John Winebrenner

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John Winebrenner (March 25, 1797 - September 12, 1860), founder of the Church of God, was born in Glade Valley, Maryland.

He studied at Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, was ordained in the German Reformed Church in 1820 and became a pastor at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where his revival preaching and his Revival Hymn-Book (1825) brought about a break between his followers and the Reformed Church. His Christian testimony can be found in the book The Testimony of a Hundred Witnesses (1858) edited by John Frederick Weishampel. In 1830 he founded the Church of God (whose members are commonly called "Winebrennerians"); he was speaker of its conference and edited its organ, The Church Advocate, until his death in Harrisburg. He wrote:

Brief Views of the Church of God (1840)
A Treatise on Regeneration (1844)
Doctrinal and Practical Sermons (1860)
with IB Rupp, The History of all the Religious Denominations in the United States (1844).

The Church of God has three sacraments:

baptism (by immersion)
feet washing
the Lord's Supper

It is generally Arminian and pre-millenarian, and in government has local elders and deacons, an annual eldership composed of pastors and lay elders, and, chosen by (and from) the annual elderships. a general eldership which meets since 1905 once in four years. The denomination in 1906 numbered 518 organizations and 24,356 communicants, in the following states: