IPHC Church Manual - Extension Loan Fund

Introduction
1,658 churches in the United States and 2,621,269 members and
7,635 churches worldwide (including affiliates). We also had a
missions presence in 81 countries.
The Twenty-Third General Conference, which convened in
Kansas City, Missouri, in August 1997, elected James Daniel
Leggett as the seventeenth General Superintendent of the
International Pentecostal Holiness Church. Prior to his election as
General Superintendent, Leggett served eight years as executive
director of Evangelism USA and four years as vice chairman of
the church.
Bishop Leggett led the church into the twenty-first century.
During the first four years of his tenure, the church celebrated its
one-hundredth birthday with special events in Oklahoma City and
North Carolina. Representatives attended from the Fire-Baptized
Holiness Church of the Americas, Pentecostal Free Will Baptist
Church, Congregational Holiness Church, and Emmanuel
Holiness Church.
From 1996 to 2000, the International Pentecostal Holiness
Church experienced an increase in membership of 33,823 – a
larger membership gain than in any previous quadrennium.
In 2000 alone, the church added 12,541 new members in the
United States, for its largest annual increase ever – a gain of
6.8 percent. Membership during the quadrennium increased from
164,149 to 197,972. The gain for 1997-2000 surpassed all
previous decadal gains.
Church planting was key to the church’s outstanding growth.
More churches were planted during the quadrennium than in any
previous four-year period. More than 100 churches were planted
per year in 1997, 1998, and 1999. In 2000, new churches totaled
154! The gain in new churches for the quadrennium was 206,
which more than doubled the gain in the previous four years.
The church’s growth around the world during the 1997-2000
quadrennium was even more remarkable. Worldwide membership
almost doubled from 729,887 in 1996 to 1,345,890 in 2000.
Including affiliates – the Methodist Pentecostal Church of Chile
and the Wesleyan Methodist Church of Brazil – the total
membership was 3.5 million, an increase of nearly 1 million from
1996.
The church continued to move toward globalization. A World
Pentecostal Holiness Fellowship (WPHF) Constitution was
adopted at a meeting of the WPHF Executive Committee in Costa
Rica in 2000. Members of the committee are James D. Leggett,
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