Assembly and Church of God

I know that the AOG are Trinitarian, are the COG?

 

'I know that the AOG are Trinitarian, are the COG?'

[Quote from Ray] Yes, the Church of God are Trinitarian as is the Assembly of God. I am almost 100% sure that the Church of God do not allow speaking in tongues or at least do not emphasize it.

The Assembly of God allows for the speaking in tongues with, of course, the interpretation of that message/tongue.

Although I do not speak in tongues, I have always found the interpretation of the tongue uplifting and very reverential to the Lord Jesus. The message always encourages the Christian in light of the great God He is toward all true Christians.

 

Church of God (Anderson, IN) non-Pentecostal.
Church of God (Cleveland, TN) Pentecostal - one of the original Pentecostal denominations from the early 1900's.

 

There is basically no difference between Assembly of God and Church of God of Cleveland, TN. In fact, they share ministers quite regularly. These are the two largest Pentecostal denominations in the US.

 

Is the Pentecostal version of the Church of God a split from Armstrongs Worldwide Church of God? I have not seen eany evidence that this is so other than the similar name, it seems that every group that broke away from the Worldwide Church of God has the name in a different form

Church of the Great God,
United Church of God
Living Church of God
Church of God Seventh Day
Etc

 

There are a few differences in THe Assemblies of God and The Church of God ( Cleveland Tennessee)
1.The form of Church Govt is different in that
Each Assembly of God is self Governed as long as it adheres to certain guidelines. The Church of God has a state oversear that can appoint a pastor to a church.

2. Though there may not be the emphasis today that there was 30 years ago The Church of God taught of an expereience called sanctification ( similar to (Weslyan, Nazarene, and other holiness churches) wherein you became sanctified instantly and then walked this out progressively.
The Assemblies of God neverr taught this as an experience but taught that sanctification was progressive.

Those are the only 2 differences that I have heard of between the groups.

 

As a former CoG member, the biggest difference I saw was the church government. I never attended an AoG, so I can't speak on the sanctification issue. They each recognize the other's ministerial licensure, I believe.

The AoG is much more active in world missions, although the CoG is catching up. The CoG is now the largest protestant denomination in Guatemala.

The CoG (Cleveland) has nothing to do with Garner Ted's WCOG heresy. It started out in the late 1800's, after some members of both the Methodist and Baptist churches decided that their churches were too worldly, and wanted to get back to Holiness. They started off with camp meetings in eastern TN, NC, and Ga, and in 1906 formally adopted the name Church of God. The Church of God of Prophecy splintered off from them over accountability issues, but there are talks going on aimed at reconciliation.

They are seperate from the Azusa street revival (I believe the AoG came out of that).

That's most of what I remember in a nutshell.

edited to add: most snake handling churches were once CoG, but the church cracked down on that in the mid 1900's.

 

I wish the COG would come over aand plant some churches here, many of the churches in Australia are falling asleep.

 

The majority of churches in the US are struggling to keep attendance up rather than letting it slip year after year.

On the other hand you will see some startup community churches that bloom into mega churches pretty fast.

In Christ,

Bob

 

Unfortunately, the CoG attendance is down. Most CoG's are small, rural churches. Combine that with the fact that classic pentecostalism (ie, initial evidence, holiness doctrines) is not gaining many new adherents, I see the church shrinking even more in the states. I know many CoG members that are now going to Vineyard or non-denom charismatic churches.

 

There's two CoG in our small community, within a twemty mile circle. There was four, but two had to close their doors. One of these that still exists is on the brink of going under.

 

Are both of those CoG, Cleveland? There's also CoG of Prophecy, CoG House of Prayer, CoG with Signs and Wonders, etc., and most of them seem to be in the south/southeast.


And that's something else that's not good for them. There's too many "family" churches out there. The state office really needs to look at combining some of these small churches, but they don't want to risk upsetting some of the "old guard"

 

There is no relation between Armstrong 's Teaching and the Church of God cleveland Tn, The Church of God of Prophecy, or the Church of God Anderson Indiana.
ARmstrong was sabbatarian. THe groups that have split off are also Sabbatarian.

 

These are out of Cleveland, TN.

This might be interesting to some. When one of these small CoG lost their last pastor they contacted the CoG office in Cleveland to ask for another pastor. They were denied and told to close their doors. At first I thought, "they could just pull out of the convention". I later found out that the property that the church was built on several decades ago was owned by the CoG and not that individual body. I thought this was odd because a local citizen donated this to start that church. The members had to leave and the CoG sold the property to another group. When I did my research I found that other CoG churches had deeded their property to the convention. Basically, a board in a different city decides whether or not a local body can continue or not. Not once have I ever heard of an instance were the convention gave money to help build one of these small churches, yet these congregations that can hardley pay the bills are required to send money to the convention. STRANGE.

 

The CoG has a heirarchal governing board centralized in Cleveland, TN. There is no autonomy. The church owns all the land and buildings, even if it is donated. There have been some hard feelings in Florida lately about the administrative bishop (state overseer) selling property out from under churches to have money in the coffers.

Generally, if a church has less than about 15 people, the state overseer will tell it to close.

There are two states of association a church can be in, either aligned or not. If they are aligned, they must pay a tithe (yes, the church itself, seperate from the individual members, must send a tithe to Cleveland), and they can utilize all the resources of the CoG. If they are not aligned, they don't have to pay their tithe, but they can't use any of the CoG's resources, outside of having a licensed minister come and preach, or call themselves CoG.

 

This is sad.

 

Why is that sad?