Friday 29 December 2017

How Bishop Charles Harrison Mason Got His Start

By Scott Bennett


This man is honored by many as a prominent religious figure in the Pentecostal Holiness denomination. His many achievements throughout his lifetime of working to preach the word of God have led to many great things that still have resonating effects today. The church Bishop Charles Harrison Mason founded in Lexington, Mississippi has grown to be the largest of its kind.

Mason's life had humble beginnings in a small area in Tennessee habitated by sharecroppers that had not been incorporated into a town. His father Jerry and his mother Eliza has both been slaves before getting their freedom and becoming sharecroppers. His early life did not include a regular education, but rather gleaned all the knowledge he could from his parents' religion.

The first experience in a church for anyone can be a very special moment. At the age of 12, Mason was baptized at a Baptist church in a ceremony that held some extra significance for him. This was because the reverend doing the baptism was his older half-brother.

Trouble arose in 1880 when both tuberculosis and yellow fever were spreading around the area of Shelby County, and Mason fell sick to tuberculosis when he was fourteen. In those days, hospitals would not treat African Americans, and the medical centers for African Americans didn't have enough money or trained experts. The result was many people needlessly dying, including Mason's father Jerry.

Sharecropping turned out impossible to carry on after the loss of Jerry, so the family then moved to the town of Preston. Moving was very hard for Mason since he was still very sick with tuberculosis, and at one point it seemed he would die. His family sat and prayed for him, and very quickly after that, he returned to full health.

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.

It was in 1893 that Mason's license to be a minister was acquired. He was 27, and it marked the first step of his career that would last the rest of his life. From there, his work took him to a Baptist church in Arkansas, which would be his first hands-on experience as a minister.

This is a man who is not afraid to speak his mind, and to take actions that reflect his point of view. It takes a lot of courage to decide to leave the first place a person goes to work, but that is what he did after just a few months working at his first Baptist church. By his view, the teachings that were going on at this church were too liberal, and the emphasis was not on God's Word.




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