Church of God (Holiness)
Church of God (Holiness) belongs to the Wesleyan-Holiness family of churches.
Governance: congregational.
The Kansas City–centered holiness body from the 1880s "come-outer" movement — congregational in polity, with Kansas City College and Bible School. Yet another distinct body carrying the "Church of God" name; see the taxonomy's seven-way ambiguity note.
Congregation count not yet source-verified against RCMS 2020; NULL rather than estimated.
The Kansas City wing of the 1880s come-outer revival: congregations convinced that the one New Testament church needs no denominational machinery — yet another distinct body carrying the Church of God banner.
Heritage
The Church of God (Holiness) arose from the same 1880s ferment that produced other come-outer movements: holiness believers in Missouri and Kansas, gathered around leaders such as A. M. Kiergan, concluded that the New Testament knows one church of God with congregational government and nothing above it. The body that consolidated around Kansas City maintains a college — Kansas City College and Bible School in Overland Park, Kansas — a missions agency, and a periodical heritage in the Church Herald and Holiness Banner.
Theological family
Wesleyan-holiness: justification and entire sanctification as two definite works of grace, with the one-New-Testament-church conviction as its ecclesial distinctive.
Who decides what
Congregational by doctrine: each local church governs itself; conventions and boards serve cooperation without exercising rule.
What a first-time visitor would find
A visitor finds traditional holiness worship — hymns and gospel songs, testimony, altar prayer, revival-style preaching — generally with conservative standards of dress and life.
What it has always cared about
The second work of grace preached plainly; congregational liberty; camp meetings; and schooling its own ministers.
Its gift to the wider church
Part of holiness Christianity's standing protest against denominational pride — a small body that has kept congregational simplicity and the sanctification message together for fourteen decades.
Commonly confused with
With the Church of God (Anderson, Indiana), a larger and unrelated movement of similar vintage and similar convictions; with the Pentecostal bodies carrying the same three words; and with the Churches of God, Holiness, a separate, historically Black body.
Range of views inside it
Congregations vary modestly in strictness and worship style within a consciously conservative family.
A note from the mapmakers: Nothing here may be asserted of a specific congregation, and the Church of God name requires unusual caution in matching — see the taxonomy's ambiguity note. No congregation count is stored; none has been verified against RCMS 2020. Sentences drawn from this record hedge as "Church of God (Holiness) congregations typically…".
Sources: The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition (Vinson Synan, Eerdmans) · Handbook of Denominations in the United States (Abingdon Press)
More of the Wesleyan-Holiness story · Find these churches on the map