International Pentecostal Church of Christ

International Pentecostal Church of Christ belongs to the Pentecostal (Trinitarian) family of churches.

Governance: connexional.

Formed by the 1976 merger of the International Pentecostal Assemblies and the Pentecostal Church of Christ — a small body whose existence is itself a union story.

Congregation count not yet source-verified against RCMS 2020; NULL rather than estimated.

A small Pentecostal body whose very existence is a union story — two fellowships that merged in 1976 rather than duplicate each other's work.

Heritage

The International Pentecostal Church of Christ was formed in 1976 by the merger of two older fellowships: the Pentecostal Church of Christ, organized in 1917 by John Stroup in the Ohio River valley of eastern Kentucky, and the International Pentecostal Assemblies, itself the product of a 1936 union of Atlanta-based Pentecostal associations. The merged body set its headquarters at London, Ohio, and has remained a compact fellowship with congregations chiefly in the Midwest and Southeast and mission work abroad.

Theological family

Trinitarian holiness-Pentecostal: new birth, sanctified living, baptism in the Holy Spirit evidenced by tongues, divine healing, and the blessed hope of Christ's return — mainstream Pentecostal doctrine held without idiosyncrasy.

Who decides what

Connexional: a general conference, an elected general overseer and officials, districts relating congregations that call their own pastors.

What a first-time visitor would find

Warm, revivalistic Pentecostal worship on a small-church scale: congregational singing, testimony, concerted prayer, preaching toward the altar, and camp meeting as the summer high point.

What it has always cared about

Union itself — a body assembled twice over from smaller fellowships; camp meeting culture; steady mission support beyond its size; and the Ohio valley as home ground.

Its gift to the wider church

A quiet rebuke to Protestant multiplication: twice in its history, separate organizations concluded the Kingdom did not need both letterheads, and merged.

Commonly confused with

With the Pentecostal Church of God, a separate and larger body; with the various Churches of God; and with the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, which shares only the word "International."

Range of views inside it

A doctrinally compact fellowship; variety shows mainly in congregation size and local worship custom.

A note from the mapmakers: We have not verified a congregation count for this body against RCMS 2020, so we publish none. Its generic-sounding historic titles defeat name-based matching, and nothing here may be asserted of an individual congregation. Sentences drawn from this record hedge as "IPCC congregations typically…" and yield to the church's own materials.

Sources: International Pentecostal Church of Christ — about (IPCC) · Handbook of Denominations in the United States (Abingdon Press)

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