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Singing the Gospel On Friday evening, April 3, I joined my voice with the voices of more than one hundred other singers and scholars proclaiming the familiar words of what is now one of America's best known gospel songs. This much loved tune was the first song of an evening singing hosted by The Center for Popular Music in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The singing was part of "Farther Along" - a conference on the southern gospel convention singing tradition. Albert E. Brumley first published "I'll Fly Away" in 1932, and I like so many others grew up singing it in church services and gospel singings. Today the Church of God and Pentecostal movement use a wide range of musical styles. Many no longer sing Southern Gospel music, but the popularity of Bill Gaither's "Homecoming" video series reveals that this is still a much-loved tradition. Certainly it has been an important part of our heritage. Our own Church Hymnal is one of the best known songbooks and many Church of God ministers and families have written songs and produced recordings over the years. At the Farther Along Conference, Lee University's Dr. Donald LeRoy presented a paper on the history of the Church Hymnal and Charles Towler spoke about the lasting legacy of the Church Hymnal. He also generously provided copies for the Friday evening singing. Jacquelyn Royal, from the staff of Lee University's Squires Library, told about our efforts to digitize and preserve Southern Gospel recordings as well as catalog songbooks. Whatever the future of this style of music in the Pentecostal movement, it has had extraordinary influence. We cannot fully understand where and who we are, if we do not know our heritage. At the Dixon Pentecostal Research Center we are committed to collecting and preserving songbooks, record albums, scholarly interpretations and other materials related to Southern Gospel music. We invite you to make donations of materials to add to our collections as well as financial resources to help us preserve them. We also welcome your visit to see what we are doing to preserve this and other aspects of our heritage. Posted 14:59:46 on Wednesday, April 23, 2008 Halcy Tomlinson's Journal - part 1 Halcy Olive Tomlinson was born on March 28, 1891 in Westfield, Indiana, the oldest child of Ambrose Jessup and Mary Jane Tomlinson. The family moved to Culberson, North Carolina in 1899 to become missionaries in Appalachia. By 1903 A.J. had joined a Holiness group at Camp Creek and became the leader of the movement soon to be known as the Church of God. In December 1904 the Tomlinsons moved to Cleveland where the children could attend school. In the spring of 1906 Halcy turned fifteen at her house on Gaut Street and started a journal. She chronicled her adventures as a teenager in Cleveland, Tennessee, and a daughter of the Tomlinson household. Her fifteenth year brought hardships during her father's missionary journeys, her first job at the Woolen Mill, and an increased faith in God. Of all the letters and journals that we house at the Dixon Research Center, I think that Halcy's is my favorite. The journal speaks so well to many of my interests including women's history, the history of childhood and adolescence, as well as family and local history. Halcy was a sharp observer of the world around her and her diary is revealing. Her father, General Overseer A.J. Tomlinson, kept a journal of his own that recorded the progress of his ministry. Halcy's diary, however, gives us a better picture of the family dynamics in the Tomlinson household in addition to a rare portrait of what life was like for a fifteen-year-old girl living in Cleveland, Tennessee in 1906. In this blog series, I will be posting some of Halcy's entries and will be discussing some of them. Today is April 1, 2008 so I'll start off by posting Halcy's first entries from the very end of March, one-hundred-two years ago. You can read more about her in the April 2007 issue of the Church of God Evangel, or you can visit the Dixon Research Center and read her diary for yourself. If you have any comments about the journal, you can post them on our message board, or you can E mail me at "sfletcher at leeuniversity.edu" (See how I'm trying to outwit the spammers?) Until then, happy reading!
Halcy Tomlinson March 28, 1906 "Well, well, dear old Journal I hardly know how to begin. It can't be like Docia, because I am fifteen today and she was just twelve. And then, I like our dear little room; 'our' means my little sister Iris Marea who is eleven years old and myself. Although our room is most as bare as hers, yet we like it ..Our glass is not broken, yet it is small, and instead of having a patched quilt on the bed ours has a nice white coverlet on it. Our stand is made of a box and our washstand is too. Mamma made them herself. Oh, I have the dearest mama in the world, and I just love her with all my heart. I went to school today; it is Wednesday. I got along all right, and didn't have to stay in. I have a good teacher. Her name is Miss Marea Ransome. I am in the sixth grade. We came to Cleveland just a little over a year ago, and I like to live here all right. Papa is a minister and he is so good to me. He isn't home near all the time, and oh, we are so glad when he comes home again from his appointments of preaching. It is a bad rainy day today, but it is most always bad on my birthday because it is in clustery March. And they say I am about like March in my ways too, but I just can't help it. I try to be just as good as I can, and I love everybody because I love Jesus. I am not like Docia in the respect either for I love Jesus and she didn't when she began her journal, and He is so good to me. If I want anything that I really need, I just as Him, like anyone else would their father. Papa hasn't any special salary, and the people where he preaches are not overly rich and many are real poor. They are good to give all they can, but that doesn't near meet all the expenses. But the Bibles says, 'He shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.' And He does supply our needs some way or other. "Now dear Journal I am just telling you everything but you won't be put in print like Docia's journal. I hardly guess anyone will even read this, so I will write whatever I want to. "I have gotten three whippings today. Marea and my brother Homer - he is between my sister and myself - and a friend (Amanda Haney) boarding here with us, whipped me sixteen stripes apiece because they said I had to have one to grow on. I got some presents today but will not mention them here."
