Association of Pentecostal Churches of America (1895-1907) Collection

William Howard Hoople organized the original Association of Pentecostal Churches of America in December  1895. It consisted initially of three holiness congregations in Brooklyn, New York. In November 1896, it  merged with the Central Evangelical Holiness Association. The united group adopted the name used originally only for Hoople’s wing. The term “Pentecostal” suggests a special emphasis in the denomination’s theology of the Holy Spirit, but this denomination should not be confused with later ones springing from the Azusa Street revival, which propagated the practice of glossolalia, or tongues speaking.

The churches of the Association were congregational in polity. Each had its own local church manual or discipline. The Association pursued overseas mission work, entering India in 1898 and the Cape Verde Islands in 1901. In October 1907, the Association of Pentecostal Churches of America united with the Church of the Nazarene, based in Los Angeles, to form the Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene. At that time, the Association of Pentecostal Churches of America had 45 congregations and 2,407 members, scattered from Iowa to Nova Scotia.

In this Collection

Missionary Committee of the Association of Pentecostal Churches of America, Miscellaneous, 1905-1906

Minutes of the Executive Committee, April 1898-March 1904

Executive Committee: Reports of missionary work 1906-1907

Executive Committee: Financial Records and Pledges, 1897-1905

Executive Committee: Miscellaneous, 1905-1906

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Local Church Manuals, Disciplines, Constitutions and Articles of Faith 1895-1907

Manuals of the First Pentecostal Church of Johnson, Vt., the People's Evangelical Church of Providence, R.I., the United Gospel Church, of Westport Factory, Mass.,  the First Pentecostal Church of Lynn, Mass., the Second Pentecostal Church, Oxford, Nova Scotia, the Beulah Pentecostal Church, of Hopewell Junction, New York, the Pentecostal Mission Church, of West Somerville, Mass., the First Pentecostal Church of Lowell, Massachusetts, the Lincoln Place Pentecostal Church of Lincoln Place, PA., the Utica Avenue Pentecostal Church of Brooklyn, N.Y., First Peoples Church of Brooklyn, N.Y., Ebenezer Pentecostal Church of Allenton Penna., and Various Churches and the Utica Ave. Pentecostal Tabernacle Sunday School of Brooklyn, N.Y.

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Miscellaneous Documents of the Association of Pentecostal Churches of American

Contribution receipt, member application, ordination form

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Our Missionaries to India

A book published in 1897. 

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Portfolio of the Pentecostal Mission and Missionaries to India

A collection of biographies of Missionaries in India

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Flyer of Meeting of Holiness Preacher's Association of Brooklyn, NY and Vicinity

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Flyer of Fifteenth Anniversary of People's Pentecostal Sunday School in Providence, RI

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