Description: Matt Walker with his wife Nan, ca. 1920s
This Week in AG History — December 9, 1922
By Darrin Rodgers Originally published on AG-News, Mon, 09 Dec 2013 – 4:31 PM CST
After the Assemblies of God was organized in April 1914, districts were formed to better serve its growing constituency by providing regional oversight and coordination of ministries. Some regions went without an organized district for a number of years. The sparsely-populated Northern Great Plains was one such region.
On November 10, 1922, Pentecostal ministers from Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin met in Brainerd, Minnesota, to form the North Central District Council of the Assemblies of God.
The December 9, 1922, issue of the Pentecostal Evangel reported on the district’s formation. Participants established a district office in Minneapolis and elected Carl M. “Daddy” Hanson to serve as the first District Chairman. Hanson, a pioneer Norwegian pastor who had studied at Augsburg Lutheran Seminary in Minneapolis, had been Spirit-baptized in about 1899. He was a prominent figure in a revival featuring tongues-speech and healing in the 1890s and early 1900s among Scandinavian immigrants in Minnesota and the Dakotas.
Watt Walker, a Cherokee evangelist who previously traveled with healing evangelist Maria Woodworth-Etter, was one of the featured speakers at the founding of the North Central District. Walker was chosen to serve on the North Central District’s first Credentials Committee. It is significant that a Native American was elected to serve on the committee that voted to approve new ministers.
Churches and ministers in the Dakotas and Wisconsin withdrew from the North Central District and formed separate state districts in 1936. The North Central District was later renamed the Minnesota District.
Read the article, “New District Council,” on page 11 of the December 9, 1922, issue of the Pentecostal Evangel.
Also featured in this issue:
* “Have Faith in God,” by Smith Wigglesworth
* “The Branch and the Branches,” by Elizabeth Sisson
And many more!
Click here to read this issue now.
Pentecostal Evangel archived editions courtesy of the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center. For current editions of the Evangel, click here.
Do you have Pentecostal historical materials that should be preserved? Please consider depositing these materials at the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center (FPHC). The FPHC, located in the Assemblies of God national offices, is the largest Pentecostal archive in the world. We would like to preserve and make your treasures accessible to those who write the history books.
Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center 1445 North Boonville Avenue Springfield, Missouri 65802 USA
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