The Story Behind the Foot Washing at the 1994 “Memphis Miracle”

Click here to listen to Donald Evans tell the story behind the foot washing at the Memphis Miracle

Certain segments within early Pentecostalism – most prominently the Azusa Street Revival (1906-1909) in Los Angeles, California – promoted a vision of “brotherly love” across the racial divides. However, this interracial vision was quickly eclipsed as Pentecostals set out to organize churches and did so largely along cultural and racial lines. When the Pentecostal Fellowship of North America – an umbrella organization for Pentecostal denominations – was formed in 1948, its founding members were all mostly-white denominations.

Recognizing the need to heal the racial divisions within Pentecostalism, church leaders came together in Memphis on October 18, 1994 and dissolved the Pentecostal Fellowship of North America. The next day the Pentecostal and Charismatic Churches of North America (PCCNA) was formed by both white and black denominations. The meetings surrounding this monumental act of racial reconciliation came to a climax when, on October 18, a white Assemblies of God pastor, Donald Evans, approached the platform. He tearfully explained that he felt God’s leading to wash the feet of Church of God in Christ Bishop Ithiel Clemmons, while begging forgiveness for the sins of the whites against their black brothers and sisters. A wave of weeping swept over the auditorium. Participants sensed that this was the final seal of the Holy Spirit’s approval from the heart of God over the proceedings. This event, which became known as the “Memphis Miracle,” is a significant milestone in the annals of Pentecostal history.

Church of God in Christ tour with Mother Patterson

 

Mason Temple, Memphis, Tennessee

TOUR OF COGIC HOLY SITES (LEXINGTON AND MEMPHIS)
Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Mother Mary P. Patterson (widow of Presiding Bishop J.O. Patterson Sr., 1968-1989) has agreed to lead a tour of Church of God in Christ holy sites in Lexington (MS) and Memphis (TN). The tour will occur on Wednesday, March 9, 2011, the day before the beginning of the Society for Pentecostal Studies (SPS) annual meeting.

Guests will see St. Paul Church Of God In Christ (the birthplace of the COGIC), Asia Baptist Church, Saints Industrial and Literary School, the jail cell where Bishop C.H. Mason was imprisoned in 1918 for allegedly preaching against the war, and other sites in Lexington, in addition to Mason Temple in Memphis.

Three scholars will accompany the tour and provide historical commentary: Dr. Elton Weaver (COGIC historian and Assistant Professor of History, Le Moyne-Owen College); Dr. Anjulet Tucker (Assistant Professor of Sociology and Religion, Boston University); and Dr. Percy Washington (pastor of Sweet Canaan COGIC, Lexington, MS).

The March 9, 2011 tour on Luxury Motor Coach will depart from and return to the Marriott Memphis Downtown (the official SPS hotel). Departure: 8:30 am. Return: 4 pm. Cost: $65 (lunch included). SPS members should make reservations through the SPS website prior to Feb. 1. Starting Feb. 1, any remaining seats will be offered to the general public. If insufficient guests register by Feb. 15, the tour may be cancelled and all fees will be refunded. For additional information, contact Darrin Rodgers at drodgers@ag.org or toll free at 877-840-5200.

This is a rare opportunity!

Tickets for the tour may be purchased on the SPS website: http://www.sps-usa.org/meetings/registration.htm. Non-SPS members may purchase tickets on the SPS website starting on February 1.

A House No Longer Divided

 

 

 

Dr. Stanley Horton extemporaneously addressing participants at A House No Longer Divided, Timmons Temple COGIC, Monday, April 13. Horton was explaining that his father was pastor of a multiracial church in Arroyo Seco, Los Angeles, in 1926-1927. Members – half were black, half were white – would eat dinner together after every Sunday service. (Photo courtesy of Ken Horn)

Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center Co-sponsors Demonstration of Unity, Marking Unlikely Dual Anniversary of Springfield Lynching and Azusa Street Revival

On April 13-15, 2009, people from various ethnic, social, and denominational backgrounds gathered in Springfield, Missouri, to celebrate their unity in Christ. This demonstration of unity, dubbed “A House No Longer Divided,” was sparked by the unlikely dual anniversary of two events — the horrific Springfield Lynchings and the beginning of the multiethnic Azusa Street Revival, which has become a worldwide symbol for racial reconciliation. The meetings were held each evening from 7-9 pm at Timmons Temple Church of God in Christ (April 13-14) and at the William J. Seymour Chapel at the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary (April 15).

