In May 1910 R. G. Spurling held several services and prayer meetings in the community of Jones, Georgia. Both the rural community and the local Church of God were known by the name of the Jones family that resided there. In his report to the readers of The Evening Light and Church of God Evangel, Spurling noted that exhortations, speaking in tongues, interpretations and praise accompanied the meetings.
God answered W.F. Bryant’s prayer for a sweet spirit and “signs following” with a 2:00 a.m. wakeup call.
The year 1922 was a difficult one for Milo Parks Cross and his wife, Lettie. It was not that the Church of God in Crane Eater, Georgia, had been unkind or uncaring to the young ministerial couple. The people at Crane Eater treated the Crosses well and voted for them to return for another year as pastors.
By David G. Roebuck
Milo Cross’s pastoral experience had begun in late 1916 when he served as a temporary pastor of the Marietta Street Church of God in Atlanta. The following years brought pastoral appointments to churches in Valdosta, Dahlonega, Sonoraville and Crane Eater, Georgia. For a time he was pastor of the Sonoraville and Crane Eater churches simultaneously—as always with the help of Lettie, who was also a licensed minister.
The financial difficulties for this small family grew out of a new policy adopted by the Church of God General Assembly in 1920. In an effort to make more money available for general church ministries, the Assembly agreed that all local churches would send their total tithes to the headquarters in Cleveland. The plan was then to disburse money to pastors according to their needs, responsibilities and efficiency. However, what appeared to be a sound idea to Assembly delegates, who generously desired to advance the cause of the Church of God, soon proved to be disastrous to many pastors and their families.
Like many pastors accustomed to keeping most of the tithes for their own livelihood, the Crosses received back far less than the amount their church sent to the general treasury. This resulted in a meager existence, and the Crosses were all but broke when they attended the 1922 General Assembly.
The young family could have left the 1922 Assembly with an appointment to one of the best churches in the Church of God. After much prayer, however, they decided to serve as pastors of a small church in Detroit, Michigan. Unfortunately, they lacked the train fare for the long trip to Detroit.
Without complaining or speaking of their circumstances to anyone, Milo and Lettie Cross prayed until they believed the Lord would provide for the journey. They then purchased tickets to travel the one hundred or so miles their money would take them.
The Crosses had seen the hand of the Lord many times in their young ministry. It was not unusual for pioneer Church of God ministers to sacrifice even the basic necessities of life, and the Crosses were accustomed to God’s providing for their needs. According to Milo Cross’s brief autobiographic sketch, In the Good (?) Ole Days, one such incident followed the birth of their daughter, Cecil. With less than a dollar in his pocket, Milo went to town to buy some things that Lettie insisted they absolutely must have. Along the way, a church member met him with a gift of $5. The member told of a sleepless night on account of failure to obey the Lord and give $5 to the Crosses the day before. With a thankful heart, Milo returned home with the necessities Lettie had requested.
Despite such experiences, it was no small matter to board a train with two young children and tickets for only a fraction of the way. Once aboard the train, Milo and Lettie were busy making a place for Cecil and Louis to sleep when their eyes met those of the Georgia overseer, S.W. Latimer.
Brother Latimer, who had boarded the same northbound train at an earlier stop, excitedly told the Crosses about his recent ministry among the churches in southern Georgia. He reported that the Lord had blessed him with exceptionally good offerings. Complicating the situation, however, the overseer had also just sold a team of horses. He found himself a little anxious about the amount of cash he would have to carry the three or four miles from the train station to his home. He suggested that the Crosses might take at least a hundred dollars to relieve him of some of his anxiety.
As tears welled up in the eyes of Milo and Lettie Cross, Overseer Latimer hastily apologized in case he had offended them. He had not meant to hurt their feelings with his proposal. But the Crosses quickly explained they were not crying because they were offended. Rather, they were encouraged that their God was alive and had provided for their specific need just as they had trusted He would.
Milo, Lettie, Cecil and Louis Cross arrived in Detroit on a cold, cloudy December morning in 1922. It had been a long two-day journey and a difficult year. To natural eyes, their new circumstances did not look any brighter. There was no one to meet them at the train station, and these Southerners had never before seen so much snow on the ground. But their hearts were warm with faith and confidence in what God would do.
Committed to serving God during even the difficult times, the Crosses spent the next ten years in Michigan. After the first two years, Milo was appointed state overseer, while continuing to pastor. Over the course of his ministry he served a total of twenty-five years as a state overseer, including a second tenure in Michigan from 1948-1952. Additionally he served as the first full-time director of Church of God World Missions and on numerous boards and committees. Along the way, it was his experience that God always gave provision for the journey.