Halcy Tomlinson March 31, 1906 "O dear, will warm weather ever come! This is the last day of March, and it is real cool for this time of year. I feel real blue this morning. We have happened to a disappointment. We were aiming to have our house painted this spring and furnished better than it is, but we have failed to accomplish what we aimed to. It surely must be nice to be rich and have plenty of money, yet we ought to be contented for what we have for I am sure He knows better than we. Papa and Mamma are both sick, and our cow Rosie died only a few days ago. It does seem terrible to have to be sick, especially anyone so good as Mamma and Papa are. "And poor Papa has to go away to fill one of his appointments, too, this evening, and will be gone over Sunday. In one way I am glad for him to go if he can do any good, but I am sorry on Mamma's account. She said she always wanted Papa to be at home if she is feeling bad. And then, we all like for Papa to be at home. I heard Mama say only today she would like awful well to have a new coat. She hasn't had a new coat this winter. If I were only rich I would get her one. Doesn't it seem strange some people can have everything they want while others can't have even the things they need? But the Lord knows best about everything. His will be done." Posted 16:33:54 on Tuesday, April 1, 2008 Charles W. Conn I have just returned from the funeral of a great man, Charles W. Conn. Like so many people, I first became aware of Dr. Conn in the pages of his books. My father attended Lee College when I was nine, and while Dr. Charles Conn was president. Lee College textbooks, including Like a Mighty Army, made their way into our home. As a teenager who loved history and as a Church of God PK studying to get certificates in the Church Training Course program, they later became part of my life. In those books Charles Conn introduced me to Church of God history and to rich Bible study. I more formally met Dr. Conn in Nashville, Tennessee, as an adult. Along with his son Jeff, I was a Ph.D. student at Vanderbilt University. Dr. Conn came to preach at the Broadmoor Church of God, and we had the first of many conversations about Church of God history. Something I said in that conversation got his attention, and he became a mentor of mine. In 1991 I came to Lee as a reference assistant in Squires Library and had the privilege of helping with some of the research on the "definitive edition" of Like a Mighty Army. Then in 1997 I became director of the Dixon Pentecostal Research Center, where Dr. Conn kept an office and we often talked. Not long after I was designated as Church of God historian in 2004, I penned the following words: "It is an extraordinary honor to follow in the footsteps of writers such as A.J. Tomlinson, E.L. Simmons, and Charles W. Conn in chronicling the history of the Church of God. The earliest known history of our movement was penned by A.J. Tomlinson in his book The Last Great Conflict and published in 1913. In 1938, E.L. Simmons wrote the first comprehensive history of the Church of God. Simmons account was simply titled History of the Church of God and advanced the story with new material and the addition of photographs. Yet, it was Charles W. Conn, a gifted writer, astute observer, and careful chronicler who has done more than any other person to record what God has done throughout our history." Thank you Dr. Conn for all you did to preserve our Church of God heritage. David G. Roebuck, Ph.D.
