Church of God in Christ Holds Convention in Charlotte; Young People Square Off in Bible Knowledge Contest

They were in full convention mode Thursday, these 10,000 or so delegates from the Church of God in Christ, the country’s largest Pentecostal denomination.

A worshiper shouts during a service Thursday at the Church of God in Christ’s international Auxiliaries in Ministry convention in Charlotte.

Like the two Baptist groups that held their conventions in Charlotte last month, these COGIC bishops, superintendents, pastors, elders, deacons and other congregants had come to town for a week’s worth of classes, revivals, concerts and competitions.

At the Charlotte Convention Center, “children under construction” paraded around in little yellow hardhats. In one ballroom, an evangelist behind a microphone boasted that he spoke in tongues and asked other Holy Ghost-filled people in the audience to stand up. In another ballroom, a preacher cried out with joy as she danced before another crowd.

And across the street, in Ballroom B of the Westin Hotel, it looked as if the young Scripture students from North Georgia were about to repeat as champs in the Bible Bowl.

Then the categories changed, from church history to church doctrine, and 12-year-old Charles McVade, substituting for one of his Texas Southwest teammates, bounded onto the stage.

And that was all she wrote for North Georgia: Again and again and again, Charles pressed his white-lighted buzzer, answering the moderator’s questions about the characteristics of sinners, about how Satan attacks, and, finally, on how angels relate to believers.

“They minister to believers,” Charles said, quietly but with authority. “They observe believers. They rejoice when a sinner repents – and when a backslider returns.”

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SOURCE: Charlotte Observer
Tim Funk | tfunk@charlotteobserver.com