This has proven to be a longer story than I had anticipated, being I was hoping to get this all into one article! However, there is so much more to talk about, and therefore I want to share some more interesting groups.
Back during the years 1990-1992, when I attended the old Florida Baptist Theological College in Graceville, FL, I had just received the Pentecostal Baptism on June 21, 1989, and many of the Baptist churches in the area really held no interest for me. Although by then I had affilliated with the Foursquare denomination, the nearest Foursquare church was over 20 miles away in Midland City, AL, and although I would eventually be an active member there, at first it was not that convenient to go every Sunday. So, I attended usually the First Assembly of God in Graceville on given Sundays, until I met my future wife Barbara. Barb, like me, had started out Baptist as well but had gotten the Holy Spirit Baptism, and she was in a lot of ways more Pentecostal than I was then! Any rate, she started going to another little Pentecostal church in Graceville called the Graceville Community Church, and it was actually a very old-time Holiness/Pentecostal church that reminded me a lot of the churches back home in WV. As I attended the Graceville Community Church (especially its campmeetings in the fall, which were very good!) I began to understand that it was part of another Pentecostal fellowship, and therefore I wanted to find out who they were part of. So, years later, I did, and it turned out to be an interesting group.
The new campmeeting tabernacle at Graceville Community Church, Graceville, FL, when we last visited there in August 2008. The church house is to the left of the tabernacle out of range of the photo.
Graceville Community Church belongs to an association of old-time Pentecostal congregations called the Living Word of Faith Fellowship, based out of Panama City Florida. According to the Fellowship Minister's Handbook, the Living Word of Faith Fellowship was founded in 1954 through the evangelistic efforts of Rev. J. W. Hunt, a former Assemblies of God evangelist who established the Springfield Community Church, the "mother church" of the Living Word of Faith Fellowship, in 1951 in Panama City. Although Rev. Hunt died at the age of 81 in 2001, his Fellowship is still vibrant today. As of their 2008/2009 Ministerial Directory, they have approximately 92 churches as well as 205 credentialed evangelists and 8 missionaries serving in Chile, the Phillipines, Jamaica, Haiti, India, Peru, and Kenya. Additionally, they have 4 campgrounds (Caryville, FL; Ellisnore, MO; Locust Grove, AR; and at the home church in Panama City, FL) and a periodical magazine. Their churches are located largely in the states of Florida (the Panhandle primarily), Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi, although they also have many fellowships in other states as well. Evangelists affilliated with the Fellowship can be found nationwide (one is even in Springfield, WV, close to where I spent most of my childhood in Kirby!), although the majority of them are in the core region. Doctrinally, they are traditional, conservative Pentecostal/Holiness, and believe in modest dress, total abstinence from alcohol, tobacco, and other substances, and although stauch in their convictions, Resolution 5 of their By-Laws states that they acknowledge fellowship with all Christians who believe in the "Blood of Jesus Christ" and don't hold to any heretical doctrines. These churches do uphold that, as often at their campmeetings they do often have speakers from other fellowships, and they maintain a cordial relationship with other churches of different denominations in their respective communities - the Graceville Community Church is a good example of this, as they had a strong impact on many students at FBTC back in the day, and their pastor then, a capable preacher and talented gospel musician by the name of Tommy McCormick, on occasion even spoke in the college chapel services. They are also a very expressive group, and music ministry plays a big role in their church service and campmeetings as a number of talented musicians hold ministerial credentials with the Fellowship. Again, I have found over the years that the Living Word of Faith people were by and large a strong and sincere group of fellow believers, and I greatly respect them because they are one of the few fellowships today keeping alive the "old-time Pentecostal faith" that I fondly remember as a kid.
A second group, intimately tied to the
Holiness Messenger paper out of Oklahoma, is a conservative Pentecostal/Holiness fellowship based out of Ohio called the Free Pentecostal Church of God Association. With congregations simultaneously called "Free Pentecostal Holiness Churches," this fellowship is based out of the Pentecostal Holiness Tabernacle in Cincinatti, OH, and many congregations in fellowship with it can be found in the upper Ohio Valley region. Not much is known as to the history of the group, as it is a more informal fellowship, but they do have a website (
http://www.freepentecostalchurchofgod.com/) and many of their congregations are listed in the
Holiness Messenger as well with contact information. Another valuable resource that would shed light on these churches, but is hard to find, would be Richard Crayne's
Pentecostal Handbook, which is the first history of its kind on the independent Pentecostal/Holiness churches. However, by what I can gather, this fellowship and others developed around about the late 1960's and early 1970's from many disaffected ministers in the Assemblies of God, Church of God, and other mainstream Pentecostal groups, out of a growing concern that the latter groups were being too modernized and worldly. In a sense, many of these churches also would identify as "fundamentalists" too, being they are staunchly conservative and accept a lot of dispensational premillenialist eschatology. They are also very much Holiness too, as they mandate strict standards of conduct for their membership. There are two other related groups to these I will discuss now, as they are part of the same movement.
