17/01/2024
II. THE MINISTRY OF WILLIAM SOWDERS
William Sowders, an early Pentecostal leader in the Midwest, is acknowledged as the founder of the Gospel of the Kingdom or Gospel Assembly Churches movement.
William Sowders was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on September 13, 1879. He grew up in that city and served as a patrolman on the Louisville Police Force for several years. He also worked as a boat builder and caulker. One day he and another police officer heard of a gambling party. Without checking with their superiors, they organized a police raid. To their surprise, they found the mayor of the city and the police chief were among the gamblers. Disillusioned with city life, he moved to Olmstead, Illinois, to live as a fisherman.
In Olmstead he got to know some Pentecostal people. Eventually, he was talked into attending services at Bye Shelton’s home and was converted under the preaching of Frank Knight. Nine months later, sometime in 1913, William Sowders received the baptism of the Holy Ghost on the “Gospel Boat” at Paducah, Kentucky.
Brother Sowders was called to the ministry while working on a small fishing boat on the Ohio River. He was called with an audible voice from heaven. All morning he had been having trouble starting the engine on his boat. The Lord kept saying to him over and over, “I want you to do something.” Finally in desperation he threw his tools down and said, “Lord, what is it you want me to do?” In loud thundering tonesGod said,“Son,Iwant you topreachMYGOSPEL!” He later recalled that the voice was so loud it actually took the life out of his body and almost burst his eardrums – especially when the Lord said, “MY GOSPEL!” When he came to himself, he then felt strength come back into his body and he arose to his feet.
Since some people already thought he was losing his mind because of his religious experience, he tried to keep quiet, yet he felt a powerful compulsion to shout. Overwhelmed by surprise that God had spoken to him, he tried to muffle the sounds welling up within him by placing a handkerchief over his mouth.
All the men that stood by on the riverbank took notice, observing Brother Sowders’ strange actions with wonderment. As they were discussing among themselves, Brother Sowders was no longer able to constrain the divine impulses. Having heard the very voice of God, he began shouting at the top of his voice! Another witness standing nearby said, “Look at him, poor Will, he’s a goner.”
After this, Brother Sowders, and the other ministers, traveled up and down the Ohio River on the “Gospel Boat,” preaching in little river towns.
Around 1916, the ministers in fellowship with Brother Sowders began holding camp meetings in Olmstead, Illinois. That same year, Brother William Sowders moved to Anna, Illinois. A member of that first church recalled: His first services were held in a little mission down on Railroad Street. This “little mission” was formerly the “Potato House” that was used by farmers when they brought their potatoes in town to sell to the merchants. After the potato season was over Brother Sowders and some of the brethren would rent the building and clean it up and have his services there. This is where the Pentecostal movement started in Anna, Illinois, as far as Brother Sowders and this Body of people is concerned. (Thomas M. Jolly, The Former Days, (Eldorado, Ill.: Gospel Assembly Church, 1974), 2.)
Prior to the move to Anna, there was a call that went through the independent Pentecostal works. Ministers were going to assemble in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1914, to organize into a denomination. The call was for a general convention of Pentecostal saints and churches. The invitation stated:
Wedesire at this time to make this preliminary announcement of this general meeting so that workers far and near, at home and abroad, may sidetrack everything else and be present. Laymen as well as preachers are invited. Especially do we urge all elders, pastors, ministers, evangelists and missionaries to be present. This call is to the churches of God in Christ, to all Pentecostal or Apostolic Faith Assemblies who desire with united purpose to co-operate in love and peace to push the interests of the kingdom of God everywhere.
There was tremendous pressure to attend this meeting. Brother George Aubrey was going, and was urging Brother Sowders to go with him. The Lord showed Brother Sowders in a dream not to go to Hot Springs, and not to become a part of an organized denomination.
Brother Sowders continued the work in Anna, Illinois, moving from the potato house to the “Old Academy.” This was a former college that had been renovated into a church and dwelling. The Lord added to the church. Men such as Ford Johnson, Brother McCalla, Brother Charlie Wynn, Brother Pless Houseman, and others became a part of the work.
Brother Sowders held his first ministers’ meeting in Anna, Illinois, in 1919. Around that time, a division was developing in Pentecostal ranks. Some of those who had joined in the Hot Springs meeting in 1914 were developing a doctrine that Jesus is God. This doctrine, known as Oneness, forced a split of many groups and the formation of new denominations, including what is now known as the United Pentecostal Church. In Anna, Brother Cletus Barringer, Brother Will Womack, and others began teaching Jesus was God.
These brothers insisted that water baptism had to be administered in the name of Jesus only. Brother Sowders and Brother Bob Shelton baptized in a traditional biblical manner. This caused the church to split, with both sides trying to hold water baptismal services at the same time in the city reservoir in Anna, Illinois.
The church was weakened as the result of the split. In addition, the local community was opposed to these new Pentecostals. Brother Sowders’ church was broken into, and his pews stolen. Eventually, through the leading of the Lord, and an invitation to pastor a church in Evansville, Indiana, Brother Sowders moved to that city in 1921. The church there was located at the corner of Maryland and Raleigh Streets. God blessed Brother William Sowders to work there from 1921 through 1927.
