We are an all-volunteer church, and we share the ministry of the church among our members, rather than having paid ministers. We value the leading of the Holy Spirit in our services to inspire our preaching, our testimonies, and our song choices. We invite the Lord to direct our services rather than having a written program. It has always been our practice to not have money or a collection as part of our services. Our primary interest is in helping souls connect with Jesus Christ.
Our mode of worship welcomes congregational singing, clapping of hands, foot-stomping and shouting. Our sanctuaries are places where we want people to freely worship the Lord, and most importantly, we want His presence welcomed.
Christ’s Sanctified Holy Church has roots in Methodism and in the Holiness Movement in the last half of the nineteenth century. In 1887, on Chincoteague Island, Virginia, a group of people were convinced that they, though living in a state of forgiveness before God, could not be saved without sanctification. Through reading the Bible and through prayer, they sought and obtained this second blessing of sanctification. They started to proclaim this message to others in their church and community. In 1892, they organized themselves into Christ’s Sanctified Holy Church. Through their evangelistic efforts, their message immediately spread to neighboring communities on the eastern shore of Virginia, Delaware, and Maryland. Others believed and were sanctified.
In 1895, a group of people from Christ’s Sanctified Holy Church left the eastern shore of Virginia and Delaware to begin an evangelistic effort to spread the message of sanctification. Their initial travels extended from Maryland to North Carolina and by the end of the decade, to South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Others were sanctified and joined in the evangelistic efforts. By 1905, meetings were held in cities of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, and the western states of Colorado and California. As the church grew, other groups formed and carried on the evangelistic efforts to many other places in the United States. These travels continued on a broad scale for the first half of the twentieth century. After that time, permanent churches were established by the believers in all of the states of the southeastern United States.
