A Look Back: Rags to Riches

Robert C. Lawson had a gift for organizing churches and taking the gospel and the Pentecostal message to untouched territory. He installed pastors and sent missionaries to parishes all over the world. He traveled quite a bit himself and endured many dangers for the sake of the gospel. He was one of Harlem's shining stars. One European minister, visiting Massachusetts, made a special trip to Harlem after hearing Bishop Lawson on the radio, complementing him on his ministerial accomplishments, in spite of racial oppression. Ebony listed him among the most influential preachers of Harlem.

While Lawson was having his day, many of the ministers he oversaw were doing the difficult work of building the churches he started. Some of them had to take second jobs to make ends meet; financial support was not a guarantee. While Bishop Lawson's star was rising, he seemed all but oblivious to the growing dissatisfaction with his way of doing things.

One exchange that essentially captures his leadership style came in the form of an answer to a question someone posed:

QUESTION 48: To what do you largely attribute your success?

ANSWER: To finding God's will concerning myself and others, abiding in it, and constraining others to do likewise. (Defense, 441)

"Constraining" other ministers to labor in anonymity and impecunity certainly seems harsh, but Lawson was only holding his ministers to the same standard he had been held to. His ascent to acclaim and affluence had not been on a bed of ease.

Lawson lost both his parents at a young age and was raised by an aunt. He spent some time at the Howe Institute, a boarding school in New Iberia, and it appears that his life was what we might consider middle class. As a young man, he traveled the continent, drinking, gambling, playing piano and singing the blues in night clubs. When he contracted tuberculosis, his good times came to an end. His conversion was the last nail in the coffin of his old life. Saved, unemployed, and not long after called to the ministry, Brother Lawson was broke. G.T. Haywood's daughter recalls him purchasing a bicycle early on in his ministry. Before then, he would walk everywhere he went, and even had to put cardboard in his shoes when he wore out the soles. Because Indianapolis was a big city with public transportation, we can assume he couldn't afford to pay the little travel fare it would cost to go to the market where he would preach outdoors.

Lawson became established in ministry, and his reputation as a preacher grew. He converted an entire congregation to the Oneness Pentecostal view of the Godhead, and traveled here and there starting missions that eventually grew into stable congregations, throughout the Midwest. Eventually he settled down in Columbus, Ohio, where he founded a church that took up where another mission had begun. That church grew and grew, but he wasn't there long when he felt called to go to New York City to start a work. He got there by preaching from church to church, and finally arrived in Manhattan with five cents in his pocket. Miraculously, he met a man on his way to a prayer meeting, and joining a few believers in a basement on 40th Street, he found his opportunity to begin a work there. As he did in Indianapolis, he preached on the street, among what would be termed the least desirable elements of the city. Two couples opened their shared townhouse to him, and a church was born.

Elder and Sister Lawson, ca. 1918

Elder Lawson didn't start out with a car, nice clothes, or even his own home. He preached on the streets by day, conducted services by night, and baptized as many as desired in the East River. A thin man for most of his life, the baggy suits he wore indicate a modest income at best. When the house church grew to about 200 congregants, Lawson found real estate on one of the worst blocks of Harlem. People who knew 133rd Street nicknamed it Beale Street, because it was just as violent and crime-ridden as Beale Street in Memphis. Here Lawson preached, prayed, and lived, housing himself, his family, and other church workers in the church building. The effect this arrangement had on the block was such that the street got a new nickname: Hallelujah Boulevard. Lawson opened businesses -- a grocery store, a bookstore, a daycare -- up and down the block, generating income for him, his parishioners, and the church.

Not long after, opportunities opened to Lawson to spread the gospel by way of radio. He initially went down to the radio station (perhaps daily) and preached from the studio. However, a new invention allowed for radio broadcasts to be made remotely, and Lawson's church was the first to hold on-air radio broadcasts. From there, his work went national, and the rest is history.

No one had financed his evangelistic trips. What money he received was due to the kindness of the people who supported him. Being a general superintendent of the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World had only provided him with a charge and the authority to travel in the name of an organization; whatever his needs were, they were addressed day by day, service by service. When he arrived in New York, he built and enriched the church, not the other way around.

Everyone knew his story, and certainly many aspired to duplicate his success in their own lives. In time, focus began to condense around something that Lawson had that his subordinates could not easily acquire: the title of "bishop." As we return to the story of the Bible Way schism, we'll examine how Lawson manipulated the use of ecclesiastical titles for disciplinary purposes.