What does a love letter have in common with handwritten committee notes, a diary, and a violin? The love letter was written by George Farrow (best known for song, “It’s All in Him”) to his future wife, Lulu, while Farrow was in Los Angeles during the time Frank Ewart and Glenn Cook were wrestling with the meaning of baptism in name of Jesus. The committee notes were from a meeting where members of the Pentecostal Assemblies of Jesus Christ and the Pentecostal Church Incorporated were looking for a way to merge their respective organizations. The diary is from the collection of diaries from Howard Goss, and early Pentecostal pioneer and the first general superintendent of the United Pentecostal Church. The violin belonged to Peter Berg who played it during the famous Azusa Street revival. What they have in common is that they are all housed in the Center for the Study of Oneness Pentecostalism (CSOP) located on the campus of Urshan University in Wentzville, Missouri.

In addition to being the official archive of the United Pentecostal Church International, CSOP collects archival resources and museum artifacts from across the broader Oneness Pentecostal movement. It is home to tens of thousands of archival records from early Pentecostal periodicals to official minutes and documents relating to early Oneness organizations. The Center does its best to document and display the history of the United Pentecostal Church International and it plays an important part in telling our story. Corporate memory is critical to understanding who we are. When we don’t know our past, our future is at risk.