Overview

The International Pentecostal Holiness Church has had many leaders over the years. At every General Conference, the Manual shares our history. This list is in the 2022-2026 Manual on page 33.

Each name below can be searched on the IPHC Archives Library Database. You’ll find photos, documents, sermons, videos, books, and other items. Our database is growing, so please check in periodically to see what new items we have.

All of the materials linked to our database and on this website are provided at no charge, but all materials are subject to copyright by the IPHC Archives and Research Center.

If you would like permission to use an item, please email me directly: Dr. Welch, kwelch@iphc.org. We would love for scholars and historians to use our materials, but we do wish to be contacted first so arrangements can be made. Also, some items might also require the permission of a person listed below or a donor. So please reach out. Thanks!

Here is a video Dr. Hunter made about the Superintendents (Bishops) of the IPHC. It’s a bit over three minutes long, and it is helpful for getting an overview.

Special thanks: Thank you to my Assistant, Rev. Cherie McDade, for her help with this page, to Dr. Hunter for the wonderful videos and resources he left for all of us, and to Shirley Spencer for the nicely written biographies.

Before we were the IPHC…

To learn about Azusa Street, William Seymour, and how the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and Speaking in Tongues revitalized us and so many other denominations that were either changed or emerged after the 1906-1908 revivals, please consider:

The Azusa Street Revival and Its Legacy by Dr. Harold Hunter, 2009.

Azusa Street: They Told Me Their Stories by J. Edward Morris, Cindy McCowan, and Tom Welchel, 2006.

William J. Seymour: Pioneer of the Azusa Street Revival, by Charles Fox, 2012.

The Azusa Street Revival: The Holy Spirit in America in 100 Years by Eddie L. Hyatt, 2006.

Also, to learn about Azusa Street’s effect on our people, please consider:

Azusa East: The Life and Times of G. B. Cashwell by Dr. A. D. Beacham, 2006.

These books are only a handful of those listed on the IPHC Library Database. Please visit our database to see a full list.

Leaders of the Fire-Baptized Holiness Church

Those who led the churches before the consolidation at Falcon, North Carolina in 1911 were:

Benjamin Hardin Irwin 1898-1900

To learn more about Irwin, please consider:

Fire Baptized: The Many Lives and Works of Benjamin Hardin Irwin: A Biography and a Reader (Asbury Theology Seminary)

by Vinson Synan and Daniel Wood. Published in 2017.

Joseph Hillery King 1900-1911

As you can see below, he served as Bishop again from 1917-1946.

Here’s a video on the King House in Franklin Springs, Georgia. It’s right next to Emmanuel University. Many photos and written materials written by or about King are on the IPHC Library Database.

To learn more about J. H. King, please consider:

From Plowboy to Pentecostal Bishop: The Life of J. H. King by Tony Moon. Published by Asbury Theological Seminary in 2017.

Leaders of the Pentecostal Holiness Church of North Carolina

Ambrose Blackmon Crumpler 1898-1908

A. H. Butler 1908-1911

Rev. Butler wrote in the May 6, 1937 edition of The Advocate “Dedicated to the Pioneers of the Pentecostal Holiness Church.” View his article on the beginning of The Advocate on page 3.

By Bishop Joseph A. Synan, The Advocate, “Two Pioneers Called Home”

March 9, 1963

During the first week of February, God called two faithful and outstanding Pentecostal Holiness pioneers to their heavenly home -Rev. A. H. Butler, of Falcon, North Carolina, and Rev. Ralph Taylor, of Anderson, South Carolina. Brother Butler took his departure about midnight, February 5, and Brother Taylor left the earthly scene sometime Friday night, February 8, just a few hours after Brother Butler’s funeral. Brother Butler’s funeral was conducted in the beautiful Culbreth Memorial Church at Falcon, North Carolina, and Brother Taylor’s in the new and lovely Taylor Memorial Church, named in his honor, at Anderson, South Carolina.

These were the last two surviving members of the consolidation conference which brought the Pentecostal Holiness and Fire Baptized Holiness Churches together in the little octagonal church at Falcon on January 31, 1911.

Brother Butler, who served as Chairman of the meeting, represented the Pentecostal Holiness Church; and Brothel’ Taylor represented the Fire-Baptized Holiness Church; and, after that, to the day of their departure from the earthly scene, they both represented the consolidated body the Pentecostal Holiness Church -in a most worthy, faithful and commendable manner, as they served the Lord with all their hearts in the “beauty of holiness.” I first met Rev. A. H. Butler in 1924. He was holding a revival in Princeton, West Virginia. I was then a teen-age coal miner with a call to preach.

