A History of Christian Doctrine #3 - Online Christian Library

A History of Christian Doctrine
name. They joined Goss’s group in 1913. The combined
list of ministers numbered 352, but the group did not
function as a true organization.
Goss began to see the need for an active organization
that would examine ministerial qualifications, protect
churches from charlatans and troublemakers, and promote
missionary efforts. He approached E. N. Bell (1866-
1923) with his thoughts. Bell was an older minister who
had been to seminary and who had pastored Baptist
churches for seventeen years before coming into the
Pentecostal movement under Durham. He was a pastor in
Malvern, Arkansas, and editor of an influential monthly
paper, the Word and Witness. Most of the workers in the
South who had left Parham were still quite young—Goss
himself was only about thirty—and had accepted
Durham’s doctrine, so they naturally looked to Bell for
leadership.
Bell likewise saw the need for organization, and he
used his paper to announce a “general council” to promote
five stated purposes: unity, stabilization, missions outreach,
legal identity, and schools and publications. Bell
and Goss signed the initial call for organization. Soon they
were joined by Daniel C. O. Opperman (1872-1926), Mack
M. Pinson, and Arch P. Collins. Opperman had been the
superintendent of the high school system at Zion. After
receiving the Holy Ghost in Parham’s work, he became a
leading Pentecostal educator, conducting short-term Bible
schools for workers. All five of the men who issued the call
for a new organization were associated with the
autonomous white wing of the Church of God in Christ.
Over 300 people attended this first meeting, with 128
registering as ministers and missionaries. They voted to
72