The Church of God in Christ (COGIC) series narrates the spiritual resilience of a unified, religious body of former slaves, their children, and their descendants who preserved to establish an organization that would become the largest Pentecostal denomination in the United States. Before growing to millions of members and thousands of churches, the Church of God in Christ was organized in 1907, by Bishop Charles Harrison Mason, when many Black Americans had never heard the gospel and when popular areas of the country were still unnamed and undeveloped. 

The founding and early members of the denomination traveled from various states, towns, and cities throughout the south, establishing churches during the period of legalized hatred and Jim Crow laws in the United States. They pressed forward despite rejection, alienations, death threats, cross burnings, house fires, church fires, and senseless murders of their neighbors by both Black and White Americans due to racial and religious differences. They were beaten mercilessly, imprisoned unjustly, accused falsely, and harassed by the FBI constantly, in attempts to silence their voices, break their courage, and stop their progress. 

Nonetheless, the leaders and members did not give up. Instead, they continued to advance the organization while adhering to the principles of the Kingdom of Heaven: love your enemies, pray for those who hate you, and bless them that curse you. They let evil men be evil men. They focused on their God given mission and believed God would fight for them. 

While they waited for God to avenge them, they continued to work. Both men and women traveled to plantation fields, shacks, and overfilled houses, introducing the Gospel to families who would receive their teaching and join the denomination. They congregated in members’ homes, cotton gin houses, and chicken coops to fellowship and engage in intense praise and passionate worship to the true and living God. They rejoiced together and testified of the power and victory God gave them to be confronted by evil and not react to it. 

With beliefs grounded in sanctification, they established their doctrine based on their holiness and Pentecostal beliefs. Though they were classified as inferior, they lived according to high moral standards that were well above people who were more privileged, wealthy, and educated than they were. They were selective of what they did, said, and where they went. They passionately adhered to God’s high standard of holy living, choosing to be set apart from secularism. Their Pentecostal beliefs enabled their human nature to be governed and guided by God’s Holy Spirit rather than by an evil spirit or evil influence. They proclaimed that it was their submission to the Holy Spirit or the “Holy Ghost” that empowered them to walk in love, refrain from retaliation, avert plots and traps of the enemy, and walk in godly wisdom. 

Even with no human rights and no freedom to vote, they led significant change in predominately Black communities and influenced White communities throughout the country with authority and respect for one another. They educated limited and poor blacks and formed units in the denomination aimed at teaching the members life skills. Their adherence to the teaching of Pentecostalism and holy living empowered and brought relevance to a race and generation of people who were intended to be discarded. 

The Church of God in Christ (COGIC) series presents colorful biographies of its pioneers’ efforts to form and establish the century-old denomination, at its inception. It tells of how they maneuvered in a society that hated and resisted them, without repaying evil for evil or demonstrating hatred, vengeance, civil disobedience, or retaliation against their enemies, while still being successful. They operated in the spirit of love, respect, and obedience and the true and living God remained them.