IPHC Archives & Research Center, Located in the Global Ministry Center, Bethany, Oklahoma
The IPHC’s main archives collection is in Oklahoma City.
In May of 1921, the IPHC voted for a former General Superintendent, G. F. Taylor, to create and to oversee an archives. He acquired a fireproof storage area and preserved as many of the early records of the denomination (which date back to 1898) as he could. In 1964, a Commission on Archives and History was appointed consisting of Dr. Vinson Synan, Dorothy Poteat, Rev. James Butler, and Dr. Harold Paul. This group focused on collecting information on IPHC ministers. Dorothy Poteat was designated as the National Archivist for the denomination in 1965. In 1982 Bishop Leon Stewart appointed Dr. Vinson Synan, Dr. Charles E. Jones (Consultant), Mrs. Margaret Muse Oden, and Mrs. LaDonna Scott to discuss and establish an official Archives for the Pentecostal Holiness Church at the International Headquarters in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Margaret Muse Oden was appointed Director of Archives in a part-time capacity in 1983. Dr. Harold Hunter was appointed Director of Archives and Research and retired in July 2023. Dr. Kristen Welch has served as the Director of Archives and Research since that time.
The IPHC Archives and Research Center has a display room, a large reading room, and three large, walk-in vaults, roughly 640 square feet each. We have about 3,560 square feet of space in total. We have a partnership with the Consortium of Pentecostal Archives and have around 3,362 items available in digital form, which include 3,056 copies of the primary magazine of the IPHC, The Advocate (published from May 3, 1917 to 1996), 28 issues of Church Manuals (1911-2017), 28 issues of Church Minutes (1911-2017), 99 issues of another IPHC magazine, The Experience (2004-2013), 49 issues of the Holiness Advocate (1901-1907), 4 issues of the Pentecostal Holiness Church Discipline (1897, 1901, 1902, 1908), 19 issues of Pentecostal Truths (published in Hong Kong and translated from Chinese; includes the years 1908-1917), 41 issues of the Apostolic Evangel (from the Fire-Baptized Holiness Church; includes the years 1907-1924, 2 issues of the Fire-Baptized Holiness Church Constitution and Rules (1905 and 1908), 14 issues of Live Coals (official paper of the Fire-Baptized; includes the years 1904-1907, 1 issue of the Fire-Baptized Holiness Association of America Constitution and General Rules (1900), and 21 issues of Live Coals of Fire, (official paper of the Fire-Baptized Holiness Association of America (1899-1900).
The three vaults contain items from donors sharing artifacts from the founders, General Superintendents (Bishops), missionaries, ministers, and laypeople. We house artifacts and minutes from the regional conferences, the Advocate Press, our educational institutions, and our administration. We have a collection of books that we are in the process of digitizing, and Yearbooks that span the years 1930-1975. We house copies of dissertations, course syllabi, Sunday School publications and records, Bibles, concordances, photographs, albums, films, and hundreds of VHS tapes and cassette tapes. We have a great deal of our documents on microfilm. We opened a searchable database in July of 2023 and have catalogued 2,078 books, sermons, videos, and photographs as of October 2024. This database grows continuously.
We house an extensive E-Archives database, created and organized by LaDonna Scott, which contains important records associated with each part of IPHC governance: Discipleship Ministries (Children’s Ministries, Church Institutions, Adults—Family, Men’s Ministries, Senior Adult Ministries, Singles Ministries, and Women’s Ministries, Students, Disaster Relief USA, etc.), the Loan Fund, Evangelism USA (Acts2Day, Chaplains Ministries, Hispanic Ministries, M25 Ministry, etc.), the General Superintendent’s Office (Communications, Conference Information—Broken down into Regional Conferences, Stewardship Ministries, etc.), Governance (Council of Bishops, General Ministry Cabinet, Global Assemblies, Strategic Advisory Committee, etc.), the IPH Foundation, World Missions Ministries (Awakening, Coffee House, Missionary Care, People to People, Regions and Directors, etc.), the Finance Committee, Legal, and Media and Publications (Encourage, Experience, Videos, etc.). This database is updated annually with the help of directors and administrative assistants, in coordination with the Archives and Research Department.
Our collection is extensive. We have about 3,916 books and binders (including institutional yearbooks and conference minutes), 80 cabinet drawers full of books or files or other artifacts, 495 small to medium boxes, 17 surveys and about 50 large format posters and pictures, 280 microfilm reels, and 882 regular (12 inch wide, 16 inch long, 10 inch deep) boxes.
We are asked for help with research, information, or with locating various artifacts, and from roughly July of 2023 to October of 2024, we have fielded about 98 emails and had about a dozen visitors. We have received and processed 12 donations between July 2023 and October 2024. We are tasked with collecting conference minutes for 29 different conferences, and we receive many emails regarding these. We currently have 152 books and pamphlets scanned and have 350 or more to go. This does not include the yearbooks of conference minutes, regional conference minutes, and Sunday School guides that have not been digitized. We have 589 digitized sermons and will be adding to them as we get more digitized.
We have an active Facebook page with 1,069 followers as of October 2024. For example, in the September of 2024, we reached 2,601 people and 883 engaged with our posts. Our website has several pages, and we are working to organize it better and make our information more accessible. On the website, we have timelines, inventory lists, and information on smaller archives in the IPHC. Each year, we have a table at the Society for Pentecostal Studies, which is a gathering of Pentecostal historians, scholars, professors, graduate students, and ministers, and we offer information on our resources.
As the Director, I engage in outreach efforts that include making presentations, such as at the Chaplain’s Retreat in OKC in July 2024, and in gathering interviews, such as the one conducted in Greenville, South Carolina with retired missionary to India, Rev. Howard. I established a partnership with the Oklahoma History Center with 72 items related to Oklahoma history, and I am working on a partnership between Holmes Bible College and the Greenville, South Carolina library.
The IPHC Archives and Research Center is making our information accessible to as many people as possible through our efforts, particularly in the design of our website, the digitization of our materials, and the cataloging of our materials in an online, library database that can house Dropbox links to directly connect users to digitized materials.
IPHC Archives in South Carolina
Rev. H. Larry Jones is an Archives Director in Lake City, South Carolina. Visit the website to learn more. Download a list of sermons available on cd here. I visited his archives in the summer of 2024, and I was impressed by the collection he has built over decades. I was especially interested in the entire wall of bookshelves filled with binders that include the histories of churches and ministers. What a treasure! He has agreed to let me come back and scan some of them so they are available in our online library database.
Here are some pictures of the archives at Lake City, South Carolina:
Reverend Jones also published Our First 100 Years, 1910-2010, Centennial Celebration, South Carolina Conference, IPHC. If you are not able to get a copy, we should have a digital copy available to lend to individuals who request it sometime in the near future.
Rev. Zach Tomlinson is an Archives Director in Upstate South Carolina. While he does not have a website, he invites you to email him with any questions about the collection or about your research: ztomlinson97@gmail.com
Here are a few pictures of the archives center he oversees:
IPHC Archives in North Carolina
One archives is currently seeking a director. Visit the website to learn more.
Rev. Ricky Nelms is also an Archives Director in Falcon, North Carolina. Visit the website to learn more. He has included links to the North Carolina Conference IPHC Evangel and to North Carolina Conference IPHC Conference Minutes. Some copies of the Evangel are on the second link. I encourage you to check out the wonderful Facebook page he has for the archives!