06/14/2023
120 Years Ago!
“I was ordained a minister of the Gospel of the Holiness Church at Camp Creek, N. C.,” penned A. J. Tomlinson in his journal on June 13, 1903.
Living with his family in Culberson, North Carolina, some fifteen miles east of Camp Creek, A. J. Tomlinson’s briefly described ordination transformed his life and ultimately the future of the Church of God. The Indiana-born former Quaker had founded the Book and Tract Company with his friend, J. B. Mitchell, and had begun traveling about 1897 as a home missionary to the mountains of western North Carolina, northern Georgia, and eastern Tennessee.
Tomlinson relocated to Culberson in 1899, where he established a school, orphanage, and clothing distribution center. Publishing Samson’s Foxes to raise ministry support, Tomlinson believed God would use the children won by his ministry as firebrands to burn sin out of the mountains.
Sometime that same year, Tomlinson met W. F. Bryant and became aware of the harvest of Holiness believers following the 1896 Shearer Schoolhouse revival. Bryant was shepherding a “remnant” who had experienced religious excesses and persecution as well as speaking in tongues and divine healing. Persuaded by R. G. Spurling, Bryant hosted the establishment of the Holiness Church in his Camp Creek home on May 15, 1902.
Although Tomlinson was well acquainted with the Holiness Church and even preached in their meetings, he was reluctant to join any organized group. He later remembered, “I had already searched and investigated many movements until my faith in them had completely exhausted. I seemed to be like a ship at sea with no rudder by which it should be controlled.”
Invited to meet with the Holiness Church for prayer and Bible study, Tomlinson climbed the hillside behind Bryant’s home early on the morning of June 13, 1903, to seek the will of God for his life.
Tomlinson recalled the discussion following his early morning prayer: “When I understood fully that those saintly people meant to stand for the whole Bible rightly divided and take the New Testament as their only rule of faith and practice, it appealed to me and I became very much interested at once. I asked many questions and Bible answers were given which perfectly satisfied all of my inquiries. I then said, ‘This means that it is the Church of God.’ To this they assented.”
Recounting his commitment that day, Tomlinson said, “The minister raised the Bible in his hand and spoke softly but firmly as he asked me if I would take the whole Bible, rightly divided, as my guide, and the New Testament as my only rule of faith and practice and walk in the light as it shined on my pathway. To this I assented and thus I entered into a perpetual covenant that has never been forgotten.”
Knowing and trusting Tomlinson, the Holiness Church immediately ordained him to ministry. Having come from outside the mountains, he brought a new vision that soon led to expansion and growth. By the time 1904 came to a close, along with Camp Creek, he was pastoring congregations in Luskville, Union Grove, and Drygo in Tennessee as well as a newly established work in Georgia. He had also relocated to Cleveland, Tennessee, with the intention of starting a mission there. Cleveland became his home and remains the home of the Church of God now ministering in 187 nations and territories of the world.
(This post is published as “A Minister of the Holiness Church,” Church of God Evangel, May/June 2023, page 25, by David G. Roebuck.)
