By the time this article is published, it will be a full year since the CGGC’s Bicentennial Celebration event in Harrisburg, PA in July of 2025. That means the first year in this new century is nearly complete, and there are only 99 more to go until we can celebrate the 300th anniversary of the denomination!
In the lead up to the Bicentennial Celebration, we wrote and published numerous pieces about the history of the CGGC. We interviewed pastors and historians. We dug into the archives to pull out significant bibliographies of people close to the founding. We republished historical materials that were contemporaneous and still relevant. We produced and published a documentary film, which can be watched here: film.cggc.org and we even documented the process of creating the film, which was published in the Archives Museum News Magazine in the run up to the celebration (see Winter/Spring Issue 2025, V35.1.)
In the two years prior to the Bicentennial, The Global Advocate covered the history of every current region and eldership, along with the history of the University of Findlay, and Winebrenner Theological Seminary, and Global Reach. Intermixed with these histories were modern stories that helped give each part of our denomination a broad (and admittedly brief) overview of the last 200 years.
As important as our institutions are, the most important part of our history is always the people. In the past few years, we have covered important people like Churches of God founder John Winebrenner, our first missionaries like Clara Landis and Viola Hershey Cover, and controversial figures like Ben Ober. In addition to the big names from history, we have, and continue to feature the stories of pastors, church leaders, missionaries, and everyday Christians who are making impacts for the Kingdom of God both large and small. Whether they know it or not, they are part of the history of God’s Church.
Yet, with all that material, there was still much left on the cutting room floor. Stories left to tell or retell, archive materials that need new attention, pictures that ought to be seen, and new connections that could be made by matching the historical and the contemporary. The truth is, we could spend the next 200 years talking about the last 200 years, and we wouldn’t exhausted all that could be said.
It’s for that reason that our name and vision for Triennial Conference last year had one foot in each world. “Innovate: New Measures Now” is a clarion call for action. New Measures is a reference to our past; Winebrenner’s “New Measures” which found him locked out of his church for the disruption they brought to the establishment of his day, were an attempt to reach people for Jesus in new ways. As Pastor Ed Rosenberry says in the documentary film, “that’s what’s needed now.”
New Measures is intended then to be an antiquated term, but there are modern analogues. “Fresh Expressions”, “New Works”, “Missional Opportunities”. All of which describe a church trying to find new ways of helping people meet and come to know the same Jesus Christ.
In the CGGC that innovation is taking on many forms. Winebrenner Theological Seminary (WTS) is on the cutting edge of seminary economics and education delivery, going both fully online in their courses, and with a subscription based, $300 a month, cost. Accessibility is the name of the game. WTS’s bet is that the biggest hurdle to enrollment is accessibility. By reducing tuition and allowing courses to be fully online, the barrier to accessing education is about as low as it can be. Likewise, WTS is partnering all over to offer courses in prisons and countries like Kenya.
A number of bugs that came out of Covid turned out to be features. Innovations like “Drive-in Church” which was initially a stop gap measure for social distancing has become a new style in some churches. Likewise, church based preschool education has gone from another way to do outreach, to a vital resource for communities facing early childhood education shortfalls.
We’ve covered house churches, bar churches, and food ministries. Churches that go into prisons, and prisons that birth new churches. Churches that once sat empty for 6 days a week are now home to a menagerie of different ministries, non-profit, and for-profit businesses, helping to fund the church. Churches are innovating with day and time, location, style, leadership structures, and delivery methods.
At both the national and regional level of the CGGC, we’re raising funds for innovation, and we’re investing in church leaders to help them rethink and retrain how they run their ministries. We’re bringing together leaders from across the denomination (and across the world) to learn from each other, establishing best practices, useful strategies, or just encouragement through the tough and blessed work of ministry.
All of this, because the work of the kingdom isn’t done until Christ returns, until every knee bows before Him.
The Global Advocate, Summer 2026, Volume 191, Issue 3
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