Both of the bodies I am about to talk about are two distinct fellowships with no direct relation to each other but are similar in belief as well as sharing the name "Free Holiness Church." The first of these is a group that appears to be centered in northern Alabama, with 69 congregations scattered across Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, Florida, and North Carolina. They have a Holiness Network website at
http://www.freeholiness.net/, and from 1972-1990 they published a periodical called
Glad Tidings, the many issues of which can be read online at the website given. I have some other information on this group somewhere, and perhaps in the future I can provide more. The second group of Free Holiness congregations, as I can gather from the
Holiness Messenger website, have 9 congregations with the specific Free Holiness name centered in the Midwest and West Coast. This group is in active fellowship with the other fellowships who cooperate with the
Holiness Messenger paper, and there may be more churches of them as well. I am
really hoping to find out much more about these groups later on, but small Holiness/Pentecostal groups are not exactly noted for record-keeping unfortunately, as they often don't place great priority in it.
Another similar group to these is the Bible Holiness Ministerial Fellowship, which was founded in 1998 in Charlotte, NC, where the current overseer, Pastor Joseph Chambers, resides. They are similar to the other groups who cooperate in the Holiness Messenger, and like so many other conservative Holiness/Pentecostal fellowships, they were founded by disaffected ministers of mainstream Pentecostal groups who became disillusioned with the direction many bigger groups such as the Assemblies of God were taking. They too uphold traditional Holiness/Pentecostal standards, and are located largely in the states of VA and NC. The exact number of churches is not available on their website, but they do maintain missionary projects in Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti. They also have evangelists, periodic campmeetings, and are in full cooperation with like-minded fellowships.
That pretty much sums up some of the old-time Pentecostal/Holiness groups I have encountered over the years and no doubt there are more. However, it is important that I spend a little time talking about my own church, the Synod of Saint Timothy, a little.
The Synod of Saint Timothy is basically a small independent Catholic fellowship founded in 2007, and it represents what is called a "Primitive Catholic" faith, meaning a complete return to the way the Church was operated in the first few centuries after Pentecost. With my own background in a charismatic/liturgical movement called the "Convergence Movement" back in the mid-1990's, this group was what I personally was looking for. Congregations are in several states (Texas, Georgia, Indiana, Tennessee, and Ohio), and a number of different rites and liturgies are followed. My bishop, Paul Stanley of Rome, GA, pastors the All Saints parish there, and his wife Susan (Sr. Brigid) and he lead a semi-monastic life. Another of our bishops, Mar Michael Abportus (Michael Thannisch), has a very unique parish in LaPorte, TX called B'nai Avraham, which follows a Hebraic/Syriac tradition. Bishops Paul and Michael are both wonderful leaders and ministers, and I have the honor of knowing them both as brethren in spirit. For more on the Synod, go to
http://www.christiansynod.org/. Where we live in Florida now, there is no Synod mission, so Barb and I actually attend a local Anglican Catholic parish, St. Philip, and it is similar in faith. One day maybe we can have a mission near us to actively participate in, but it is going to take time to establish a witness for our fledgling Synod, but we have quality leadership so it is definitely possible. I also want to mention that our Synod is made up of many former Pentecostals and nondenominational charismatics, and those of us from those backgrounds still very much believe in the present ministry, signs, and gifts of the Holy Spirit, and we are also staunchly conservative in belief.
My bishop, Paul Stanley, of the Synod of Saint Timothy, holding an outdoor liturgy at the monastic retreat they have at their residence in Georgia.
I hope this will introduce many of you to some of the small churches and fellowships I have encountered that have fascinated me over the years, and should you live in an area where any of the congregations of these fellowships are, be sure to pay them a visit some Sunday - they are all pretty much down-to-earth and sincere folks, and would greatly welcome your visit. And, as for visits, thanks again for paying me a visit via the written word this week, and hope to see you again soon. God bless.
