Church of God History

Church history

The Church of God began on August 19, 1886, in Monroe County, Tennessee, near the North Carolina border. Former Baptist Richard Green Spurling preached in a millhouse along Barney Creek and eight persons formed a Christian Union for the purpose of following the New Testament as their rule for faith and practice, giving each other equal rights and privilege to interpret Scripture, and sitting together as the church of God. Twenty-one years later the growing movement formally adopted the name Church of God.

Ten years after the organizational meeting, a revival at the Shearer Schoolhouse in nearby Camp Creek, North Carolina, introduced the doctrine of sanctification to the community. Opposition to this doctrine led to severe persecution, but a spirit of revival prevailed and the Holiness believers experienced an outpouring of the Holy Spirit that included speaking in tongues and divine healing. Such experiences prepared the way for the explosion of the Pentecostal movement in the early twentieth century.
Under the leadership of our first General Overseer, A.J. Tomlinson, the Church of God adopted a centralized form of Church government with an inclusive International General Assembly (1906), launched a world evangelization effort beginning in the Bahamas (1909), inaugurated the Church of God Evangel (1910), and established educational opportunities for ministers and members (1918). Today Church of God ministries include more than 7 million members in 178 nations and territories. Some 36,000 congregations serve around the world, while regional and international ministries provide resources and support through our divisions of World Evangelization, Care, Discipleship, Education, and Support Services.

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About History
For further information on the history of the Church God, see Living the Word: 125 Years of Church of God Ministry and Like A Mighty Army, both of which are available through Pathway Bookstore. Additional historical resources are at the Dixon Pentecostal Research Center.

Church History in Hong Kong
It was the Sunday after Christmas day in 2009, when a group Christians belonging to COGCHK executed the long planned Outreach service in a rented room in Shatin Community center. Due to no regular slot in renting the place for a long term use, the team has no choice but to worship publicly inside the Shatin park for many months. Rain or shine, cold or hot weather did not stop them in giving God glory. And close to a year, God blessed them with a residential place in Shatin to home the Worship for a year and eventually moved to Fotan, occupying an Industrial place.

The COGCHK (Society) was renamed to CICOG (Society) and became a Limited company under Hong Kong law. During this transition period of name changes, the Fotan group remains as most active and united Outreach of CICOG. Until this year 2017, the Leadership of Fotan Outreach requested to be a stand alone Church and that's reports directly to the Regional Superintendent and this Idea was supported by Bro Tommy Smith.

The moving out of Fotan group was given Blessing of release and the following day (Sunday - Feb 12 2017) the ActsWorkshop was born. This was the initial name by the newly established Church, however after several consultation and support given by the COG family, the group decided to adopt the Church of God World Missions (Ministries) to align with globally accepted COG name.
To further strengthen the relationship of this newly born church with its root in the Philippines, the COG Philippines Logo (we Exalt You Jesus) was incorporated (with permission) in its church name.

By the grace of God, the Hong Kong government approved the incorporation of the Church of God World Missions (Ministries) Limited or COGWMHKG under certificate # 2527469 and Business Certificate # 67674010-000-04-17-2 last April 13 2017.