About Us

When groups of radical reformers immigrated to America in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, their ideas found fertile soil and flourished in the colonies. In America, as elsewhere, they emphasized experiential salvation, God's love, and practical holiness. Love and holiness were, to them, the hallmarks of the true church, in contrast to the complicated and formal creedal-ism prevalent in their day. Great revivals, some marked by Pentecostal manifestations, occurred among the radical reform groups, especially the Baptists and followers of George Whitefield and John Wesley. Following in this tradition, the forefathers of the CGP viewed their work as both a continuation and restoration of the Apostolic Church.

In August 1886, Richard G. Spurling (1857-1935) a Baptist minister, and his father Richard Spurling (1810-1891) an ordained Baptist Elder, reacted against the prevailing creedal-ism of their day. The "Landmark Movement" had permeated Baptist congregations in the southern United States with an exclusivist view of the church, which the Spurlings rejected. Consequently, the Spurlings and seven other individuals came out of the Holly Springs and Pleasant Hill Missionary Baptist Churches in Monroe County, Tennessee and Cherokee County, North Carolina and organized what they believed to be a true restoration of the Apostolic Church. They called it "Christian Union" and constituted it upon principles comparable to the sixteenth-century Anabaptists.

In 1895, portions of western North and South Carolina, northern Georgia, and southeastern Tennessee, were agitated by the presence of the radical wing of the Holiness Movement. Benjamin Harding Irwin had come from the Midwest and greatly affected the region with his "fire-baptized" message. Spurling's congregations were swept into this movement. In the summer of 1896, in Cherokee County, North Carolina, an Irwin-influenced revival broke out. During those meetings, held in the Shearer schoolhouse, some 130 persons were baptized with the Holy Ghost and spoke in unknown tongues.

William F. Bryant, a Baptist lay preacher, was drawn into the Holiness Movement during the above noted revival. Eventually, he became the leader of the group in the Camp Creek area. Several buildings where they had been meeting were demolished, and burned. Persecution, violent at times, continued. By 1902, the faithful but persecuted little band had dwindled to no more than 20 persons.

Indeed, had it not been for the wise counsel and influence of R. G. Spurling, Bryant and his company of believers may have vanished from history. Spurling persuaded Bryant to organize in order for the work to endure. Consequently, on May 15, 1902, the "Holiness Church at Camp Creek" was set in order. Spurling himself was selected as pastor, and Bryant was ordained as a deacon. By his presence and leadership, the remnants of Christian Union (1886) were, de facto, absorbed into the Holiness Church at Camp Creek in 1902.

Soon led by an energetic young pastor from Indiana named A.J. Tomlinson, the group was more formally organized in 1903 into the Church of God and relocated its headquarters to neighboring Cleveland, Tennessee the following year. From Appalachia to the World, the century that followed saw great growth in all the branches of this movement. From the beginning, these spiritual pioneers traced their roots to the New Testament church and considered themselves a continuation of the Spirit-filled Christianity exhibited in the book of Acts.

In contemporary theological terms, the Church of God of Prophecy is a Protestant, Evangelical, Wesleyan holiness, Pentecostal movement that believes in man's freewill regarding salvation.