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Mason: Charles Harrison Mason was born September 8, 1866, on Prior Farm just outside of Memphis, Tennessee. Bishop Mason is one of the most significant figure in the rise and spread of the modern Pentecostal movement, His parents, Jerry and Eliza Mason, former slaves, were members of a Missionary Baptist Church, which served as a source of strength for them in the distressing times that followed the Civil War.
Mason was licensed and ordained in 1891 at Preston, Arkansas, but held back from full-time ministry to marry Alice Saxton, the beautiful daughter of his mother’s closest friend. To his greatest disappointment and distress, his wife bitterly opposed his ministerial plans. She divorced him after two years of marriage and later remarried. However, Mason refused to marry as long as Mrs. Alice Saxton-Mason lived...continued below on right.
A great revival was held in Los Angeles, California, under the auspices of Elder W.J. Seymour. Elder C.H. Mason, along with many other, attended this meeting and received the baptism of the Holy Ghost with the signs of speaking with other tongues according to Acts 2:4 - "And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues as the spirit gave them utterance."
Bishop C. H. Mason returned preaching this New Testament doctrine, to which many of the brethren were averse. In August 1907, the General Assembly convened at Jackson, Missisisippi, with Elder C.P. Jones presiding as General Overseer, who was also averse and opposed to the so-called new doctrine promulgated by Elder C.H. Mason and others. After a very lengthy discussion, the assembly withdrew from Elder Mason and all who promulgated the doctrine of speaking with tongues, the right hand of fellowship.Later in the same year, Elder C.H. Mason called a meeting in Memphis, Tennessee, of all the Ministers who believed in receiving the Holy Ghost baptism according to the scriptures, Acts 2:4. Among the group of Elders who responded to this great call were: E.R. Drivers, and J. Bowed; R.R. Booker, W.M. Roberts, R.E. Hart, D.W. Welch, A.A. Blackwell, E.M. Page, R.H.I. Clark, D.J. Young, and James Brewer, Daniel Spearman and J.H. Boone. These brethren formed the First General Assembly of the Church of God In Christ, whose faith was founded upon the doctrine of the Apostle as received on the day of Pentecostal. The Lord gave Elder C.H. Mason to be the Chief Apostle, to which the entire assembly agreed. Under the leadership of Apostle Mason, the church witnessed tremendous growth and spiritual grace.
In 1933, Apostle C. H. Mason, by the laying on of the hands, assisted by the prayers of the Overseers and Elders and the General Convocation, set apart five Overseers for the office of Bishop in the church, who were, incidentally, the first five Bishops in the Church of God in Christ, aside from Apostle Mason, who received the title and office of Senior Bishop. Those consecrated were: Bishop I.S. Staffors, Detroit, Michigan; Bishop E.M. Page, Dallas, Texas; Bishop W.M. Robert, Chicago, Illinois; Bishop O.T. Jones, Philadelphia Pennsylvania; and Bishop R.F. Williams, Cleveland, Ohio.
 The brief and profound history of Apostle William Seymour and the Azusa Street Mission is found in the book "Thy Kingdom Come Volume I &II."
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Bishop C.H. Mason, Bishop A.B. McEwen, Bishop O.T. Jones, Bishop Dr. John H. Davis Sr.
In 1961, the founder and Senior Bishop Charles Harrison Mason, was called home to be with the Lord. The saints were preparing around the world, to attend the 54th Holy Convocation and General Assembly of the Church of God in Christ, in Memphis Tennessee, when the message was sent out that Bishop Mason had fallen asleep in Jesus in Detroit, Michigan. In the General Assembly, it pleased the saints to wait a year before selecting a successor to our father in the Gospel. In the Holy Convocation of 1962, the only surviving Bishop of the original five, which had been consecrated in 1933, Bishop Ozro Thurston Jones, Sr. of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was elected to the office of Senior Bishop of the Church of God in Christ. For two years, Bishop Jones presided over the church in peace, going throughout the brotherhood, continuing the work of the Lord as founded by the late Bishop Mason. Then elements within the church began to stir and aspire for a General Board to control the church; this board later over threw the leadership of Senior Bishop O.T. Jones.
Those of us who know and experienced the history of the church saw pior to the year of 1969 (year of the death of Senior Bishop O.T. Jones) a phase of church's administration differ from that of the Founder, Bishop C. H. Mason. This phase remained in the Memphis' administrations. The facts are that Bishop C.H. Mason acquired an International church charter (COGIC, INT'L) for the church in the year of 1926 which was overthrow in 1969 (in the Memphis administration because it contained an Episcopal and Exective Broad order in the church)...and replaced; The church government Bishop Mason established was replaced with a Presiding Bishop and a General Board form of Government ...and later an established form of unscriptual Politicians' form of government ...with voting, campaigning, etc. The ministry that provided a Biblical 5-fold ministry as exercise by the Founder (Bishop C. H. Mason) was destroyed and a more political form of government instituted. The original Church of God in Christ, International maintained itself in the original order and kept its roots in Arkansas (the state where God gave Bishop Mason the church's name)...though the church has grown international in scope and ministry. We who are sons and daughters of the church has delighted in this great history and move of God!
Mason ...continued from above on the left... In 1895 Mason met with Charles Price Jones, the newly elected pastor of the Mt. Helms Baptist Church at Jackson, Mississippi. They became close friends. Jones was a graduate of Arkansas Baptist College. Like Mason, Jones had come under the influence of the Holiness movement and in 1894 claimed the experience of sanctification while pasturing Tabernacle Baptist Church at Selma, Arkansas. By preaching sanctification, the second definite work of grace subsequent to conversion, Mason and Jones caused small stir amongst black Baptists. From 1896-99, the Holiness conventions, revivals, and periodicals inspired by Mason and Jones split the Baptists and, in a few cases, the Methodist churches, birthing the development of independent “sanctified” or “holiness” congregations and associations. Mason, Jones, and their colleagues were vehemently opposed and eventually expelled from Baptist churches via the National Baptist Convention.
After much praying and studying of Scripture in search of future direction for these independent “sanctified” congregations, Mason, while walking along a street in Little Rock, Arkansas, received the revelation of the name, Church Of God In Christ (COGIC) (1 Thess 2:14; 2 Thess 1:1). Thus in 1897, a major new black denomination was born. From the seventeenth century through the nineteenth century, most blacks had encountered Christianity under the aegis of Baptist or Methodist churches. Mason and Jones, however, emphatically changed the religious landscape in the black community as well as broadened the black religious experience. Through the dynamic preaching of Bishop Mason and the prolific writings and hymnology of Bishop Jones, Sanctified or Holiness churches sprang up throughout the South and Southwest.
During the latter half of 1906, Mason and Jones received reports of the Pentecostal revival in Los Angeles. Bishop Mason traveled to California, and under the ministry of W.J. Seymour, received the baptism of the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues. After some five weeks in Los Angeles, Bishop Mason returned to municipalities of Memphis and Jackson, eager to share his additional experience of the Lord with his brethren.
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