically inspired. His Holiness fellowship adopted the name Church of God in Christ, and began to develop congregations throughout the South. Jones was elected the General Overseer, Mason was selected as Overseer of Tennessee, and J. A. Jeter was selected as Overseer of Arkansas. After testifying to being sanctified, members of the church referred to themselves as "Saints", believing that they were set apart to live a daily life of Christian Holiness in words and deeds.
Pentecostal origins
By 1906, the church had grown to nearly 100 congregations in three states. Desiring to learn more about the work of the Holy Spirit in the church, Mason, Jeter, and D. J. Young were appointed to a committee by Jones to investigate reports of a revival in Los Angeles, California, that was being led by an itinerant preacher named William J. Seymour. Jones was acquainted with Seymour between 1895 and 1905, as Seymour's travels brought him into contact with many Holiness preachers, including John G. Lake and Martin Wells Knapp. Mason stayed in Los Angeles for five weeks, and his visit to the Azusa Street Revival changed the direction of the newly formed holiness church. During his visit, Mason received baptism with the Holy Spirit; the evidence was believed to be his glossalia, in accordance with the account described in the Christian book of Acts 2:4.Upon his return to Jackson, Mississippi, Mason faced opposition when he recounted his experience. Not everyone in the church was willing to accept "speaking in tongues" as the initial evidence of baptism of the Holy Ghost. At the general convention held in Jackson in 1907, a split occurred between Jones and other church leaders over such disagreements. After being ejected for accepting his new Pentecostal teachings, Mason called a meeting in Memphis later in the year and reorganized the Church of God in Christ as a Holiness-Pentecostal body. The leaders of the newly formed denomination in 1907 were E. R. Driver, J. Bowe, R. R. Booker, R. E. Hart, W. Welsh, A. A. Blackwell, E. M. Blackwell, E. M. Page, R. H. I. Clark, D. J. Young, James Brewer, Daniel Spearman, and J. H. Boone. The group became the first Pentecostal General Assembly of the Church of God in Christ. They unanimously choseMason as General Overseer and Chief Apostle. Mason was given authority to lead the new denomination.
In 1907, with 10 congregations, the Church of God in Christ became the first legally chartered Pentecostal body incorporated in the United States. Jones and those Holiness leaders who did not embrace the Azusa Revival experience continued as Holiness churches. In 1915, after years of court litigation over the name of the organization and use of the name "Church of God in Christ" by the two groups; Mason's group was granted the use of the name and Jones's group organized a legally chartered Holiness body called the Church of Christ U.S.A.
History
Bishop C. H. Mason era (1897–1961)
After moving to Memphis, Tennessee, Bishop Mason established a local congregation called Temple COGIC. He also established the COGIC national headquarters there. He called for an annual gathering of COGIC members, known as the "International Holy Convocation", to be held in Memphis. Originally, this gathering of the 'Saints' lasted for twenty days, from November 25 to December 14. This seasonal period was selected because most of the COGIC members were farmers and were finished harvesting their crops around this time. COGIC members gathered for praying, fasting, teaching, preaching, fellowship and conducting business related to the national COGIC organization.COGIC originated among African Americans in the Southern states of Mississippi, Arkansas, and Tennessee. But during the early twentieth century, the Pentecostal movement had rapid growth nationally and attracted racially integrated congregants to its worship services. Bishop Mason was pivotal in licensing and credentialing both white and African American ministers, who spread the Pentecostal message and planted new churches. The first general secretary of COGIC was Elder William B. Holt, a white minister. During 1910–1913, two white ministers, Elder H. A. Goss and Elder Leonard P. Adams, were clergy under the authority of C. H. Mason. They were given the authority through a "gentlemen's agreement" to license ministers and establish churches under the COGIC name.
A few years after the Azusa Revival, in 1914, shortly before the United States entered World War I, approximately 300 white ministers, representing a variety of independent churches and networks of churches, including the "Association of Christian Assemblies" of Indiana; and the "Church of God in Christ and in Unity with the Apostolic Faith Movement" from Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Texas; met in Hot Springs, Arkansas. They determined to separate from COGIC and form what would eventually become the Worldwide Fellowship of the Assemblies of God. There seemed no prospect of an integrated Pentecostal movement under the leadership of an African American such as C. H. Mason. White Americans also, while receiving credentials from COGIC, continued to work along segregated lines; Howard Goss, one of the many white ministers, described the relationship with COGIC as "an association...mainly for purposes of business." The organizers of the meeting in Hot Springs had sent invitations only to white ministers to discuss a new movement, although racial and ethnic minorities did attend.
The Howard A. Goss faction left COGIC to join the Assemblies of God USA. Over time, the ministers and churches under Leonard P. Adams also separated from COGIC; they assimilated into other white Pentecostal groups or organizations. In 1916, a few white churches were organized as a white branch of COGIC. William B. Holt was appointed as General Superintendent. The racial climate in the post WWI years, when there was high competition for jobs and housing and violent unrest in many cities in 1919, would not sustain this relationship. It ultimately ended by 1930, when the Depression set in.
Mason continued to travel across the nation preaching and establishing COGIC churches. As African Americans migrated north and west to industrial cities during the Great Migration, he began to establish COGIC churches in the north and, especially after 1940, in the west. Mason sent ministers and evangelists to cities and urban areas outside the South, including William Roberts, O. M. Kelly, O. T. Jones Sr., E. R. Driver, and Samuel Kelsey From these major cities, COGIC spread throughout the country.
In 1926, Mason authorized the church's constitution, outlining the bylaws, rules, and regulations of the church. In 1933, he set apart five overseers to the Office of Bishop in the church, the first five bishops of COGIC.
The first national tabernacle was built and completed in 1925. It was destroyed by fire in 1936. In 1945, Mason dedicated Mason Temple in Memphis as the church's national meeting site. Built in the 1940s during World War II, the nearly 4000-seat building was the largest church auditorium of any African American religious group in the United States.
In 1951, when Bishop Mason was approaching 85 years of age, he set up a "special commission" to help with the administration and oversight of the church. On June 5, 1951, he selected Bishop A. B. McEwen, Bishop J. S. Bailey, and Bishop O. M. Kelly as his assistants. On May 19, 1952, he added Bishop J. O. Patterson Sr. Also in 1952, Mason revised the constitution to determine the leadership and succession of the church after his death. Three years later on October 12, 1955, he added three more bishops to the hierarchy: Bishop U. E. Miller, Bishop S. M. Crouch, and Bishop O. T. Jones Sr. This group of seven bishops became known officially as the executive commission; they took on greater responsibility over church affairs until Mason's death.
In 1907, there were ten COGIC churches, but by the time of Bishop Mason's death in 1961, COGIC had spread to every state in the United States and to many foreign countries. It had a membership of more than 400,000, who supported more than 4,000 churches.