Bishop Mason--Churches of God in Christ

"In 1907 we [Mason's Churches of God in Christ] had ten congregations, three in Tenn, three in Ark., two in Miss., and two in Okla. Only a small group, the people finding favor in Elder C. H. Mason, appointed him as their overseer or leader, Acts. 2:47, with assistance of Elder R. E. Hart, Elder E. M. Page, Elder J. Brown and others we can say at this writing, we have about one thousand congregations."
- James Courts, The History and Life Work of Elder C. H. Mason and His Co-Laborers​, 1919, 98.

In late 1907, Howard Goss visited “Charles Mason of the Churches of God in Christ and received a preaching license” which was recognized by the “southern railroads.”[1] Blumhofer went on to find, “Goss recorded in his diary that he had obtained from Mason permission to issue ministerial credentials using the name Churches of God in Christ for the ‘white work’ in Texas.”[2]

This is the single piece of evidence that links Mason's Churches of God in Christ and the Churches of God in Christ that Goss and Bell led. Beyond this, the historical record remains silent between 1907-1911. My study's primary focus begins at earliest in 1911, but mainly from 1912 and beyond. From the evidence I have found, by 1911, Goss and Bell were doing their own thing. More work needs to be done for historians to give definitive answers on how much the Mason's and Goss's groups worked together. Regardless if they did, members and ministers today--both the Assemblies of God and the Churches of God in Christ--should worship and work together as a part of the larger body of Christ. In the August 1912 edition of Word and Witness on page 1, Bell had reported on the "annual inter-state convention or encampment of the Churches of God in Christ of the Apostolic Faith." A. E. Wilson of Pine Bluff had called his church the same name (Page 2 gives the abbreviated Churches of God in Christ).


[1] Blumhofer, Restoring the Faith, 83. Mason was an important black minister. The only scholarly treatment of Charles Mason’s life and the Churches of God in Christ is Calvin White, The Rise to Respectability: Race, Religion, and the Church of God in Christ (University of Arkansas Press, 2012). https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1ffjg32. White’s study is authoritative and insightful, yet he does not show the cross threads and relationships between Mason and the Assemblies of God. Flower, “History of the Assemblies of God,” 17. See also Donald Pierce Weeks, “A Thesis on the History of the Churches of God in Christ/Bishop Charles Harrison Mason, and Those Who Helped Make the History,” (C. H. Mason file, Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center).

[2] Ibid. Admittedly, this study falls short in addressing race relations within the Assemblies of God because of its focus on the issues of credentialing as well as networks of relationships between 1913 and 1916. Given the Assemblies of God being a “lily-white” denomination (as Anderson has called it), it should be understandable, but it is no less disappointing. See Anderson, 190. For the most in-depth look at race relations within the Assemblies of God, see Howard Kenyon, Ethics in the Age of the Spirit: Race, Women, War, and the Assemblies of God (Eugene: Pickwick Publications, 2019). Kenyon also covers the attempts at racial reconciliation within the Assemblies of God. However, he focuses primarily on Azusa Street and the years of the Civil Rights movement, which lays outside the scope of this study.

Churches of god in christ history

L.P. Adams included in ministerial list in 1912 but not 1913.

One other piece of evidence that demonstrates that we should view these histories independently is the inclusion of L.P. Adams in the 1912 Ministerial List. L.P. Adams left the ministerial roll in 1913 of Bell's Churches of God in Christ, and he was listed as involved in Mason's Churches of God in Christ. By 1913 especially, these were completely separate and distinct movements.