Church of God (Cleveland, Tenn.) International General Assembly Minutes collection

Collection

Identifier: M0001

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

This collection is made up of a copy of the minutes of the General Assembly for each assembly year beginning with the original hand-written pages of the first meeting. They are housed in chronological order. They were collected from various sources and placed together here as a chronological group. The minutes record important facts such as the details of the worship services, the assignment of each new officer, teen talent award winners, business meeting notes, a section on church government, a supplement which includes The Teachings, the church's Declaration of Faith, all rulings of past assemblies that are currently in effect, a leadership directory, and financial and statistical reports.

Dates

Existence: 1906–

Conditions Governing Access

Box 1 contains the original handwritten minutes of the first through the sixth assemblies, and these are not to be used by the general public. These are only to be accessed with the permission of the director. A photocopy of these minutes is available in Box 2 for patron use.

Conditions Governing Use

This material may be protected under U. S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S. Code) which governs the making of photocopies or reproductions of copyrighted materials. You may use any digitized or otherwise copied material from our holdings for private study, scholarship, or research. Though the Dixon Pentecostal Research Center has physical ownership of the material in its collections, in some cases we may not own the copyright to the material. It is the patron's obligation to determine and satisfy copyright restrictions when publishing or otherwise distributing materials found in our collections.

Biographical / Historical

The Church of God General Assembly is a gathering together of all members of the denomination in one place to discuss Scriptures and important issues of the church and to select its leadership.

Dr. Charles W. Conn in Like a Mighty Army: A History of the Church of God, 1886-1995, (Definitive Edition), writes that the assemblies were born out of a “yearning for closer fellowship,” and “hunger for deeper knowledge of God and the Scriptures” shared by the earliest pioneers and church members of the denomination. He calls the assemblies “scenes of much searching and debating the subject of how to live perfect lives in an imperfect world.” He also says that it was at these conventions that decisions concerning church purpose, policy, and doctrine were made by the delegates, each with a democratic voice in the affairs of the body.

The first Church of God General Assembly was held January 26-27, 1906, in Cherokee County, North Carolina in the home of J. C. Murphy. There were twenty-one attending delegates. At this first assembly the following statement was adopted, “We do not consider ourselves a legislative or executive body but judicial only.”

It was agreed that the General Assembly would continue to meet annually which it did, (with the exception of 1918 which had to be cancelled due to the influenza epidemic and 1913 in which two meetings were held) until 1946. That year a change was made and the meetings have been biennially ever since. See Appendix A in the finding aid for a complete list of assemblies, their years, and locations.

Extent

6 Linear Feet

Language of Materials

English

Metadata Rights Declarations

License: This record is made available under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Creative Commons license.

Additional Description

Immediate Source of Acquisition

The materials in this collection were received at various times and from various sources. They were then put together in this collection by the arranger.

Related Materials

Copies of the minutes are also available in the Dixon Research Center and Squires Library stacks. (See: BX7032.A2 C49)

Photographs of the handwritten minutes are in the photograph collection in the DRC vault.

See also, CG0007 Church of God (Cleveland, Tenn.) General Assemblies