Unearth Engrossing Details On Bishop Charles Harrison Mason

By Donna Reed


The Church of God in Christ or more popularly known as COGIC is a religious organization that contains members of predominantly African American ethnicity and has a total of twelve thousand churches and approximately six point five million members from all over the United States. As a result of this, the organization has been established as the fifth largest Christian community and denomination within the country and in the world today, is found in more than eighty three other countries. The organization was first erected in eighteen ninety seven and its first branch was in Memphis, Tennessee.

Nonetheless, not a lot of people are aware of who was responsible for its establishment and what journey they took on that lead to its conception in 1987. Born to parents Eliza and Jerry who were once slave workers on September 8, 1864, Charles grew up offering his services on their business that focused on sharecropping to help sustain their family. For more information on this man and his faith, continue reading the following paragraphs to unearth engrossing details on bishop Charles Harrison Mason.

Since Mason had to work hard since he was a young boy to help his struggling family survive, he never had time to go to a real school while he was growing up. However, he was deeply influenced and inspired by the religious upbringing his parents had enforced, which lead to him joining the local missionary Baptist community at 15 years of age. Although he voiced his desire to become a lay member instead of a clergyman, he became baptized at this time in his life.

The year before however, he became deathly ill with tuberculosis, which promptly spread and infected his father too. The family became infected during the yellow fever epidemic and with little to no medical help around the area, Jerry died which led to the decision to relocate their family to Preston, Arkansas where Mason further became ill and was unable to get up from bed. Eliza and her children prayed constantly over his health and enlisted prayers and help from the local parishioners, who offered prayers hoping he would regain his strength.

This subsequently opened his eyes to the local church and only served to strengthen his faith in their god and their religious practices. Once he fully recovered from the disease, he decided to join the local ministry of parishioners that prayed over his recovery, which was the Mount Gale Missionary Baptist church. This decision stemmed from his belief that god himself decided to heal him and allow him to live another day in order to alert him of his spiritual duty. This belief was something he acknowledged all throughout his teenage years until he became a young adult, until such time he started to work full time within the community.

It remained in eighteen ninety 3 nevertheless, that twenty 7 years of age Charles formally started his pastoral occupation after obtaining his certificate from the exact same Mount Wind. He formally enlisted in the Arkansas Baptist University, he determined to go down out and withdraw his registration complying with the 3 months he was there since he asserted the educational program was not enough and the approach was unstable. Inning accordance with him, it concentrated much more on liberal methods instead of putting focus on the scripture and trainings of god. His spiritual trip did not finish there.

Later on in eighteen ninety five, he was introduced to Charles Price Jones, a highly popular and influential Baptist preacher at that time, who he got along just fine since they shared the same level of enthusiasm for the word of their lord and other holiness teachings. This lead to a partnership wherein both men worked together in an effort to spread the word of god and the following later, it lead to the creation of Church of God, which Mason has stated was a name that naturally came to mind when he had a vision while staying at Little Rock in Arkansas.

Following numerous trails and hardships, he eventually gained ownership over its rights and became the leading founder of aforementioned group. While in leadership, he commissioned traveling evangelists to spread their word and focus on the people experiencing the great migration. These people were primarily composed of African Americans that had to relocate.

With Mason remaining as the leader, the organization had continued success and thrived largely. Then in 1945 he made the history books again by erecting the Mason Temple based in Memphis. In 1952 he arranged his successors and the line of leaders to take over his position when he died. Doing this has helped the COGIC remain afloat nowadays, after he died peacefully on the seventeenth of November in 1961 when he was already 97 years old.




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