الثلاثاء، 16 يناير 2018

How Bishop Charles Harrison Mason Got His Start

By Scott Bennett


Although there is so much that is said about this prominent figure in the Pentecostal Holiness denomination, there are still many who do not quite know the full story. It is hard to tell the complete story of Bishop Charles Harrison Mason because he achieved so many great things in his life, all while having plenty of very human struggles along the way. In spite of these, he went on to found one of the biggest churches of its kind.

Sharecropping was a common occupation for the people of Shelby County, and that is what Mason's parents did for income. His parents, Eliza and Jerry, were both former slaves and lived in an unincorporated area. Charles did not get much of a formal education while he was growing up, and that was why he came to learn as much as he could from the Bible.

The first time anyone joins a church is a very special experience, and it can change a person's life. It can be all the more special when the person carrying out the baptism is a relative or someone special in the person's life, and so it was a very special ceremony when Mason's half-brother baptized him. This was in 1879 at a Baptist church, and he was twelve.

There was an outbreak of both tuberculosis and the yellow fever that occurred in the area of Shelby Country, where the family went to church, around the year 1880. Acquiring tuberculosis, there was not much the family could do since white doctors wouldn't treat African Americans. Unfortunately, Jerry got sick and passed away.

It can be very difficult to recover from the loss of a loved one. Sharecropping was no longer a possibility for the family, so they had to move to Preston, which is in Arkansas. This was a very hard move on Mason's health, and he was only getting worse when his family all prayed for him to get better, and he did.

Being a clergyman was not the lifelong dream of this man, although he spend most of his life driven by the passion of it. However, when he was young, he told his parents that he did not want to be a clergyman and that he would rather just be a normal church member. The event that changed his mind was when his health had taken a plunge from tuberculosis, and he was saved by his family's prayers.

In order to become a minister of any type of church, it is necessary to get a license to do so. That is what Charles chose to do when he was 27 years old, thus starting off a career that would be his passion for his whole life. This led him to Arkansas, where he worked at a Baptist church.

It can be very hard to take a stand and openly disagree with what others are doing. That is exactly what Mason decided he had to do in order to honor his faith when the very first Baptist church he worked at. He felt that the emphasis wasn't on the Word of God, which he felt it should, and so after only a few months, he left.




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