[Sam]

Over the years I've belonged to several different organizations. Back in the early 1960's I was licensed with a group called The Church of Jesus Christ, Pentecostal Faith (CoJCPF). Our Presiding Bishop was G.R. Brock. He has been dead since 1968. I only belonged to that organization a couple of years and let my license lapse when I started going to an ALJC Church. In 1971 the CoJCPF merged with the CoJC (the original group chartered in 1927 by Mark Lawson).

Bishop Brock had some things he took a "strong" stand on. One was that he would never ordain a minister who "looked at tv" but I got a license and I preached for him at his church and I had a tv in my home. One was the idea that communion wasn't really communion unless fermented wine was used. To him, grape juice was just a substitute for the real thing. I remember him telling me about a church in our organization down in SE Kentucky that was in a "dry" county and he was going to bring them some home made wine so they could do communion properly. I told him they would arrest him for "rum running." He said, "I'll just tell them it's the blood of Jesus." I told him, "Then they'll lock you up in an asylum." I don't know if he ever followed through on this or not.

Another thing he felt very strongly about was Christmas Trees. He believed that Jeremiah chapter 10 was talking about Christmas trees. The church was pastored by an older man and his son was also a preacher. There were several family members in the church there in Corbin, KY. They went without a Christmas Tree for some time, then one year the one son (who was also a preacher) decided they were going to have a Christmas tree that year. So, he and several family members went out into the woods to find a tree and bring it home. They found a good one, brought it home, and set it up. The elder preacher condemned them as heathens for violating the Scriptures. The younger preacher had a good answer from the Scriptures. He pointed out that the Scripture says,

1 Hear ye the word which the LORD speaketh unto you, O house of Israel:
2 Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.
3 For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe.
4 They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.
5 They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.

He said, "Look what the Bible says there in verse 3. It says, 'ONE cutteth a tree out of the forest... with an axe.'" He went on to say, "There wasn't just ONE person here that went into the woods and cut down that tree. SEVERAL of us went out there and cut it down and brought it here."