This Week in AG History -- March 15, 1953

Mack Pinson, a pioneer evangelist who helped bring the Pentecostal message to the South, was one of the five men who issued “The Call” to Hot Springs, the 1914 organizational meeting of the Assemblies of God.

Mack Matthew Pinson (1873-1953) lived a hard life as a child. A native of Rome, Georgia, he grew up on a cotton farm. Pinson’s father deserted the family when Mack was young, and his mother passed away when he was 20 years old. He lived with several relatives as the family worked hard to make ends meet.

Pinson’s oldest sister was a Christian, and she died from complications in childbirth. Before she passed away, she made young Mack promise that he would meet her in heaven someday. He didn’t know what that meant. He began to focus on learning more about God, since he had not been raised in church.

In 1893, Pinson attended a revival service at a Missionary Baptist church. At the end of the service, when the congregation was singing “Amazing Grace,” he came under conviction. He prayed a simple prayer, and the peace of God came into his heart as he gave his life to Christ. The next day he joined the church and was baptized in a river.

He began courting a neighbor girl, Mattie Gattis, and they were married on Dec. 3, 1893. At that time, they were helping his uncle with farming, and he and his uncle built them a log cabin to live in.

A year later, Pinson and his wife moved to Jacksonville, Texas. While living in Texas, he came in touch with a Cumberland Presbyterian church, and they let him lead some Bible studies. He began to feel a calling to preach, but he ignored it for a while. He continued studying the Bible and helped with some tent revivals in various places, sometimes doing the preaching. In his travels he met J.O. McClurkan, who was in charge of the Pentecostal Mission Bible and Literary Institute, a Holiness school in Nashville, Tennessee.

McClurkan encouraged Pinson to study for the ministry at his school, so the Pinsons moved to Nashville. Pinson was ordained at the school in October 1903. He continued taking classes at McClurkan’s school and also preached a number of revival services in nearby cities.

Pinson claimed he heard an audible voice that said, “Go to Birmingham, Alabama.” He felt God leading him to go there to hold meetings, and that is where he met G.B. Cashwell, an early Holiness Pentecostal leader who has been called the “Pentecostal Apostle of the South.” Cashwell had attended the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles and then brought the Pentecostal message to many places in the South.

Cashwell preached one night for Pinson and encouraged the crowd to be filled with the Holy Spirit and to begin speaking in tongues according to the formula given in Acts 2:4. Pinson and a coworker, H.G. Rodgers, decided to follow Cashwell to Memphis, Tennessee, to further investigate the baptism in the Holy Spirit, to see if it lined up with Scripture. While praying in his bedroom one morning, Pinson was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in tongues. That was May 8, 1907.

At that time, Pinson held credentials with McClurkan’s group, and he wasn’t sure if they would accept his newfound Pentecostal faith. McClurkan was open to this teaching and allowed him to keep his credentials until the next annual convention. In the meantime, Pinson held revival meetings in North Birmingham, Coffee Springs, and Ozark, Alabama, as well as various towns in Mississippi. Pinson and Rodgers helped to spread the Pentecostal message to Alabama and Mississippi.

When Pinson attended the convention for the Pentecostal Mission in Nashville in October 1907, the secretary refused to renew his papers because of his belief in the baptism in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues. Other ministers also were rejected for the same reason.

Pinson began traveling with N.J. Holmes, a Pentecostal minister in charge of Altamont Bible School near Greenville, South Carolina. Pinson traveled and held revival meetings in Tennessee, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Florida, Louisiana, and Alabama. There were reports of salvations, healings, and people receiving the baptism in the Holy Spirit.

Pinson attended the Worldwide Camp Meeting, a Pentecostal convention held in Los Angeles in 1913. The main speaker was Maria Woodworth-Etter.

Years later, Pinson met a woman who said, “I don’t know whether you know me or not, but I remember you. It was in the Worldwide Camp Meeting that you and Sister Etter laid hands on my head and prayed for me, and I was healed and was filled with the Spirit, and spoke in tongues right there.” Her face lit up as she said, “Praise God, the Comforter still abides.”

From Los Angeles, Pinson traveled to Oakland to work with Carrie Judd Montgomery and helped with a camp meeting at the Cazadero Camp. One of the speakers was Smith Wigglesworth.

While in Arkansas, Pinson spoke at a large camp meeting in Eureka Springs and became acquainted with E.N. Bell. Pinson originated a newspaper called Word and Witness, and he turned the paper over to Bell. This is the paper that issued “The Call” to meet in Hot Springs in 1914 to organize what became the General Council of the Assemblies of God, and Pinson was one of the five men who signed his name to the announcement. He delivered the keynote message, based on Acts 15. Pinson was elected at Hot Springs to serve as one of the first executive presbyters of the Assemblies of God.

Pinson continued to hold evangelistic services, traveling to places such as Arizona, Arkansas, California, Canada, Illinois, Nebraska, New York, and Oregon. He traveled widely and rubbed shoulders with many early Pentecostal leaders, including William H. Durham, Elizabeth Sexton, John T. Benson, Henry and Sunshine Ball, E.N. Bell, J.W. Welch, A.P. Collins, W.T. Gaston, A.J. Tomlinson, W.E. Moody, A.H. Argue, H.G. Rodgers, Maria Woodworth-Etter, and Smith Wigglesworth. Pinson wrote several tracts and articles on scriptural topics. His life was devoted to ministry, and he is remembered for helping to bring the Pentecostal message to the South.

Read J. Roswell Flower’s article, “[Mack] Pinson With Christ,” on page 13 of the March 15, 1953, issue of the Pentecostal Evangel.

Also featured in this issue:

• “The Temptation,” by Violet Schoonmaker

• “Our Trip to the Orient,” by Mark Buntain

And many more!

Click here to read this issue now.

Pentecostal Evangel archived editions courtesy of the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center.