Bible Way Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ World Wide
Bible Way Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ World Wide belongs to the Apostolic / Oneness Pentecostal family of churches.
Governance: episcopal.
The Oneness body organized 1957 in Washington, D.C. under Bishop Smallwood Williams, out of the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith.
Congregation count not yet source-verified against RCMS 2020; NULL rather than estimated.
The apostolic body Bishop Smallwood Williams organized in Washington, D.C. in 1957 — and promptly aimed at the conscience of the capital.
Heritage
Bible Way Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ World Wide was organized in Washington, D.C. in 1957, when Bishop Smallwood E. Williams and roughly seventy congregations withdrew from the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith, seeking a broader, less centralized episcopal leadership. Williams — a street preacher who had built Bible Way Temple within sight of the Capitol — led the new body for almost four decades, preaching over the radio, marching for civil rights, and fighting housing discrimination in Washington with the same voice he used for revival. The church he left behind spans the Eastern Seaboard and beyond.
Theological family
Apostolic (Oneness) Pentecostal in the historically Black apostolic stream: one God wholly present in Jesus Christ, baptism in Jesus' name, Spirit baptism with tongues, and holiness of life. Trinitarian churches confess the Godhead differently; Bible Way teaches what it holds to be the apostles' own doctrine, and this record reports rather than referees.
Who decides what
Episcopal: a presiding bishop and board of bishops over dioceses of congregations, with pastors serving under episcopal covering while local trustee boards handle temporal affairs.
What a first-time visitor would find
Black apostolic worship in full voice: choirs and congregational song, extended concerted prayer, preaching that builds to celebration, tongues and shouting received as ordinary works of the Spirit, and baptisms administered in the name of Jesus.
What it has always cared about
Urban ministry as a calling, not a location problem; civil rights and housing justice preached from the pulpit; pioneering Black religious broadcasting in the capital; and raising and consecrating leaders for city congregations.
Its gift to the wider church
A standing argument that apostolic holiness and public justice belong in one ministry: Bible Way put a Oneness Pentecostal pulpit in the middle of the capital's civil-rights struggle and kept it there for decades.
Commonly confused with
With its mother body, the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith, from which it withdrew in 1957; and with later fellowships that divided from Bible Way itself or share the popular "Bible Way" wording without organizational connection.
Range of views inside it
Range from large urban cathedrals to storefront congregations, in worship style across the gospel tradition, and in how far individual pastors carry the founder's public, civic voice.
A note from the mapmakers: We have not verified a congregation count for this body against RCMS 2020, so we publish none. "Bible Way" appears in many congregation names without organizational connection, and our name-based matching cannot settle affiliation. Sentences drawn from this record hedge as "Bible Way congregations typically…" and yield to the congregation's own materials.
Sources: Black Fire: One Hundred Years of African American Pentecostalism (Estrelda Y. Alexander, IVP Academic) · Handbook of Denominations in the United States (Abingdon Press) · The Black Church in the African American Experience (C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence H. Mamiya, Duke University Press)
More of the Apostolic / Oneness Pentecostal story · Find these churches on the map