Posted 16:21:15 on Monday, March 31, 2008 "Really the Baptism of the Holy Ghost" We do not know when Tomlinson first heard of the Pentecostal doctrine of Spirit Baptism as an experience subsequent to sanctification and with the evidence of speaking in tongues. In his 1913 book The Last Great Conflict, Tomlinson credited William J. Seymour with uncovering the Pentecostal doctrine and described his personal hunger for the experience. Tomlinson wrote, "In January, 1907, I became more fully awakened on the subject of receiving the Holy Ghost as He was poured out on the day of Pentecost. That whole year I ceased not to preach that it was our privilege to receive the Holy Ghost and speak in tongues as they did on the day of Pentecost. I did not have the experience, so I was almost always among the seekers at the altar. . . . By the close of the year I was so hungry for the Holy Ghost that I scarcely cared for food, friendship or anything else. I wanted the one thingthe Baptism with the Holy Ghost. I wrote to G.B. Cashwell&and asked him to come to our place for a few days." Cashwell had attended the famous revival at the Azusa Street Mission in Los Angeles and was sharing his experience throughout the southeastern United States. When the program for the third (1908) General Assembly of the Churches of God was printed, plans for Saturday and Sunday revealed an expectancy regarding the new Pentecostal message. "Saturday, January 11th. 7:00 p.m. Service on Pentecostal lines. We expect Brother G.B. Cashwell, of Dunn, N.C." &. "Sunday, January 12th. 10:40 a.m. Preaching or Pentecostal Service " &."7:00 p.m. Service on Pentecostal lines." Cashwell arrived in Cleveland on Friday and preached at least the Saturday evening and Sunday morning services. His report of the Sunday morning service was brief, "I gave only a few minutes talk, and asked all those who wanted the baptism of the Holy Ghost to come to the altar. The altar was full in a minute and many knelt in the aisle. We are expecting great things here if everybody will stay out of the way of the Holy Ghost." Four received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit that morning including Tomlinson. Tomlinsons testimony incorporated many of the spiritual manifestations that were common occurrences in the early Pentecostal movement. According to Tomlinson, while Cashwell was concluding his message, "The Spirit came on me and down I went on the floor, right by the side of the stand on the rostrum." Tomlinson continued, "My mind was clear, but a peculiar power so enveloped and thrilled my whole being that I concluded to yield myself up to God and await results." Those results for Tomlinson were dramatic. They included shaking, rolling, tossing, and a sense of levitation. He recorded, "As I lay there great joy flooded my soul. The happiest moments I had ever known up to that time&.Oh, such floods and billows of glory ran through my whole being&." These waves of joy were then followed by a vision in which Tomlinson traveled to many areas of the world including all the inhabited continents. In his vision, Tomlinson believed that his tongues speech was in fact the languages of the native peoples of the countries he was visiting. This was a common belief among many early Pentecostals who were convinced that the purpose of the latter day rain was to provide the church with supernatural tools to win the lost in the last days. Also in Tomlinsons vision, devils were cast out, people were saved, and he was reminded of Mark 16 and signs following believers. In his journal Tomlinson concluded, "This was really the baptism of the Holy Ghost as they received Him on the day of Pentecost, for they all spake with tongues. With all I have written it is not yet told, but judging from the countries I visited I spoke in ten different languages."
Posted 13:40:19 on Monday, January 14, 2008 Fulfilling the Call Last week began and ended with profound opportunities for me to reflect on my journey and the calling that we have here at the Dixon Pentecostal Research Center. The week began on Monday, June 18, with the home-going celebration of Dr. Cecil B. Knight. It ended with a deeply moving retreat for Lee University faculty and staff to discuss our calling. Dr. Knight was instrumental in my coming to the Church of God Theological Seminary as a student in 1981. Ten years later he was on the board that hired me to work on the Squires library faculty, and on that same board when I was hired to direct the Dixon Pentecostal Research Center in 1997. In his tribute to Dr. Knight, Dr. Paul Conn reminded those at the memorial service how God had used Dr. Knight at a critical time in the life of the Church of God. With Dr. Knight's leadership, it was possible to be both a loyal member and an agent for positive change. Thankfully, this past winter I was able to sit for about six hours with Dr. Knight and record the story of his life and ministry on video tape. Those hours were both a labor of love and my commitment to a calling to preserve the stories of how God has worked among both leaders and laity in the Church of God. The purpose of Lee University's Faith Learning retreat is to help staff and faculty reflect on their personal calling as well as prepare to mentor students who are developing their own sense of God's calling. I was reminded of how my journey has been full of surprises and uncertainty, while always guided by God's hand even though it has sometimes seemed to be an unseen hand. My first sense of a definite call of God came about the age of twelve while praying with my friend Eddie Stone in a Lee College prayer room. During my teen years I believed my life would be dedicated to local church ministry, and I attended West Coast Bible College to prepare for that. But while a student at the Church of God Theological Seminary, faculty such as Harold Hunter and Don Bowdle helped me to realize how important understanding the roots of our theology and heritage was to me. I had always loved history, and somehow God opened the door to attend Vanderbilt University and study the history of Christianity. To my surprise, as I approached the end of my studies at Vanderbilt, it seemed that no one wanted to