Church of God Historian David G. Roebuck, Ph.D., is director of the Dixon Pentecostal Research Center and assistant professor of the history of Christianity at Lee University. This “Church of God Chronicles” was first published in the March 1999 Church of God Evangel.
“At this time I was a member of the Baptist church and none of us believed in sanctification although I attended this revival. I noticed how those who claimed sanctification would go to their fellowmen and fix everything right, making their confession to one another…. I began seeking God definitely for an experience I had never attained to. The spirit within me would cry out, “Give me the blessing like those other few have received.” …When I got all on the altar, one Thursday morning about 9:00 o’clock, I was sanctified while sitting in my saddle on my horse. In that same year many of us received the Holy Ghost.”
W.F. “Will” Bryant
The first history of the Church of God was written as a chapter in A.J. Tomlinson’s book, The Last Great Conflict, in 1913. The chapter was titled “Brief History of the Church that is Now Recognized as the Church of God,” and is the first written account of the founding of the Christian Union, the Shearer Schoolhouse revival, the organization of the Holiness Church at Camp Creek, and the first General Assembly.
David G. Roebuck, Ph.D.
One and a quarter centuries ago Richard Green Spurling, best known as R. G. Spurling, issued a call to form what is now the Church of God. From the eight who responded to his invitation, our movement now numbers almost seven million members in 181 nations and territories. Following his challenging message on August 19, 1886, Spurling concluded, “As many Christians as are here present that are desirous to be free from all men made creeds and traditions, and are willing to take the New Testament, or law of Christ, for your only rule of faith and practice; giving each other equal rights and privilege to read and interpret for yourselves as your conscience may dictate, and are willing to sit together as the Church of God to transact business [as] the same, come forward.”
With that invitation, the small band of believers meeting in Monroe County, Tennessee, formed a congregation that they called the Christian Union. In this unexpected region of the country, people hungry for the restoration of New Testament Christianity sought God and came together to be God’s church. Out of their vision of Christian union, with the later addition of the experiences of sanctification and Spirit baptism, came the “Church of God” as we know our movement today.
The vision for Christian union rose first in the heart of R. G. Spurling (1857-1935) and his father Richard Spurling (1810-1891). R. G. Spurling had been a licensed minister in the Pleasant Grove Baptist church. Along with his father, an ordained Baptist elder, he began to seek God regarding abuses he saw in the churches around him. According to the earliest chronicler of these events, Spurling became disturbed about certain traditions and creeds that he considered a hardship for God’s people. He saw a need for further reformation of the church beyond the Great Reformation of the sixteenth century. While Luther, Calvin and other reformers had brought about important changes, their legacy focused on assent to a particular doctrine rather than on a right relationship with Christ and His people. Their legacy was that creeds and human traditions became more important than the leading of the Holy Spirit and one’s own Christian conscience.
Spurling and his father were particularly troubled with the Landmark movement that dominated Baptist life in the South from the middle part of the nineteenth century. The name “Landmark” came from an emphasis on Proverbs 22:28, “Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.” Landmark adherents taught that Baptists were putting aside a significant boundary of the church when they worshipped and fellowshipped with non-Baptists. Landmark Baptists taught a line of Baptist succession from the time of Christ, the importance of believer’s baptism by a Baptist minister, and the exclusivity of Baptist churches.
For R. G. Spurling, where believers practice Christ’s command to love God and neighbor, a testimony of faith in Christ is sufficient for unity with one another. Spurling further taught that the New Testament is the only “infallible rule of faith and practice” and contains everything “necessary for salvation and church government.” He saw harshness and exclusivity in the teachings of the Landmark movement that stifled the gospel and led to dividing the body of Christ rather than to Christian unity.
His vision to restore the law of love and individual conscience to Christianity bore fruit on August 19, 1886. For the previous two years he had prayed for reformation along with his father and John Plemons. After being barred from his own Baptist church and seeing little hope of any change in the existing churches, Spurling met with others of like mind in a meeting house along Barney Creek and issued his invitation. Because his father Richard was ordained, the elder Spurling moderated the proceedings to formally establish the congregation. Once organized, the church then selected R. G. Spurling as pastor and ordained him the following month.
Little is known about the original Christian Union and the continuing ministry of R. G. Spurling. A. J. Tomlinson, who knew Spurling well in later years, wrote that he preached wherever he had an opportunity and “in this way the minds of the people were continually agitated, and gradually prepared for the work of the Spirit that was to follow.” A biographical sketch by his son, G. P. Spurling, reveals that between 1889 and 1895 Spurling organized three other Christian Union congregations. Although his ministry is less known than many who came later, his vision of reformation laid the foundation upon which we continue to build today.
Dr. David G. Roebuck is director of the Dixon Pentecostal Research Center and an assistant professor of the history of Christianity at Lee University.