On April 14, 1906, three African-American men were lynched by a mob on the Springfield town square. The lynching of Horace Duncan, Fred Coker and Will Allen led to the flight of possibly hundreds of blacks to less hostile areas. The ethnic makeup of the community, to this day, reflects that horrific event. The African-American community in Springfield remembers the event much like Jews remember the Holocaust.

That same day, on April 14, 1906, William J. Seymour began holding services at the run-down mission at 312 Azusa Street in Los Angeles. The interracial Azusa Street revival, which emerged from meetings in a home on Bonnie Brae Street, became a focal point for the emerging Pentecostal movement. Azusa participant Frank Bartleman famously exulted that “the color line was washed away in the blood.” A little more than one year later, Rachel Sizelove, a Free Methodist-turned-Pentecostal evangelist, brought the movement to Springfield from Azusa Street and started what became Central Assembly of God.

“A House No Longer Divided” featured special speakers, preaching, and music. Timmons Temple Pastor T.J. Appleby emceed the services, and speakers included both seasoned and young ministers. Organist Beverly Daniels and the Timmons Temple gospel choir led participants in worship each evening. Half of each evening was devoted to gospel music, which was interspersed between speakers (each was given either 10 or 30 minutes to speak).

Documenting the Early Days of Pentecost in Alabama

An early tent meeting in Geneva County, Alabama, about 1913

Rachel Dobson of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, has been researching the early history of the Assemblies of God movement in (mostly) southeast Alabama, for a series of independent study projects in the master’s program in library and information studies at the University of Alabama. She has been collecting documentation on tent revivals, camp meetings, brush arbor meetings (from newspapers, posters, oral histories like those at the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center) that took place from about 1906 (when M. M. Pinson came to what is now El Bethel AG just north of New Brockton) until about 1918 or 1919, in a few counties of southeast Alabama, and possibly northwest Florida. She also has been resourcing information from county histories, church histories, Google Maps, and references such as The First Fifty Years: A Brief Review of the Assemblies of God in Alabama (1915-1965), by Robert H. Spence, 1965.

Her great grandfather, Lafayette Snellgrove, and her great-great uncle, Handy W. Bryant, and their families were born and raised in Coffee, Dale, and surrounding counties in Alabama. They attended many Pentecostal revivals and camp meetings around Wicksburg, New Brockton, Midland City, and as far away as Florala, in the first decades of the twentieth century. Lafayette and Handy were both ordained ministers, and her great-great aunt, Daisy S. Bryant, was licensed to preach. They attended the organizing meetings for the southeastern District in 1915, 1916, and 1917. She also located Handy Bryant’s name on some of the early rosters of the Churches of God in Christ. See links to these rosters at the blog entry for Church of God in Christ and in unity with the Apostolic Faith.

Rachel is especially interested in the early locations of camp meetings and the history of how churches were established because of these early meetings. Her research has taken her to reports of revival services in early publications such as the Word and Witness and the Christian Evangel (forerunner of the Pentecostal Evangel). Recently she posted some photographs of early camp meeting locations and historic churches in Alabama. These photos can be viewed on a photoset at Flickr.com called Early Pentecost in Alabama.

Church of God in Christ and in unity with the Apostolic Faith

When the Assemblies of God was formed in 1914, the largest contingent of incoming ministers came from a loosely-organized group which, on its credentials, was identified as “Church of God in Christ and in unity with the Apostolic Faith.” This group had its roots in Charles Parham’s Apostolic Faith Movement, but had, by late 1910 or early 1911, changed its name to incorporate the term “Church of God in Christ.” This group, which consisted mostly of white ministers (although at least two black ministers were members), was better known as “Church of God in Christ.”

Little is known about this organization. Scholars have given it the label the “[white] Church of God in Christ” to differentiate it from another organization also named the Church of God in Christ, a largely-black group led by Charles H. Mason.

The [white] Church of God in Christ issued its own credentials, elected its own officers, published its own newspaper, and had its own system of short-term Bible training centers for ministers. Despite having similar names, the two groups organizationally seemed to have little, if anything, in common.

The Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center (FPHC), in its vault, holds the ministerial rosters of the [white] Church of God in Christ from 1912 through 1914.

To view the [white] Church of God in Christ rosters, please click the links below:
Roster of August 1, 1912
Roster of February 1, 1913
Roster of December 1913
Roster of 1914 (missing the first one or two pages)

Can anyone provide information about any ministers on these rosters?

COGIC Scholars Fellowship Academic Forum

The COGIC Scholars Fellowship is sponsoring an Academic Forum at the Church of God in Christ’s annual AIM (Auxiliaries in Mission) Convention, to be held in Detroit, Michigan, June 30 through July 4, 2008.

The Academic Forum, located in Room 02-40 of Cobo Hall, will feature two presentations daily, 2:00-4:30 pm on Tuesday, July 1 through Thursday, July 3.

The impressive lineup of presenters is below:

Review: Women in the Church of God in Christ

Women in the Church of God in Christ: Making a Sanctified World, by Anthea D. Butler. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2007.

We have all heard the saying “behind every great man is a great woman,” but within the Church of God in Christ (COGIC) in the early twentieth century, the great women did more than just stand behind the men. They carved out leadership positions alongside the men, often surpassing the “brothers” in education, prominence, and spiritual and temporal authority. In doing the “women’s work” under the separate structure of the “Women’s Department,” female leaders created a powerful space for themselves. Anthea Butler’s book, Women in the Church of God in Christ: Making a Sanctified World, expertly presents the tales of these leaders between 1911 and 1964.

These narratives are pieced together from information gathered digging through many “musty closets and bedrooms,” where much of the denomination’s historical documentation remains, waiting to be discovered by scholars or thrown out by careless relatives. Butler rescues denominational pamphlets and books, newspaper articles, meeting minutes, tape recordings, photos, and other textual relics which prove invaluable in illuminating the role of women in COGIC. She supplements this data with interviews of elderly church members who were often able to thicken the descriptions of various historical events. The resultant narrative highlights the ways in which COGIC women strategically used their beliefs and their role as “mothers” to empower themselves within the denomination, and eventually outside of it.

Key to Butler’s understanding of COGIC women is an “emphasis on how belief–in this case, belief in sanctification–acted as the impetus for what church mothers actually accomplished” (p. 4). This approach takes issue with other treatments that have suggested that practices like sanctification led to a disengaged and otherworldly stance on social issues. Quite the opposite happened with the second generation of COGIC leadership, among whom Butler sees the focus on sanctification leading to social engagement on issues like education, politics, and civic interaction. Here Butler hopes to push beyond an earlier analysis of sanctified women offered by Cheryl Townsend Gilkes by suggesting that, through their religious beliefs and world view, “it was COGIC women themselves who shaped the denomination’s engagement with the community … through their alliances outside the denomination” (p. 119).

COGIC Bishop G. E. Patterson (1939-2007)

Church of God in Christ Bishop Gilbert Earl Patterson passed away Tuesday afternoon, March 20, 2007, in Memphis, Tennessee, at the age of 67.

The following is a statement from the Carter Malone Group, public relations contact for the Patterson family and the COGIC:

This afternoon at 4:03 p.m. at Methodist University Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, the Presiding Bishop of the Church of God In Christ, Bishop G. E. Patterson, passed away as a result of heart failure. Patterson was surrounded by his wife, Mrs. Louise Patterson, and his family.

Patterson served as the leader of the fourth-largest Protestant religious denomination in the world with an estimated membership of 6.5 million members. He led the denomination since November 2000.

The memorial and funeral services will be held at Temple of Deliverance Church Of God In Christ. Local church memorial service, March 29, 7:00 p.m. — Jurisdictional memorial service, March 30, 7:00 p.m. — National church funeral service, March 31, 10:00 a.m.

Bishop Charles E. Blake, pastor of West Angeles Church of God in Christ has been named the interim presiding bishop of the denomination.

News reports are available online at the WMC-TV Memphis website which includes video clips, photos, and other tributes to Bishop Patterson.

Additional information can be found in the Memphis Commercial Appeal and on the Church of God in Christ, Inc. website.

Posted by Glenn Gohr