c. 1997 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ Every morning at 7 a.m., rain or shine, 77-year-old”Mother”Ruth Hinton walks to the Star of Bethlehem Church of God in Christ and stops for an hour of prayer. Kneeling on a faded, pink satin pillow, she prays in the shadow of a portrait of Charles H. Mason, who founded her denomination 100 years ago.

Usually, she is joined by just one or two other elderly women from her church, but the small gathering doesn’t trouble her one bit.”I’m basing it on where there is two or three, he’s in the midst,”she said referring to a passage in the Gospel of Matthew (18:20).”I realized we don’t have to wait on a big group of people. We just have to keep on praying.” Prayer _ equally fervent in small groups at dawn or noontime on weekdays and in big, colorful services on Sundays _ has been a mainstay for the Church of God in Christ, the nation’s largest black Pentecostal denomination.

Bishop Chandler David Owens, president of the organization _ which he says numbers 8.5 million worldwide _ wants that to continue. In fact, he plans to declare an”official edict”at the denomination’s annual Holy Convocation Nov. 4-11 in Memphis, Tenn., to refuel the church’s prayer and fasting tradition.”We used to fast and pray every Tuesday and Friday and … some of the churches have gone to sleep on that. I am bringing it back,”he said in an interview.”It must be a part of their policy whether everybody adheres to it (or not).” Such strict policies and religious beliefs at one time put the denomination in a class by itself _ forbidding drinking, drugs and smoking while practicing a Pentecostal fervor that includes speaking in tongues and vibrant worship.”We are saints and we like to be called saints,”said Owens.”We live what we call a very clean, holy and separated life.” Leaders of other religious groups didn’t know how to characterize the church, which, when it was founded in 1897, was known as a Holiness church, one that emphasized living a holy life in a secular world. Ten years later, after attending the Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles, considered the catalyst for the spread of the Pentecostal movement in the United States, Mason added the belief in the baptism of the Holy Spirit to the church’s tenets, making it a Pentecostal denomination.”Way back in the beginning, they didn’t know what to call us _ a cult, a sect,”said Owens.”They recognize us as a mainstream church but we don’t claim to be mainstream.” He notes proudly, however, the denomination claims many doctors, lawyers and professors, just as others have.”The mainstream no longer look down their nose over us as a bunch of fanatics,”he said.

Although Owens chooses not to consider his denomination part of mainstream American religion, he gives it credit for influencing the worship services of others that are decidedly in the mainstream, from Catholics to Baptists.”They didn’t clap their hands,”he said.”Now, just about every religious organization is clapping their hands. They’re beating the drums, the tambourines. … That is directly the influence of the Church of God in Christ.” Owens hopes the church’s influence and range will widen as the denomination begins its next century. Among the plans envisioned for the next millennium are targeting states such as North and South Dakota and Maine, where there are just a sprinkling of COGIC churches, and more work abroad, especially in India, Korea and South Africa.

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In the past 20 years, the denomination has grown more visible in ecumenical circles, said the Rev. Oliver Haney, dean of the Charles H. Mason Seminary in Atlanta.

For example, the seminary, in its 26th year, has provided the military with the majority of its African-American chaplains, he said. And the current president of the Congress of National Black Churches, an ecumenical group representing eight African-American denominations, is Bishop Roy L.H. Winbush, a spiritual leader in COGIC and the chairman of its centennial commission.

The denomination also figures large in the contemporary music scene.”Black gospel music is dominated mostly by Holiness Pentecostal groups,”said Haney. Among artists with roots in the denomination are the late Mattie Moss Clark, a traditional singer, and BeBe and CeCe Winans, contemporary Christian artists.

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The church also finds itself grappling with issues of race and gender.

Soon after the denomination formed, Mason ordained white ministers. But the whites eventually broke away and formed the Assemblies of God.”It wasn’t that those white brothers at that particular time were so anxious to leave us or to walk away from us but circumstances and the conditions of the time made it highly improbable, if not impossible, for that to exist,”said Owens, referring to segregation.

Three years ago, at a meeting of black and white Pentecostal groups dubbed the”Memphis Miracle”that included COGIC and AOG members, white leaders atoned for their lack of support of blacks during the civil rights movement. But since then, Owens and Haney say, there has been little action to improve race relations among Pentecostals.”I think there is a bit of distrust,”said Haney.”I get a feeling that sometimes black denominations feel suspicious of whether white Pentecostals are really serious about reconciliation.” Haney and Owens agree the time has come to move beyond dialogue to action, including local joint projects and pulpit swaps among black and white Pentecostals.

On the gender front, women have long been leaders in the denomination. Not only do they pray at small gatherings across the country each day, women have started numerous congregations and later found men to serve as pastors.”Had (it) not been for the women, there would not have been the large flux of people to the Pentecostal movement,”said Sherry DuPree, an author and expert on African-American Pentecostal groups and a member of the church’s historical committee.

But even as women have moved up in the ranks of the secular world, the denomination has yet to permit their ordination.

A denominational commission has been studying the issue for several years. Haney, a member of that commission, is in favor of women’s ordination, calling it”a concept who’s time has come.”Owens, however, said he will wait for the panel’s decision, expected in April.

But Owens had no trouble listing other challenges, especially the need for prayer.”Seems like our nation needs prayer, the world needs prayer,”Owens said.”We need race reconciliation. We need to receive a general revival through the length and breath of this church and we need to bring this nation back, according to the pledge of allegiance to the flag … back under God.”

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