Kingston native born a slave grew up to found national church

♦ Today Church of Christ (Holiness) USA celebrates this Georgia native’s birth

The Church of Christ (Holiness) USA is celebrating the birthday of its founder today. Charles Price Jones was born on Dec. 9, 1865, in a little area in North Georgia known as Texas Valley to his mother, who was a slave, and a plantation owner. He was raised in Kingston.

He said the greatest religious influences in his life other than his mother, Mary Jones, were a Miss Ada Dawson and the Rev. Humphrey Daniels, pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church in Kingston.

After the death of his mother, he moved to Cedartown, then Rome, and later lived in Tennessee, Arkansas and Alabama before finally settling in Jackson, Mississippi.

It was in Arkansas that he attended the Arkansas Baptist College and in 1888 became pastor of Pope Creek Baptist Church there. In the month of October, he was ordained to the ministry in Mount Zion Baptist Church by Dr. C.L. Fisher. It was a presbytery of “reputable men, both white and colored,” according to the COCH website

In 1895, he became pastor of the Mount Helm Baptist Church in Jackson, Mississippi, and in 1897, the first “holiness convention” was held in Jackson. At this convention, believers were called to live a holy, sanctified life. From this convention, the Church of Christ (Holiness) USA was born.

Bishop Jones, while residing in Jackson, became well known as a composer and publisher of holiness hymns. He was also the composer of over 1,000 gospel hymns, most written between 1895-1905. They included “I’m Happy With Jesus Alone,” “All I Need” (1906), “Come Unto Me,” “Death Hath No Terrors” (1901), and “Where Shall I Be When the Last Trumpet Sounds.”

His hymns can be found in the “HIS Fullness” hymnbook, and heard in Pentecostal and Methodist congregations.

From 1900 there were several names used for the movement of churches, they are: Church of God, Church of Christ, Church of God in Christ then in 1911 the convocation changed the name of the church to Church of Christ (Holiness) U.S.A.

This Holiness Denomination began moving beyond the Deep South in Mississippi to the North and the West. He (C.P. Jones) led the organization of Christ Temple Church in Los Angeles CA, he moved the printing press there. Soon congregations were in Chicago IL; Saint Louis MO; Cleveland OH; San Diego CA; and Indianapolis, IN.

The churches and its associations across the country with Elder Jones officially chartered the name the Church of Christ (Holiness) U.S.A. as a denomination in 1920, and in 1927 he developed a church government and began to see constant growth and expansion of the church he had founded. It was in the same year that the church adopted an Episcopal form of government having bishops as its head.

Jones later went on to serve as the denomination’s Senior Bishop until his death in Los Angeles on Jan. 19, 1949.

This past July, the Church of Christ (Holiness) USA celebrated its 121st National Convention in Atlanta.

To find out more about the church which Jones founded, go to COCHUSA. org online.