Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, Inc. Elect First Female Member To Executive Bishops' Council

INDIANAPOLIS, Aug. 16, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- In its first in-person convention since the COVID-19 pandemic began, the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, Inc. broke new ground by electing its first female member to its Executive Bishops' Council, re-electing female members to its officers' board, and meeting with mayors of Ferguson and St. Louis, Mo., to discuss race and human rights.

The largely African-American denomination is headquartered in Indianapolis and has more than 2 million members and 4,000 churches. The Oneness Pentecostal group, which launched in California in 1906, met in St. Louis for its 107^th national convention.

Bishop Gwendolyn Weeks, senior Pastor of Bethel Tabernacle Pentecostal Church in Boston, was the first woman elected to the Executive Bishops' Council, the organization's governing body. Suffragan Bishop Yolanda Hunt, senior pastor of Rehoboth Apostolic Worship Center in Chicago, and Suffragan Bishop Ann Story-Pratt, senior pastor of Church of Jesus, Springfield, Ohio, were both elected to the denomination's Executive Board of Officers.

In other ground-breaking convention activity, church leaders met with Mayor Ella Jones of Ferguson, Mo., and Mayor Tishaura Jones of St. Louis, Mo., to discuss human rights. Ferguson became an international flashpoint for racial division and civil unrest after the 2014 killing of Michael Brown, Jr., a Black man, by a White police officer.

Denomination leadership committed to return to St. Louis for its 2023 convention as a follow-up to this meeting, which also included other civic leaders. Church leadership said the siting of the next convention matters because they believe the general St. Louis area is one of the nation's epicenters for human rights issues.

In other convention news, Bishop Theodore L. Brooks, Sr., Senior Pastor Emeritus, of Beulah Heights First Pentecostal Church, New Haven, Conn., was re-elected for another four-year term.

Contact: Neechy Dumas, Marketing Director
[email protected]
304-233-8899

SOURCE Bethlehem Apostolic Church

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