In 1923, Brother Sowders conducted his first camp meeting on Elco Hill, at Elco, Illinois. It was during the camp meeting on Elco Hill, primitive as they were, that this powerful teacher introduced many of his divinely revealed teachings on numerous subjects. Some of those teachings were summarized in the Encyclopedia of American Religions:
In 1923, Sowders conducted his first camp meeting at Elco, Illinois. Here he began to introduce the distinctive teachings that were to separate him from the main body of Pentecostals and lead to the emergence of what became known as the Gospel of the Kingdom movement or the Gospel Assembly Churches movement. Sowders developed his position in the context of the debates between the Trinitarian Pentecostals and the Apostolic or Oneness Pentecostals whose ideas denying the traditional doctrine of the Trinity had been spread through the Midwest by Thomas Garfield Haywood, founder of the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World. Sowders proposed a middle position and suggested that there were two persons in the Godhead.
God the Father, a Spirit being, and Jesus the Son, a Heavenly Creature. The Holy Ghost was not a person, it was the essence or Spirit of God which filled all space. Since the Son possessed the same name as the Father, God’s name was Jesus. Jesus was the name given to the family of God in heaven and in earth. Baptism was, therefore, in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, i.e., Jesus. He also emphasized that the formula for baptism was not as important as the action, that baptism became an action done in Jesus’ name and for His sake, but could not be done in Jesus’name if one belonged to Babylon. (J. Gordon Melton, Encyclopedia of American Religions, 6th ed., (Detroit: Gale Research, 1999), 444.)
Several ministers, including Reva Mears, Reynolds E. Dawkins, Clyde O. Dixon, and others were added to the fellowship through these Elco camp meetings. God’s anointing, and the absence of Brother Bob Shelton, allowed Brother Sowders to move into a position of influence as moderator of the meetings and leader of the fellowship. Brother Bob Shelton had left as a missionary to Palestine in 1920 and did not return until 1938.
Brother William F. Pennock, who had received the Pentecostal experience under Brother Charles Parham in 1904 or 1905, had a campground in Galena, Kansas. Brother Sowders ministered at several Galena camp meetings.
In 1927, Brother Sowders moved from Evansville to Louisville, Kentucky, and stayed there until his death. He started with a tent erected on Northwestern Parkway. Weather later forced him to move into a building at 1627 West Market Street. Within three months, the crowd grew so large that they had to move to a larger building at 912 West Market. Five years later he moved to an even larger building at 2111 West Broadway. His last move in Louisville was to the Gospel Chapel at the corner of 28th and Wilson Streets.
Camp meetings continued at Elco, Illinois, but the local citizens were upset because Brother Sowders allowed people of all races to attend these meetings. In 1935, Brother Sowders bought three hundred and fifty acres of hilly land near Shepherdsville, Kentucky, for two thousand two hundred forty-five dollars and called it the Gospel of the Kingdom Campground. This was to be a place to hold annual meetings for ministers and believers, as well as a home for the aged and a sanctuary for retired ministers.
His camp meetings continued annually in Elco and Shepherdsville until 1941, when World War II and local opposition caused Brother Sowders to abandon the Elco camp meeting. Afew years later a small tabernacle was built in Olmstead, and annual camp meetings were held there until the mid 1950’s. The Shepherdsville campground is still active.
The Lord continued to add ministers and members through the Shepherdsville camp meetings. Included were men such as Clyde
N. Patton, who would later have a powerful ministry in Texas. When he first came to Shepherdsville, he said, “Where in the world have you people been? I’ve been looking for you all my life.”
William Sowders died on November 20, 1952, in his small room in the Gospel Chapel in Louisville. His achievements were not small by any standard. Estimates vary, but as many as two hundred ministers and twenty-five thousand members in thirty-one states were associated with the movement at the time of Sowders’ death in 1952. Other estimates place the membership as high as seventy-five thousand believers in three hundred churches.
In addition to the doctrines regarding the Godhead and water baptism, William Sowders established major doctrinal positions that are still held by virtually all churches in the Gospel Assembly movement. These include distinctive teachings on hell, church order and Babylon, the Bride of Christ and its qualifications, and prophecies.
He trained many men for the ministry. Brother Sowders disdained formal seminary training, opting instead for “schools of the prophets” – services at annual camp meetings, and an annual two-week “Christmas School” at the church in Louisville. Orville Wallace, who was present at some of these training sessions, recalled:
I learned how Brother Sowders had created what was called “The Threshing Floor,” where brethren would come together to discuss scripture, using the order in Ephesians 4:3 and 4:13 as a working pattern. Men may disagree as to interpretation of a scripture but the “unity of the spirit in the bond of peace” will keep them together while they come to the unity of the faith. Some of the troublesome issues of that day were the Godhead, eternal judgment, laying on of hands, hell, the restoration of Israel, charity, etc., seeking to harmonize the scriptures and find the truth instead of holding to moldy old teachings that came down from Babylon, with no scriptural basis.
On November 20, 1952, Brother Sowders passed away. . . We had lost a mighty illuminator of the scriptures, by whom we were enlightened and made warm in the presence of God.
At his death, Brother William Sowders was the leader of a large, growing fellowship. The body of Christ was united. Some thought that the message and order of the New Testament church was about to be restored, and an era of a glorious church operation would soon dawn. But divisions soon separated God’s people. Yet that church will still arise one day.
