The Church of God in Christ is a major historically Black Pentecostal denomination.
Charles Harrison Mason and Charles Price Jones helped establish the Church of God in Christ in the 1890s. Mason's experience at Azusa Street in 1907 led to a Pentecostal reorganisation and a separation from Jones. The church became an influential historically Black Pentecostal denomination.
The tree's references for this branch: Britannica: Church of God in Christ · Wikipedia: Church of God in Christ.
Lineage: Israel and Judah: the First Temple›Second Temple Judaism›The early, undivided Church›Catholic Church›Church of England (Anglican)›Methodist›Holiness movement›Pentecostal›Church of God in Christ
The Church of God in Christ is a major historically Black Pentecostal denomination. It was founded by Charles Harrison Mason, who was preaching holiness in Mississippi before Pentecostalism existed and who added the Pentecostal experience to it in 1907 without giving up what he already had.
Mason was born in Shelby County, Tennessee, in the 1860s to Jerry and Eliza Mason, who had been enslaved. He grew up sharecropping with no formal schooling as a child, took a preaching licence from a Missionary Baptist church in Arkansas, and in 1895 met Charles Price Jones 2,7. The two of them began preaching entire sanctification in Baptist churches, and the Mississippi state convention expelled them for it 6,2. In 1897 Mason gathered the first congregation of the new movement at Lexington, Mississippi, and gave it the name he said had come to him in a vision at Little Rock: the Church of God in Christ, chosen from Scripture to distinguish it from the several bodies then calling themselves Church of God 2,6.
Ten years later the movement divided over the thing that made it Pentecostal. In 1907 Mason travelled to the Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles, stayed five weeks, and received the baptism of the Holy Spirit with speaking in tongues 6,14. Jones did not accept the new teaching. The two parted, Mason kept the legal right to the name and the charter and established the work at Memphis, and Jones's people continued as the Church of Christ (Holiness) U.S.A. 2,13. The church was incorporated in 1907, which mattered more than it sounds: for several years it was one of the few incorporated Pentecostal bodies in the country, so ministers of every background sought credentials from it, and the white ministers who held them left in 1914 to form the Assemblies of God 6.
Mason led the church for the rest of his long life. He set apart its first five bishops in 1933, bought four hundred acres at Lexington in 1917 for a school that became Saints College, and dedicated Mason Temple at Memphis in 1945, a building of nearly four thousand seats and the largest auditorium belonging to any Black religious body in the country 6,8. He is entombed there.
See it on the family treeThis is a Holiness Pentecostal church, and the order of those two words is the whole point. It teaches three works of grace rather than two: conversion, then entire sanctification as a second definite work, then the baptism of the Holy Spirit with speaking in tongues as the evidence 6. The Assemblies of God distinguishes conversion from subsequent baptism in the Holy Spirit; it does not teach entire sanctification as a separate intervening experience 16.
Around that sit the convictions it shares with other Pentecostals: the Bible as the inspired word of God, the Trinity, salvation by faith in Christ, divine healing, and the return of Christ. Baptism is by immersion, and the Lord's Supper and footwashing are kept as ordinances 6.
Holiness is taught as something visible in conduct, not only inward. That has meant plain standards about dress, entertainment and behaviour in much of the church's history, and it still shapes how a congregation understands what a sanctified life looks like. Government is episcopal: bishops oversee jurisdictions, a General Assembly is the legislative body, and a Presiding Bishop with a General Board leads the whole 1,6.
Worship here shaped a great deal of American music. Singing is central and unhurried, the organ and drums answer the preacher, the congregation responds aloud, and the service builds toward the altar. Testimony, prayer for healing, and speaking in tongues all have their place. The annual Holy Convocation at Memphis, kept since Mason's day, gathers the church from across the country and abroad.
The Women's Department is the church's second structure and in some ways its engine. Mother Lizzie Woods Robinson was appointed its first general supervisor in 1911 and held the post until 1945, and under her and her successors women founded congregations, ran missions and built schools 6,9. Women in the Church of God in Christ are commissioned as evangelists, missionaries and church mothers and lead the department's work; the offices of elder and bishop are held by men 6. Prayer and Bible Band, the Sunshine Band and the Young People Willing Workers all began in the same period and still run 6.
