The Humble Beginnings Of Bishop Charles Harrison Mason

By Scott Bennett


Although there is so much that is said about this prominent figure in the Pentecostal Holiness denomination, there are still many who do not quite know the full story. It is hard to tell the complete story of Bishop Charles Harrison Mason because he achieved so many great things in his life, all while having plenty of very human struggles along the way. In spite of these, he went on to found one of the biggest churches 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.

There were many diseases in the days when he was growing up that could not be easily cured. This problem was compounded with the fact that white doctors generally wouldn't even see African American patients, and the health centers for African Americans were too poor to be much help. When tuberculosis was going around, both Charles and his father Jerry fell sick, and Jerry died from it.

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.

It may seem like this many has wanted to be a minister since the day he was born, but that would not be quite true. There was a time in his youth when he felt that he would do better as just an ordinary member of the congregation in the church, and that's what he told his parents. However, when God heard the prayers of his family and healed him of tuberculosis, he took it as a sign that he should be a minister.

In order to become a minister of any type of church, it is necessary to get a license to do so. That is what Charles chose to do when he was 27 years old, thus starting off a career that would be his passion for his whole life. This led him to Arkansas, where he worked at a Baptist church.

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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