My girl-friend, who later became my wife, along with two or three others, having heard so much about Brother Butler, went to Princeton to hear him. But, due to the fact he had to catch an early evening train in order to get home or to his next appointment, the service had been arranged for an earlier hour that day, and it was about to close when we arrived. He had already preached.

They were singing a closing hymn-“The Hallelujah Side.” Then he made a few parting remarks.

He told the people that if they and he should not meet again in this world, he would expect to meet them in Heaven where, he said, “You’ll find me shouting glory just outside my mansion door where I’ll be living on the Hallelujah side.” Then he slipped through a side door and was away.

We were much disappointed in not getting to hear him preach. But we were happy to see him for the few minutes at the close of the service. He was a handsome man in his late forties, tall, erect and bearing marks of high intelligence and great spiritual inspiration, a person who would stand out distinctly in any gathering.

Then, a few weeks later that same year, while attending the annual session of the Baltimore Conference (now Eastern Virginia) where I received a local preacher’s license, I had the privilege of hearing him preach. It was in a Sunday night service, and there was a great crowd and a wonderful spirit in the service. He preached on “The Crucifixion of the Old Man and the Sanctified Life.” It was a great sermon and typed him in my mind as an outstanding Holiness preacher. And he was true to that type to the end of his days.

He was a great preacher, a successful evangelist, an able administrator, a true friend and a faithful guide in the paths of truth and righteousness.

He will be greatly missed by his family, his friends and his Church. I am so grateful to God for his great work for the Lord and our Church and counted it a privilege and honor to attend his funeral (which will be reported in due time) and to have a small part in the service in which I tried to express something of the love, respect and esteem in which our Church held him and to make sure his fine family of the sympathy and prayers of our people. I had the privilege of knowing Brother Taylor nearly as long as I knew Brother Butler.

His sweet-spirited humility, his unselfish and untiring labors, his well-conceived and deeply-rooted convictions with respect to the truth of Holiness and Pentecost, his quiet dignity and constant loyalty to his Church-these and many other fine qualities of character commended him to me, as I am sure they did to others, as a Christian gentleman of the first magnitude.

Now he is gone from our midst, as has Brother Butler, and we feel that their going marks the passing of a generation of pioneers from our ranks. I pray that we may catch the torch of truth from their falling hands and, holding it aloft, as they did, march forward along the highway of holiness till we, too, shall have finished our course with joy and join them and all the redeemed in that better land. I persol1ally feel that it was in the providence of God that I was not too far away from either funeral and was able to attend both and speak a few words of sympathy and respect on behalf of myself and our good Church.

Leaders of the International Pentecostal Holiness Church after the consolidation in 1911:

Samuel Daniel Page 1911-1913

“Meet Samuel Page” by Dr. Dan Woods

George Floyd Taylor 1913-1917

“A Significant IPHC Centennial” by Bishop A. D. Beacham

Books by G. F. Taylor:

Daniel’s Seventy Weeks

The Second Coming of Jesus, 1916 & 1950

The Spirit and the Bride, 1907 *This is one of the most important books to read for our history and theology. It is available for you to read on the IPHC Library Database.

Joseph Hillery King 1917-1946

Books:

Yet Speaketh, Memoirs, completed by Mrs. Blanche King in 1949.

From Passover to Pentecost, 1914.

Christ: God’s Love Gift

Other texts:

The Epistle of Paul to the Romans Bible Study 1930.

Select Sermons

Christian Theology (for the School of Theology at U. S. Grant University in Chattanooga, TN.

Visit the IPHC Library Database for full-text links.

Daniel T. Muse 1937-1950

Books:

The Song of Songs, 1947

Please consider:

From Printer’s Devil to Bishop, by Harold Paul, 1976

Joseph Alexander Synan 1945-1969

Video by Dr. Hunter on J.A. Synan

Typed address of Bishop Synan at the funeral of J. H. King

Photo of Bishop Synan and Blanche King at J. H. King’s funeral

“Message From Calvary,” Audio Recording

“I Have a Baptism,” Audio Recording, Shawnee, OK, Preacher’s Convention

“Contending for the Faith” by J. A. Synan, Audio Recording at General Conference

Typed copy of “The State of the Church,” 1957, 13th General Conference, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Books by J. A. Synan: The Trinity or the Tri-Personal Being of God, 1980

The Shape of Things to Come, 1969

Christian Life in Depth, no date but it begins with his address at King’s Memorial Service (1946), so probably the 1950s or 60s might be when it was published.

The Good Minister of Jesus Christ, 1950

Sermons:

1967 Shawnee Preacher’s Convention, “I Have a Baptism”

“Message From Calvary”

General Conference, “Isaiah”