This is from pages 8 and 9 of the July 2009 Pentecostal Herald.
It is an article about Bro. Howard Goss who was the first General Superintendent of the United Pentecostal Church from 1945 until 1951.
Howard Goss: Quintessential Pentecostal
by Robin Johnson
The train was delayed, so to pass the time the assembled passengers who had recently been at a church convention in Orchard Texas, broke into song. Then Charles Parham preached. When the train arrived an hour later, the impromptu worship service was still going strong. The worship followed the passengers onto the train and the coach became a mobile prayer meeting. As the train rumbled south, the Spirit of God began to fall on the praying passengers. One of those passengers on the train that morning in April of 1906 was a young Howard Goss. He had been seeking the baptism of the Holy Ghost and, as the Spirit fell on the train, he received his “Pentecost.” In “The Winds of God,” he described it like this:
“As I lay back limply against my chair, the Spirit of God took possession of my fully surrendered body, and lastly took hold of my throat and vocal chords in what to me was a new and strange way. God’s power and glory upon me became far greater than I have ever since been able to describe.
“This went on for several minutes, wile the fire of God flamed hotter and hotter, until I thought that I must be actually on fire. When another great volt of God’s lightning struck me, thereby loosening me still further, I began to speak in strange tongues as the Spirit actually did the speaking.”
By the time he had received the Holy Ghost, Howard Goss was on his way to becoming a key player in the early Pentecostal movement in North America. He looms large on the landscape of the first fifty years of the modern Pentecostal movement. He was instrumental in the formation of at least ten Pentecostal organizations. In many of these organizations, he held leadership positions. He was involved with multiple organizations for at least two reasons. First, Pentecostalism was in its formative stages, and like many young movements, was often in a state of flux. The state of flux included the expansion and contraction in the number of organizations through mergers and splits. Second and more importantly, Goss followed a trajectory in early Pentecostalism that grew out of the essential character of the movement --a restoration impulse that may be described as the impulse to restore the primitive or original order of things as revealed in Scripture. This current of restorationism caught Goss and along the way he organized those also carried by this current.
Howard Goss was born on March 6, 1883 on a farm in Crawford County, near Steelville, Missouri. When Howard Goss was a teenager of fifteen years his father pulled up stakes and relocated the family to Galena, Kansas. Galena was in the middle of a mining boom and Howard’s father invested in a mine. The mine failed and, with the family savings gone, Howard went to work in the mine. The mines attracted a hard-drinking and often-violent transient population. The tri-state region that include Galena was characterized by a distinct lack of religious affection. Yet, it was in Galena that Howard’s life took a remarkable turn --a turn to a life of Pentecostal ministry.
Howard Goss was an unlikely candidate for a movement such as Pentecostalism. He had almost no religious background. At one point in his early life, he would consider himself to be at least an agnostic if not an outright atheist. One of Howard’s high school teachers approached him about attending one of Charles Parham’s revival services. He soon acquiesced and attended a tent service. The miracles, healings, and especially the phenomenon of “speaking in tongues” drew the young Goss back. In the winter of 1904, Charles Parham baptized him in the Spring River.
In September 1905, Goss left his job at the mines of Galena and joined a group of Apostolic Faith workers who were on their way to Texas to help open new works in that state. Starting “with my pockets empty of money, but my heart brimful of zeal and courage for the Lord,” Goss embarked on a ministerial path that would propel him to leadership in multiple Pentecostal organizations.
The year of 1906 proved to be momentous for Goss. The Apostolic Faith message quickly spread across South Texas and Goss was actively involved in spreading the good news. Parham’s opus operandi was to send a group of five to eight workers to a new field. Goss became a member of such a group and traveled thousands of miles on the railroad. Perhaps the most momentous event took place in April. Goss received the baptism of the Holy Ghost. But Goss was not so heavenly minded that he neglected things of this earth. Early in the year at a campaign held near Alvin Texas, he met Millicent McClendon. She would later become his wife. Although he was young, only twenty-three when he was appointed field director, he was a trusted member of Parham’s young group and was already showing a gift for organization.