hire me. Then God used Dr. Knight to bring me to Cleveland and eventually to direct the Research Center. My life is now full of opportunities to combine my love for the Church and my love for history with my calling to serve God and the kingdom of God. At the Research Center we work with local congregations in understanding and preserving their heritage, we teach Lee University and Church of God Theological Seminary students about the Church of God and the Pentecostal movement, and we write for a variety of readers from scholars to interested laity. Like many others we face the challenges of balancing opportunities and resources. But we trust that the God who calls us will call others to walk along with us. Posted 13:35:33 on Thursday, June 28, 2007 The Church of God Historical Commission At our recent meeting in April, the Historical Commission discussed a number of items including ways of celebrating upcoming anniversaries such as the 125th Anniversary of the Church of God (2011). We also took the time to tour many early Church of God historical sites including the Barney Creek site in Monroe County, Tennessee, where Richard and R.G. Spurling founded the Christian Union in 1886. Although I have been to these sites many times and often lead "Heritage Tours," I never tire of reflecting on what God did among us more than 100 years ago now. The Mission of the Historical Commission is to preserve and perpetuate the history and heritage of the Church of God and its global Pentecostal mission. Our Statement of Purpose is: "The purpose of the Church of God Historical Commission is to promote the preservation, understanding, and appreciation of the history and heritage of the Church of God, worldwide. It shall give special attention to the collecting and preserving of historical documents and to the writing of history at all levels: the local church, the various jurisdictions, the departments and institutions of the church, and the general church. It shall also seek to produce, and to encourage the production of, historical materials (written, audio-visual, Internet) and to promote occasions for the church to remember, appreciate and celebrate its history and heritage." Along with other members of the Historical Commission, I would be happy to hear your thoughts about our work and how we can preserve the wonderful history and heritage of the Church of God. Members include: Paul L. Walker, Liaison; Floyd D. Carey Jr., Chairman; Christopher C. Moree; Robert D. McCall; Hoyt E. Stone; Joel Trammell; Jerry Jeter, James M. Beaty, Consultant; David G. Roebuck, Church Historian; and Charles W. Conn, Church Historian Emeritus. Posted 15:03:05 on Tuesday, May 1, 2007 A Typical Week? This past Saturday I joined other family members to help my brother-in-law's family move into a new home that God has blessed them with. While taking a lunch break someone asked me what I do for a living. It is easy to talk about directing the Research Center and teaching at Lee University and the Theological Seminary. But that doesn't do much to explain a typical week. Although it is hard to know what a typical week really is, last week was certainly a full one. Monday involved a web-cast training session sponsored by the Society of American Archivists. The Research Center hosted the session on using PDF files for preservation. We invited friends from Squires Library and the Cleveland Public Library to join us. The digital age brings many opportunities and challenges to archives such as ours. Tuesday because with a visitor bringing by a donation of materials. Jerry Bradwell is the grandson of H.L. Trim. Trim and his second wife Flora were early Church of God leaders. Mr. Bradwell brought us a great family photo and some important history of the family. Tuesday also included teaching the course "History and Theology of the Pentecostal Movement" at Lee University. The famed Bennie Triplett came by to use our reel-to-reel tape player. I can't verify his claim that the Research Center has the only one in town, but I am thankful that we have a way to play the hundreds of reel-to-reel tapes in our collection. Later we set up a display for Black History Month at the Church of God International Offices. I ended the day with a conference call of the Executive Committee of the Society for Pentecostal Studies. Since I became Executive Secretary in 2003, the Research Center has served as the main office for this organization of almost 600 scholars of the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement. These days my SPS responsibilities take up much of my time as we prepare for the upcoming annual meeting that Lee University will host March 8-10. On Wednesday our Archivist, Susan Fletcher, and I attended a special service and brunch at the International Offices celebrating Black History Month. We were able to display some wonderful photo albums of black congregations in the Church of God and solicit the identification of some of the congregations. Thursday began with a meeting of the Church of God Board of Church Ministries. This is an occasional meeting of Church leaders for information sharing. Afterwards I met privately with General Overseer Dennis McGuire to talk about the possibility of updating Like A Mighty Army at an appropriate time. Thursday afternoon and evening included two lectures and dinner with Dr. John Woodbridge, who teaches Church History at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and was a special guest at Lee University. Friday began with an oral history interview with former General Overseer Cecil B. Knight. This was part of a project in which we are interviewing former members of the International Executive Committee. So far I have been blessed with interviewing Dr. Ray H. Hughes Sr., and the Reverend Woodrow C. Byrd. The plan is to conduct three or four interviews with each person in order to preserve an extensive history of his life and ministry. T. Scot Carter, Chad Guyton and their staff are doing a terrific job making this possible. It was a great week, and I'm thankful for all of the opportunities that God is giving us.
Posted 10:01:49 on Thursday, February 15, 2007 |
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