Re: What are you reading currently?
 

Monday I received a book titled

Upon This Rock
I Will Build
My Church

The History of
The Church of Jesus Christ

It was written by Bishop R.W. Sapp Sr. of Dublin, GA and has a copyright date of 1976 but has since been updated some time in the nineteen nineties.

It is a history of an organization called The Church of Jesus Christ which was chartered in 1927 by the late Bishop Mark Lawson. It tells about many of the splits and divisions that have happened over the years. This is a part of Oneness Pentecostal history that is unknown to many of us. The book is only 192 pages and I read it all the way through today.

I have an interest in this group because over the years I have been licensed/ordained with three groups using the Church of Jesus Christ name. First was in 1959 when I was licensed in the Bishop Lawson organization which is the old original group to use that name. That organization is still active. Then in 1963 or 1964 I was licensed by a group called The Church of Jesus Christ, Pentecostal Faith. Bishop G.R. Brock in Indianapolis, IN was the Presiding Bishop and our headquarters was in Niles, MI. I had heard that the Bishop Brock group had merged with the CoJC group in Kingsport, TN and then in the book I read that it did indeed merge in 1971. This was a couple of years after Bishop Brock died May 28, 1968. I am currently ordained in the Churches of Jesus Christ International. That organization was established in May 1977 by Boyd Lawson, who is the son of the late Bishop Mark Lawson. Boyd Lawson had taken over temporarily as Presiding Bishop of the original CoJC after his father's death in 1960 until Bishop G. Calvin Brown was elected in 1961. Boyd later served as Presiding Bishop from 1968 until his resignation in 1975. Bishop Boyd Lawson is the Chairman or Presiding Bishop of The Churches of Jesus Christ International and there is some information on that group in the book also.

Re: What are you reading currently?
 

Mosaic by Amy Grant

Re: What are you reading currently?
 

The Church Can Change the World
http://www.antiochstore.com/the-chur...the-world.html

Re: What are you reading currently?
 

Just finishing up "Blood Against the Snows" ..... the tragic story of Nepal's Royal Dynasty by Jonathan Gregson.

Re: What are you reading currently?
 

Dee Henderson wrote a series. I just finished "The Negotiator" and am now reading "The Guardian".

If you like CSI, you will love this series. And they are Christian books, so there is that bonus as well.

Re: What are you reading currently?
 

Tonight I finished reading "Squatters In Your Land of Promise." it was written by Jack Coe and the copyright date is 2001. The author is the son of Evangelist Jack Coe (March 11, 1918 – December 17, 1956). When I was a young Christian, Jack Coe Sr. and others like A.A. Allen, Glenn Thompson, and C.M. Ward were influential in helping me see that God had more available for me than what I was being taught in the denominational church where I had become a member.

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The Prodigal God by Tim Keller

Re: What are you reading currently?
 

John Adams by David McCullough, it won a Pulitzer Prize.

Very good read, great history of our country and Europe during Adam's lifetime, our schools are so remiss in the teaching of American History. This is more than a good read it is a great read.

Re: What are you reading currently?
 

I recently finished reading “Nine O’clock In The Morning” by Dennis J. Bennett, copyright 1970.

Dennis J. Bennett (born 10/28/17, died 11/1/91) was an Episcopal clergyman prominently identified with the Charismatic Renewal from the beginning. He was pastor of the St. Mark Episcopal Church in Van Nuys, CA., a congregation of about 2600, and in 1959 and early 1960, he and several others in the church were baptized in the Holy Spirit. The group of Spirit-filled believers in the congregation grew and and there was some division among church members over the experience. On April 3, 1960, Pastor Bennett announced his experience in a sermon to the congregation and later resigned his position as pastor. He then moved to St. Luke’s in Seattle and from there traveled nationally and internationally teaching on and ministering the Holy Spirit. At the time the book was written he estimated that between 8 and 10 thousand people had received the Holy Ghost Baptism through meetings in the Seattle area. The April 3, 1960 date is usually considered the beginning of the Charismatic Renewal so next month will be a 50 year anniversary.

The book starts out on his day off when a fellow Episcopal priest named Frank visited him and expressed concern about a couple of members in his (Frank’s) church. When Father Bennett asked him why he is concerned about his members, the priest says that, although they had been members of the church when he first came as pastor, they recently started coming to church on a regular basis, and seemed to be "enjoying" their religion. When asked, they explained that the reason for the big change in them is that they had recently been baptized in the Holy Spirit and had spoken with tongues.

Well, Father Bennett becomes intrigued and starts visiting with them and then attending some prayer meetings, talking to people, and investigating by reading the Bible. After about three months of cautiously looking on, he is told that if he wants to be baptized in the Spirit, all he has to do is ask for the experience. On a Saturday afternoon, Father Bennett and another priest from his diocese (not Frank) were in the couple’s home and it happened.

Here’s how the book describes the event on pages 20 and 21.

John came across the room and laid his hands first on my head, and then on my friend’s. He began to pray, very quietly, and I recognized the same thing as when Bud had prayed with me a few days before: he was speaking a language that I did not understand, and speaking it very fluently. He wasn’t a bit “worked up” about it either. Then he prayed in English for Jesus to baptize me in the Holy Spirit.

I began to pray, as he told me, and I prayed very quietly, too. I was not about to get even a little bit excited! I was simply following instructions. I suppose I must have prayed out loud for about twenty minutes --at least it seemed to be a log time-- and was just about to give up when a very strange thing happened. My tongue tripped, just as it might when you are trying to recite a tongue twister, and I began to speak in a new language!

Right away I recognized several things: first, it wasn’t some kind of psychological trick or compulsion. There was nothing compulsive about it. I was allowing these new words to come to my lips and was speaking them out of my own volition, without in any way being forced to do it. I wasn’t “carried away” in any sense of the word, but was fully in possession of my wits and my willpower. I spoke the new language because it was interesting to speak a language I had never learned, even though I didn’t know what I was saying. I had taken quite a while to learn a small amount of German and French, but here was a language “for free”! Secondly, it was a real language, not some kind of “baby-talk.” It had grammar and syntax: it had inflection and expression --and it was rather beautiful! I went on allowing these new words to come to my lips for about five minutes, then said to my friends: “Well, that must be what you mean by ‘speaking in tongues’ --but what is it all about? I don’t feel anything?”

They said joyfully, “Praise the Lord!”

This seemed a bit irrelevant and was a little strong for my constitution. It bordered on the fanatical for such a thing to be said by Episcopalians on a fine Saturday afternoon sitting right in the front room of their own home.

Re: What are you reading currently?
 

Still reading Christianity without the Cross, by Thomas Fudge. Hopefully will finish this weekend. About time!! :winkgrin