Sunday, May 13, 2018

Learn Fascinating Facts On Bishop Charles Harrison Mason

By Donna Reed


The Church of God in Christ or more popularly known as COGIC is a religious organization that contains members of predominantly African American ethnicity and has a total of twelve thousand churches and approximately six point five million members from all over the United States. As a result of this, the organization has been established as the fifth largest Christian community and denomination within the country and in the world today, is found in more than eighty three other countries. The organization was first erected in eighteen ninety seven and its first branch was in Memphis, Tennessee.

However, not many members and non members of this religious community are aware of the man responsible for its initial conception and subsequent creation on that year. Born and raised in Shelby County, Tennessee, Charles was the son of two former slave workers named Eliza and Jerry Mason, who primarily made their living out of sharecropping, which their son helped to sustain. To learn more about this boy and his fate, continue reading the subsequent paragraphs to learn some fascinating facts on bishop Charles Harrison Mason Sr.

Since Mason had to work hard since he was a young boy to help his struggling family survive, he never had time to go to a real school while he was growing up. However, he was deeply influenced and inspired by the religious upbringing his parents had enforced, which lead to him joining the local missionary Baptist community at 15 years of age. Although he voiced his desire to become a lay member instead of a clergyman, he became baptized at this time in his life.

When he came to be fourteen nonetheless, he had actually gotten consumption while duration when the yellow high temperature epidemic had started to spread out throughout the nation and considering that there were no clinical facilities or available clinical assistance in their location, his papa passed away because of it. This lead the family members to move completely to Preston in Arkansas where Charles appeared to wear away additional and came to be seriously ill. This just additional strengthened his belief, because he made an incredible healing complying with the countless petitions supplied to him by his mom and brother or sisters, in addition to the regional that wished his healing.

By some miracle, Mason was healed and made a full recovery from his illness, which prompted him to join the parishioners that offered prayers to help him recover. Upon joining Mt Gale Missionary Baptist, Charles had stated that he became sick because he believed god wanted him to remember his spiritual duty after healing him. This eventually led him to work full time at the ministry when he became an adult.

It was in eighteen ninety three however, that twenty seven year old Charles officially began his ministerial career after acquiring his license from the same Mount Gale. Although he officially enrolled in the Arkansas Baptist College, he decided to drop out and withdraw his enrollment following the three months he was there because he claimed the curriculum was insufficient and the methodology was unreliable. According to him, it focused more on liberal practices as opposed to placing emphasis on the gospel and teachings of god. Nonetheless, his religious journey did not end there.

Later on in eighteen ninety five, he was introduced to Charles Price Jones, a highly popular and influential Baptist preacher at that time, who he got along just fine since they shared the same level of enthusiasm for the word of their lord and other holiness teachings. This lead to a partnership wherein both men worked together in an effort to spread the word of god and the following later, it lead to the creation of Church of God, which Mason has stated was a name that naturally came to mind when he had a vision while staying at Little Rock in Arkansas.

After many trials and tribulations, he was finally able to win and gain ownership of the legal rights to COGIC and became the founder and leader of said organization. He did this by enlisting and commissioning traveling evangelists to spread their message to others and through working in partnership with other prominent and influential religious leaders at that time. The organization stood out however, for its interest and emphasis in targeting African American communities in the northern areas of the United States, during the time wherein the great migration was happening.

With Mason remaining as the leader, the organization had continued success and thrived largely. Then in 1945 he made the history books again by erecting the Mason Temple based in Memphis. In 1952 he arranged his successors and the line of leaders to take over his position when he died. Doing this has helped the COGIC remain afloat nowadays, after he died peacefully on the seventeenth of November in 1961 when he was already 97 years old.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment