Gino Jennings

Gino N. Jennings
First Church of our Lord Jesus Christ, Pastor and General Overseer
Church	First Church of our Lord Jesus Christ
Diocese	FCOOLJC Headquarters, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
See	First Church of our Lord Jesus Christ, Global
Orders
Ordination	as Pastor and Minister of FCOOLJC - May 21, 1984 by Bishop Ernest Jennings
Consecration	as General Overseer of FCOOLJC - April 2, 1989 by Bishop Ernest Jennings
Personal details
Born	February 10, 1963 (age 55) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Nationality	American
Denomination	Christianity, Oneness Pentecostalism
Spouse	Darlene Gayman Jennings
Children	7, 3 daughters, 4 sons

Gino N. Jennings (born February 10, 1963) is a Oneness Pentecostal Christian pastor and social media personality, who with his father, Bishop Ernest Jennings, and his mother, started the First Church of our Lord Jesus Christ (FCOOLJC) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1984. The denomination was founded by Jennings as a Oneness Pentecostal (Non-Trinitarian Pentecostal) Holiness church and has a fellowship of satellite churches. Today, the church can be found in several locations in over 20 states across the continental United States, and around the world, with a radio and television broadcasting station in Philadelphia, called the The Truth of God Broadcasting Network, and boasts of nearly 200 congregations across the Caribbean, and the continents of Africa, Asia, and Europe as well.

He has gained most of his popularity within the Christian community through his broadcasts on several local television stations and cable networks, and his videos on YouTube and Facebook, where he shares many of his denomination's views on Christian ethics, salvation, modesty in dress, baptism, teachings on the Holy Spirit, and the relationship between the Christian Church and international politics and ethics. He often invites other ministers and pastors to have open public debates with him, which he also broadcasts on television and on the internet.

Gino Jennings and the church have been criticized throughout the American Christian community for some of their often controversial, distinct views such as their staunch advocacy for Nontrinitarianism, water baptism in the name of Jesus Christ only rejection of women wearing jewelry and makeup in church, requiring women to wear headcoverings and only skirts or long dresses in church, rejection of women in church clergy, whereby specifically which many Christians have accused them of being "religiously misogynistic", speaking in tongues (glossolalia) as a required sign of evidence of being baptized with the Holy Spirit, and their outspoken criticism of many popular American pastors and preachers of other denominations who they believe to be false teachers. Jennings rejects the usage of the name "Christianity" for describing himself or his denomination on the basis that the denomination believes that the title of "Christianity" has been used too loosely and are corrupted and tainted versions of the faith of the Biblical New Testament. He instead says that the word that more accurately describes the "faith of the Saints," should be the term "Holiness," or the "religion of Holiness." He also believes that the Apocrypha and Deuterocanonical Books of the Old Testament are to be included in Scriptural Canon, and regularly reads from them alongside the Protestant Canonical books.

He is married to Darlene Gayman Jennings, a native of Philadelphia, and the couple have seven children together, three daughters and four sons.

Biography

Gino Jennings was born the fourth of eight siblings on February 10, 1963, parents, Bishop Ernest Jennings and his wife, of whom both were members and ministerial clergy leaders at his father's uncle's church in Philadelphia. His father, Bishop Ernest Jennings, was one of the assistant pastors, and at the age of thirteen, subsequently after preaching his first sermon from Hebrews 11:6, Gino was appointed as an assistant pastor of the church in 1975. As a teenager, after claiming the baptism of the Holy Ghost, Gino Jennings began preaching regularly under the tutelage of his father and great-uncle, and even began evangelizing at revivals and crusades at other churches around the city of Philadelphia with his mother and father.

However, in 1976-1978 between the ages of 14 and 16, Gino Jennings began preaching controversial sermons against the by-laws and doctrines of his great-uncle's church, much to his great-uncle's anger and dismay. By the time he was 18 in 1980, after graduating from high school, he began preaching against his great-uncle's liberal stances on Christian sanctification, holiness, and modesty in behavior and dress, saying that the church and those in church leadership need to have strict, fundamental Bible-based standards for such concepts. He also began preaching Nontrinitarian views, stating that he believed the Trinity perspective of God was false, and began preaching a distinct form of Modalistic Monarchianism. He also began preaching against and criticizing the liberal stances and viewpoints that many Christians were starting to take within the church at the time. His great-uncle then temporarily suspended him of his ministerial duties, and made him take a one-year sabbatical from preaching. When he was finally given the opportunity to preach again, he told his great-uncle that he refused to back down from any of his viewpoints and teachings but that he would be respectful of the differences in opinions of other fellow believers and ministers that belonged to his great-uncle's church. Finally in 1984, at the age of 22, after going through repetitive cycles of being suspended from his ministerial duties and being forced to take sabbaticals from preaching, Gino Jennings, his parents and his siblings left their great-uncle's church, and Gino with his mother and father started preaching in the basement of their home.

He started the First Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ. (FCOOLJC) on May 21, 1984 in the basement of his family home, starting out with only 15 members, family not included. Many of his teenage and young adult friends from high school and college, and their families also joined the church in 1984 as well. Between 1984 and 1988, several of the former members of his great-uncle's old church began joining, and the congregation steadily grew, until they started having to use several rooms of the basement and their house as overflow rooms. Jennings also at this time, dropped out of college in order to pursue ministry full-time, and began taking well-paying jobs and careers around Philadelphia to help finance the ministries of the Church alongside donations to the church from congregants as well. Gino Jennings preached a strict emphasis on sanctification and holy living, the Pentecostal manner of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, adherence to Non-trinitarianism, Christian morals, and modesty in dress and behavior. Between 1986 and 1988, many members of his great-uncle's church began coming to First Church to antagonize and taunt him, calling him a false teacher, saying that he was putting too much of a strict emphasis on Christian legalism. Instead of being antagonistic back to them, however, he ignored their antagonism and criticism, and oftentimes would send them back to his great-uncle's church saying that he did not care what they thought anymore because his ministry was independent from them. Several church and ministry auxiliaries were formed around this time as well, allowing Gino Jennings and his family to rent out other auditoriums and rooms at other public facilities around Philadelphia to use for First Church worship services and meetings.

Between 1988 and 1989, Gino Jennings, with the help of other prominent pastors and ministers began planting branch churches in other cities in Pennsylvania, and in other states such as Illinois, Michigan, Tennessee, Maryland, New York, and Virginia. The Services at the headquarters church in Philadelphia were moved to the ballroom/auditorium of the former Hunting Park Recreation Center. In April 1989, First Church began having its services in the fellowship hall of an old Episcopalian Church building. Because the fellowship hall of the church was very large, the location provided enough room to accommodate the growing congregation, musical instruments such as new electronic piano keyboards, Hammond Organs, drum kits, and other audio and video recording equipment. As the Philadelphia congregation exponentially grew, it was also at this time that Gino Jennings married Darlene Gayman, a fellow member of the church whom he had been courting and fell in love with. The two were married on April 15 at the age of 27, and so as to not take away focus from his church's ministry and mission for evangelism, he also preached and conducted a revival service after the wedding for the wedding guests as well.

By March 1990, Gino Jennings and First Church had also set up their own local radio broadcasting equipment within their church and began broadcasting audio tapes and live recordings of their services on local Philadelphia radio stations. First Church was also given a thirty-minute international broadcast on WWCR Nashville, and a one-hour broadcast on WTMR Camden, New Jersey. Gino Jennings then named the broadcasts, "The Truth of God" claiming that that was the name God gave him to give as a title to the radio broadcast, to help them reach souls and inspire interest in any Christians willing to tune in and listen. By 1991, over 11 radio stations across several states and even international radio stations in other countries in the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe were broadcasting Gino Jennings' sermons to international listeners.

On April 12, 1991, Gino Jennings' father, Bishop Ernest Jennings died. Although the congregation was devastated by the loss, the First Church headquarters hosted his funeral, and hundreds of people from all around the country came to pay their respects. Gino preached a very charismatic eulogy for his father which was heard on the radio and television across the country through the Truth of God broadcast. In November 1991, Jennings and First Church purchased a much larger church building in Philadelphia on 2431 Frankford Avenue and renovated it. In February 1992, just after his 30th Birthday, the new church headquarters was completed and dedicated. As time passed the ministries of the FCOOLJC grew and flourished, and as of June of 2016, Jennings purchased a bigger church facility on North 5th Street in Philadelphia, PA where the church serves as its current ministerial headquarters to this day.

Throughout 1992 to 2016, Gino Jennings also began going to other states including Florida, California, Texas, Washington, Missouri, Colorado, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, and North Carolina, establishing branch churches and planting pastors in each state, further incorporating the ministries into its own stand-alone, independent church denomination, and he even went abroad establishing satellite churches in Puerto Rico (which although it is a U.S. Territory, it is still considered foreign missions), England, Nigeria, the Philippines, Jamaica, Haiti, and New Zealand. His churches have also been dedicated to philanthropy and community services efforts, and charity relief efforts for natural disasters. Today, the church can be found in over 20 states across the continental United States, and has millions of followers around the world.

Controversy

"Church Hoes" Controversy

Between February and March 2018, Gino Jennings began preaching a series of controversial sermons against women wearing excessive amounts of makeup, fake hair, extravagant wigs, and jewelry in church, and against women taking authority as pastors and bishops in Christian churches, comparing women who do such things to Jezebel and Delilah. He also referred to women who do such things as “hoes.” He said in one of his Sunday morning sermons, most notably:

"You so called Christian looking hoes, jumping in some church, flopping your ankle chains around. On the choir, breasts hanging out, lips all red, nails painted red, purple, blue, green, long like bird claws, all this fake hair, breasts implants, toe nails painted with little fake diamonds in it, your toes ain't richer. You're nothing but a prostitute. You're nothing but a singing hoe, a shouting hoe, an organ playing hoe, a choir director hoe. Preacher, if what I just said describes your wife, you are married to a hoe! A man that's a real man don't want his wife out in the street looking like a prostitute and you're a holy woman, or claim you are a Christian. Christian with skin tight pants showing the very shape of your birth canal. You'[re nothing but a prostitute Jezebel and a whore Delilah!"

— Pastor Gino Jennings, http://jamaica-star.com/article/news/20180228/pastor-under-fire-calling-women-hoes-female-church-leaders-say-clergyman%E2%80%99s

Because his statements were broadcast over the internet on YouTube and Facebook, and on local television stations from the Truth of God station in Philadelphia, his controversial statements went viral on several social media outlets, and the contentious excerpts of his sermon were spread and repeated through local news stations in Pennsylvania. He received much criticism and sardonicism from Christians of many denominations, and even from Christian feminists, for being "misogynistic and sexist, and twisting scripture to be legalistically judgmental and hateful." He was interviewed on several local television news and radio news and gossip stations, most notably with Fox 29/100.3 WRNB, where he defended his statements by saying that "I want to apologize for sounding and coming across as hateful and misogynistic and that it was not my intention to sound hateful or cynical or sardonic," but also saying, "...but at the same time, I will not recant or rescind the content of what I said, because in the Bible, the Apostles Paul and Peter taught that men and women both are supposed to dress modestly in church and in public, because in doing so, you reflect your love for Christ and His standards of being holy and sanctified. You reflect His standards of being separated from the societal beauty and appearance standards of the sinful world that wants women to be like Jezebel's and Delilah's, and that wants men to be like King Ahab and King Herod." He further continued saying, "It was not my intention to come across as ranting or trying to be misogynistic and hateful, I am sorry if people were offended or perturbed by the way it came across, because I was not trying to slut-shame, but I cannot recant what I said, because I was doing like the Apostles of the Bible and issuing a God-inspired rebuke against the women and men in the church who allow people to go against Biblical morals and abuse God's grace with their standards of clothing and blatant disregard for modesty."

He also made similar statements on other interviews that went viral as well. After doing so, many pastors and leaders of other Christian denominations, both male and female, began calling on Jennings to issue a public apology at his own church to his own congregants, but Jennings refused. Also, many Jamaican and American pastors and leaders began issuing harsh rebukes against Jennings, calling him to allow them to come and have debates with him on his views and standpoints about Christian modesty. Gino Jennings said he was willing to debate anyone and said he knows how to be very professional and respectful when he meets with ministers and religious leaders of other denominations, even if he disagrees with opposing viewpoints.

Jennings agreed to meet with a local entertainer and former minister from Jamaica, stage-named "Mr. Vegas" to come to his church and debate him in Jamaica during his Holy Convocation. He had Mr. Vegas escorted out of the church by his church security after an altercation that ensued between Vegas, the church's audio and visual team, and the other associate ministers on the pulpit.