Our Story
Church of God in Christ
Our Foundation
The Church of God in Christ, Inc. (COGIC) is a Christian organization in the Holiness-Pentecostal tradition. It is the largest Pentecostal denomination in the United States.
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The membership is predominantly African-American with millions of adherents. The Church has congregations in 112 countries around the world.
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Mission
To Seek and Save that Which is Lost
ABOUT US...
The Church of God in Christ, Inc. (COGIC) is a denomination rich in history and passionate in our beliefs. Please see below to learn more about how the Church of God in Christ, Inc. was founded and how we continually seek to fulfill God’s purpose on this earth. You can also visit our main Organization website at www.cogic.org
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National Security Task Force
The Church of God in Christ from it's early beginnings, has always recognized the need to not only provide for the spiritual needs of Believers, but also to provide for safe environments in which Believers can Worship and express their Faith. From the earliest Deacons at local Churches, who would always "keep watch", to ensure no persons or elements could come into the Church to harm the gathered parishioners, all the way to recognized need to provide some measure of safety for our annual gatherings in national convention settings, we have striven to have prepared Men and Women who are concerned and equipped to serve the people of God.
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In our annual National Gatherings, we had "COGIC Marshals" who were equipped to maintain safety and security on the floor of our convention centers and hotel ballrooms where we would gather together. At the same time, going back to the 1968 Constitution and the election of national officers in the Presiding Bishop and the General Board, there were always a group of persons concerned for keeping the leaders safe, particularly during the many periods of unrest and issues in our nation that would often affect the Black community and include the Black Church.
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Out of this ongoing concern and groups of servant leaders who maintained the safety and welfare of the leaders of the Church, from the 1980's through the 1990's and into the early 2000's, around 2002 was birthed the newly reorganized "Task Force". In 2003, the COGIC Marshals were folded into this group and one unified unit within the Church was organized, led by a Chief of Security, to comprehensively cover the safety and security of not only the leaders, but the gathered adherents in all of our national settings.
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In 2013, a retired Chief of Police for the State of Maryland Labor and Licensing Division, then Pastor, now Bishop William E. McMillan Jr., was appointed by the Presiding Bishop Charles E. Blake as the first Commissioner of the National Security Task Force of the Church of God in Christ. Bishop McMillan was re-appointed for another Term in 2021 by Presiding Bishop J. Drew Sheard.
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CHURCH HISTORY
THE CHURCH OF GOD IN CHRIST is a Church of the Lord Jesus Christ in which the word of God is preached, ordinances are administered and the doctrine of sanctification or holiness is emphasized, as being essential to the salvation of mankind.
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Our Church is commonly known as being Holiness or Pentecostal in nature because of the importance ascribed to the events which occurred on the Day of Pentecost, the 50th day after the Passover, or Easter as being necessary for all believers in Christ Jesus to experience.
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On the Day of Pentecost, the first day of the week, the Lord’s Day, Supernatural Manifestations descended in marvelous copiousness and power. The gift of the spirit in the fulfillment of the promise of Jesus to clothe those who would wait in Jerusalem with power from on high, was accompanied by three supernatural extraordinary manifestations.
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The sudden appearance of the Holy Ghost appealed first to the ear. The disciples heard a “sound” from heaven which rushed with a mighty force into the house and filled it–even as a storm rushes–but there was no wind. It was the sound that filled the house and not a wind, an invisible cause producing audible effects.
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Next, the eye was arrested by the appearance of tongues of fire which rested on each of the gathered COMPANY. Finally, there was the impartation of a new strange power to speak in languages they had never learned “as the Spirit gave them Utterance.”
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Our Church is also considered to be a member of the great Protestant body though it did not directly evolve from the European or English Reformation but had its origin within the General Association to the Baptist Church.
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Elder Charles Harrison Mason, who later became the founder and organizer of the Church of God in Christ, was born September 8,1864, on the Prior Farm near Memphis, Tennessee. His father and mother, Jerry and Eliza Mason, were members of a Missionary Baptist Church, having been converted during the dark crises of American Slavery.
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