Evangel Church

The Evangel Church was a Wesleyan-Holiness Christian denomination from 1933-1960.

The denomination was centered in the U.S. state of California with 8 churches and 675 members at the time of its merger with the like-minded Evangelical Methodist Church.

History

The denomination was founded as the Evangelistic Tabernacles by Azusa Pacific College figureheads Dr. William Kirby and Dr. Cornelius Paul Haggard on March 27, 1933.[1]

Kirby, president of the college from 1937–39, had previously led a movement away from the direct leadership of the Quaker/ Friends meeting influential in the school's ecumenical founding. Kirby joined the faculty in 1924 and quickly became an unofficial spokesman for the school's fundamentalists. Kirby and his theological allies challenged the increasingly Modernist stances of their founders. Kirby and company broke away from the local Friends church in 1933 and began a new, Wesleyan-Holiness congregation on campus—which eventually became "the school church." This change diminished Quaker influence (as well as related funding) and solidified the school's identity as an Evangelical Holiness institution.[2]

C.P. Haggard followed Kirby as president and led the nondenominational school through several re-locations, four name changes, mergers with Wesleyan colleges, and rescued it from the brink of financial exigency following the shift toward stronger Evangelicalism. He is the namesake of the theology school and served as president for nearly four decades.[3]

During this time of mergers and moves, students and faculty had planted many local churches which organized as the Evangelistic Tabernacles and later the Evangel Church -- "the Tabernacle Movement" in shorthand.

In the late 1950s, Haggard approached the General Superintendent of the fledgling Evangelical Methodist Church (or "EMC"), Dr. J.H. Hamblen, about a partnership between his new network of churches and the EMC. According to Hamblen, "I made it a matter of prayer that God would send a man who could take my place if anything should happen [to me]. At the Phoenix Conference as I was preparing to call the Conference to order, a tall, ruddy faced young man came in the front door. God spoke to my heart, ‘There comes your man.’ I was not sure who he was, but I arose and went down the aisle. He reached out his big hand and greeted me and said, ‘I have come to join you.'”[4]

Under the leadership of President R. Lloyd Wilson, the Evangel Church, Inc., Annual Conference voted to unite with the Evangelical Methodist Church on June 4, 1960. The merger was approved by the Western Annual Conference of the Evangelical Methodist Church on June 22, 1960, thus forming a strengthened California District.[5] At the time of the merger, the Evangel Church had 8 churches and 675 enrolled in Sunday School classes.[6]

This merger, along with the addition of the People's Methodist Church on the East Coast in 1962, gave the modest Evangelical Methodist Church a stronger coast-to-coast presence in the United States.

Haggard served as an Assistant General Superintendent of the Evangelical Methodist Church. He declined nomination as General Superintendent, the top office of the EMC, so he could focus on his administrative responsibilities with the college he loved.[7]

References

  1. ↑ "Evangelical Methodist Church" (PDF). Emchurch.org. Retrieved 30 November 2014.
  2. ↑ Lambert, Carole J. "Azusa Pacific University" (PDF). Apu.edu. Retrieved 15 February 2015.
  3. ↑ "About Azusa Pacific Seminary". Apu.edu. Retrieved 30 November 2014.
  4. ↑ "A Look Into Life," J.H. Hamblen, pg. 119, Evangelical Methodist Church press
  5. ↑ "EMChurch » About". Emchurch.org. Retrieved 30 November 2014.
  6. ↑ "Evangelical Methodist Church" (PDF). Emchurch.org. Retrieved 30 November 2014.
  7. ↑ "EMChurch » About". Emchurch.org. Retrieved 30 November 2014.

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 4/17/2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.