The King James Version is the Bible of this church. Its cadences are in the preaching, in the testimonies and in the way older members quote Scripture from memory, and a Church of God in Christ pulpit will generally read from it even where a study Bible in another version sits open beside it.
The reading is plain and applied: a passage is read, then pressed on the congregation as something to do. Holiness texts carry particular weight, and so do the passages in Acts that describe the Spirit falling on people, because this church holds that what happened there is still available. Its publishing house issues the Official Manual, the Sunday school lessons and the church's periodicals 5,1.
Free to read here: Berean Standard Bible, King James Version, Reina-Valera 1909, Bíblia Livre, Neno: Maandiko Matakatifu, Bíbélì Mímọ́, Baịbụlụ Nsọ, Littafi Mai Tsarki. The full note on which Bible Church of God in Christ use, with sources ›
These passages illustrate themes discussed in this profile; they are not a survey of members' favorite verses. Each is quoted from the King James (Authorized) Version and links to its chapter. You can explore the text for study or personal reflection; memorization is optional.
For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication:
Sanctification named as the will of God. The doctrine Mason was expelled from his Baptist convention for preaching, before he was ever Pentecostal.
Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.
Perfecting holiness in the fear of God. The second work of grace, in the words the Holiness preachers used for it.
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
Led by the Spirit. The verse behind a church that expects the Spirit to direct a service and not only to be discussed in it.
Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.
Clean hands and a pure heart. Holiness described as a condition for standing in God's presence, which is how this church has always put it.
¶ Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.
God is no respecter of persons. Preached from this pulpit while the country was segregated, and by a church that credentialed ministers of every colour when almost nobody else would.
The church reports about 6.5 million members, a figure it publishes itself and which independent counts have questioned, so it is best read as the church's own 6,2. It is a major historically Black Pentecostal denomination; comparisons depend on the membership measures being used. Its headquarters and its Holy Convocation are at Memphis, and it works through jurisdictions in the United States and missions across Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, Europe and Asia 1,4.
Its building carries a piece of American history that belongs to everyone. On 3 April 1968, in Mason Temple, Martin Luther King Jr. preached the sermon remembered as I've Been to the Mountaintop, in support of the Memphis sanitation workers' strike. He was killed the next day 8,12. The church's influence on gospel music has been just as wide, running from its own choirs into most of what American popular music borrowed from the Black church 11.
Two things. The Church of God in Christ is Holiness Pentecostal and teaches three works of grace, conversion, entire sanctification and Spirit baptism; the Assemblies of God holds the Finished Work position and teaches two 6. And its government is episcopal, with bishops over jurisdictions, where the Assemblies of God is a fellowship of self-governing congregations. There is also a shared history: white ministers credentialed by this church left in 1914 to form the Assemblies of God 6.
It is the church's annual gathering at Memphis, kept since Mason's time, and it runs for several days of preaching, worship, business and ordinations. For many members it is the fixed point of the church year, and for the denomination it is where its leadership and its legislative work happen 1.
Because of one night. On 3 April 1968 Martin Luther King Jr. preached there in support of striking sanitation workers, and the sermon became known as I've Been to the Mountaintop; he was assassinated the following day 8,12. The building was dedicated in 1945 and was then the largest auditorium owned by any Black religious body in the United States, and Bishop Mason is entombed inside it 6,8.
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BibleVerse. “Church of God in Christ: where they came from, what they hold, and the Bible they read.” bibleverse.site, version 2026-09-09, https://bibleverse.site/denominations/cogic/
Awaiting review by a member of the tradition. First published 2026-09-07; last changed 2026-09-09. Years before the common era are written BC, and later years plainly, as the site's Christian pages do.
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Preached in Memphis while the law said otherwise, by a church that had been handing credentials to ministers of every colour since before it had a building.
¶ Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.