In the fall of 1909, Goss settled in Malvern, a small town just outside of Hot Springs, Arkansas. By the end of October, eighty people “received Pentecost.” Goss built a church building for the growing congregation in Malvern. Soon, Goss invited E.N. Bell to succeed him as pastor of the Malvern assembly and Bell accepted. Bell had become the editor of “The Word and Witness,” an early Pentecostal periodical, arooung the same time. At Bell’s suggestion, Goss and his wife Millicent went north to visit William Durham’s North Avenue Mission in Chicago.
William Durham is best known for “The Finished Work” message. Durhams’ theological innovation would change the shape of Pentecostalism. From its inception, Pentecostalism was an outgrowth, or, as early Pentecostals would suggest, a forward move from the Holiness movement. Key to Holiness theology was the idea that sanctification was a distinct “second blessing” from justification. In Holiness circles, sanctification was thought to be subsequent to justification and, as taught in its most radical form was the point at which sin was removed “root and branch.” Parham added Spirit baptism to this “two-step” doctrine of salvation. All early Pentecostals talked of being saved, sanctified, and and spirit-filled. Durham challenged this “three-step” paradigm, suggesting rather that sanctification and justification happened at the same time. This became the first big theological controversy in Pentecostalism. Howard Goss looked at this issue as a forward move toward the restoration of the church. The restoration current was carrying Goss forward.
As the “Finished Work” movement Grew, Goss, along with some of his closest associates, began to sense the need for a more structured organization. In December of 1913, Goss, along with E.N. Bell, M.M. Pinson, Arch Collins, and D.C.O. Opperman announced a convention for the Pentecostal Saints and Churches of God in Christ to be held in Hot Springs in April of 1914. One of the primary purposes for the meeting was to explore the possibility of chartering a new church organization. The meeting was successful and as a result the Assemblies of God was born. Goss was appointed as one of the twelve presbyters and continued to be influential in the infant organization.
Early Pentecostals were suspicious about organization. Durham warned that organization would “kill the work.” For this reason, the Assemblies of God was a very loosely structured organization. At its founding meeting, little time was spent developing the official doctrines. Local assemblies were granted a great deal of liberty and the organizing impetus was little more than the five points outlined in the original call issued in the December, 1913, “The Word and Witness.”
In the summer of 1915, at the Third Interstate Encampment of the Assemblies of God in Jackson, Tennessee, a number of leaders of the Assemblies of God were rebaptized in Jesus’ name. Chief among them was Goss’ friend and co-worker, E.N. Bell. Jesus’ name baptism was the signature doctrine of the “New Issue,” which was rapidly gaining strength. A struggle was on for the soul of the Assemblies of God.
Later that summer, at a camp meeting in Little Rock, Arkansas, Goss was rebaptized in Jesus’ name. L.C. Hall was the camp speaker. His theme throughout the camp was
Colossians 2:9-12 and his presentation was forceful. The baptismal services were under the Control of Bell. Goss had been baptized in Jesus’ name by Parham in 1904 but had not recognized its significance so he was rebaptized by Bell.
The next two years were contentious times for the Assemblies of God. Debate raged over the “New Issue.” Over the strong objections of the Oneness adherents, the council accepted the Statement of Fundamental Truths. The Oneness proponents walked out rather than compromise their beliefs. This was a decisive time for Pentecostalism. The restorationist nature of the movement was compromised by the appeal to church history instead of the Scripture. Edith Blumhofer, a historian of Pentecostalism, notes that if one admits the strong restorationist component at the heart of Pentecostalism’s identity, Oneness Pentecostals were more zealously restorationist, more doggedly congregational, and more Christ-centered --in short, in some important ways more essentially Pentecostal-- than Trinitarians.
to be continued in part 2
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