Evangel Church
The Evangel Church was a Wesleyan-Holiness Christian denomination from 1933-1960.
The denomination was centered in the U.S. state of California with 8 churches and 675 members at the time of its merger with the like-minded Evangelical Methodist Church.
History
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The group was founded as the Evangelistic Tabernacles by Azusa Pacific College figureheads Dr. William Kirby and Dr. Cornelius Paul Haggard on March 27, 1933.[1]
Kirby, president of the college from 1937–39, had previously led a move away from direct leadership of the Quaker/ Friends group influential in the school's ecumenical founding. Kirby joined the faculty in 1924 and quickly became an unofficial spokesman for the school's fundamentalists who challenged the increasingly Modernist theological stances of their founders. Kirby and company broke away from the local Friends church in 1933 and began a new, Wesleyan-Holiness congregation on campus—which eventually became "the school church." This move diminished the Quaker influence on the school (as well as related funding) but strengthened the campus's identity as an Evangelical Holiness institution.[2]
C.P. Haggard followed Kirby as president and led the nondenominational school through re-locations, four name changes, and mergers with Wesleyan colleges, and rescued it from the brink of financial exigency following the shift toward Evangelicalism. He is the namesake of the theology school and served as president for nearly four decades.[3]
In the late 1950s, Haggard approached the General Superintendent of the fledgling Evangelical Methodist Church (or "EMC"), Dr. J.H. Hamblen, about a partnership between his new network of churches and the EMC. According to Hamblen, "I made it a matter of prayer that God would send a man who could take my place if anything should happen [to me]. At the Phoenix Conference as I was preparing to call the Conference to order, a tall, ruddy faced young man came in the front door. God spoke to my heart, ‘There comes your man.’ I was not sure who he was, but I arose and went down the aisle. He reached out his big hand and greeted me and said, ‘I have come to join you.'”[4]
Under the leadership of President R. Lloyd Wilson, the Evangel Church, Inc., Annual Conference voted to unite with the Evangelical Methodist Church on June 4, 1960. The merger was approved by the Western Annual Conference of the Evangelical Methodist Church on June 22, 1960, thus forming a strengthened California District.[5]
This merger, along with the addition of the People's Methodist Church in 1962, gave the modest Evangelical Methodist Church a stronger coast-to-coast presence in the United States.
Haggard served as an Assistant General Superintendent of the Evangelical Methodist Church, but declined nomination as General Superintendent so he could focus on his administrative responsibilities with the college he loved.[6]
References
- ^ "Evangelical Methodist Church" (PDF). Emchurch.org. Retrieved 30 November 2014.
- ^ Lambert, Carole J. ""Azusa Pacific University "" (PDF). Apu.edu. Retrieved 15 February 2015.
- ^ "About Azusa Pacific Seminary". Apu.edu. Retrieved 30 November 2014.
- ^ "A Look Into Life," J.H. Hamblen, pg. 119, Evangelical Methodist Church press
- ^ "EMChurch » About". Emchurch.org. Retrieved 30 November 2014.
- ^ "EMChurch » About". Emchurch.org. Retrieved 30 November 2014.