The Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, usually abbreviated PAW, is one of those denominations I suspect many Christians have encountered without realizing how important it is. I had heard the name, but until digging into its history I hadn’t appreciated how close PAW stands to the beginnings of organized Oneness Pentecostalism—or how much of its story revolves around one of the most interesting figures we’ve encountered so far, Garfield Thomas Haywood.
Today PAW is a predominantly African-American Oneness Pentecostal, or Apostolic, organization headquartered in Indianapolis. Its churches emphasize Jesus-name baptism, receiving the Holy Spirit with speaking in tongues, holiness, divine healing, spiritual gifts, evangelism, and the return of Christ. Its government is episcopal, with bishops overseeing districts or dioceses, and in 2026 Bishop Richard D. Howell Jr. became its new Presiding Prelate.
But those facts don’t tell the most interesting part of the story. To understand PAW, we have to return to the years immediately following Azusa Street, when Pentecostals were trying to figure out what this new movement was supposed to become. And once again, theology and race became intertwined in ways that shaped Pentecostalism for generations.
Before PAW Was Oneness
PAW officially traces its beginnings to 1906, the same year the Azusa Street Revival exploded in Los Angeles. The earliest organizational history is complicated, however, and historians have had to reconstruct portions of it from fragmentary records. What eventually became PAW passed through an early period before emerging as one of the principal organizational homes of the developing Oneness movement. Even PAW’s own history identifies 1906 as its beginning, while detailed historical scholarship describes important transitions in the organization during the following decade.
That’s important because PAW didn’t begin simply as the Black version of the UPCI. In fact, the UPCI wouldn’t exist until 1945. PAW’s story is considerably older, and during its formative years it was deliberately interracial. Historian Talmadge French, whose doctoral research focused specifically on G. T. Haywood and PAW, describes early PAW as a particularly significant interracial expression of Oneness Pentecostalism. That immediately got my attention.
We have already seen racial integration at Azusa Street, followed by the pressures of American segregation. Now we’re about to see Pentecostals try it again.
G. T. Haywood
If William Seymour is the indispensable figure in the story of Azusa Street, G. T. Haywood occupies something like that position in the early history of PAW.
Garfield Thomas Haywood was born in 1880 and eventually became pastor of a thriving Pentecostal congregation in Indianapolis. He was African American, a gifted preacher and teacher, an artist, songwriter, publisher, and theological writer. More importantly for our story, he became one of the principal architects of early Oneness Pentecostalism. Modern scholarship on PAW treats Haywood as central not merely to the denomination but to understanding the interracial character of early Apostolic Pentecostalism itself.
Haywood’s Indianapolis congregation eventually became Christ Temple, one of the most historically important churches in Apostolic Pentecostalism. Indianapolis would consequently become an important center of the movement, and PAW’s international headquarters remains in Indianapolis today.
Haywood was also a musician. Among the gospel songs associated with him is “I See a Crimson Stream of Blood,” which traveled far beyond Apostolic Pentecostal circles. That’s one of those details I love finding because it reminds us how denominational boundaries don’t always correspond to influence. Christians may know somebody’s song without having the slightest idea who wrote it or what denomination he belonged to.
Haywood and the New Issue
We encountered the New Issue in our UPCI article. Following the 1913 Arroyo Seco camp meeting in California, some Pentecostal ministers became convinced that the apostolic pattern required baptism specifically in the name of Jesus Christ. The baptismal question soon developed into a much larger debate over the Godhead.
Haywood embraced the Jesus-name message and became one of its strongest advocates.
This was significant because Haywood wasn’t some obscure preacher operating on the fringes of Pentecostalism. He was already a respected leader with a substantial congregation and influence among both Black and white Pentecostals. When he accepted Jesus-name baptism and Oneness theology, his influence helped move the emerging Apostolic movement forward.
The same controversy eventually divided the Assemblies of God. In 1916 the AG adopted its Statement of Fundamental Truths affirming the Trinity, and ministers who couldn’t accept that position departed. Some of those ministers then organized separately, creating yet another piece of our increasingly complicated Pentecostal family tree.
An Apostolic Merger
One of the organizations formed by Oneness ministers leaving the Assemblies of God was the General Assembly of the Apostolic Assemblies. World War I created an unexpected practical problem for these ministers because Pentecostals commonly held pacifist convictions and wanted recognized ministerial status when dealing with military conscription. PAW already possessed an organizational structure they could use.
In 1918 the two groups came together under the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World name. Historical research indicates that the resulting organization expanded rapidly and, importantly, developed an intentionally interracial leadership structure. Haywood became secretary in 1919 and eventually rose to the denomination’s highest leadership.
Think about what was happening. This wasn’t twenty-first-century America holding a conference about racial reconciliation. This was the United States during the era of Jim Crow, racial violence, legally enforced segregation in much of the country, and widespread segregation in American Christianity. And Black and white Pentecostals were trying to build the same denomination.
The Color Line Returns
Unfortunately, the interracial experiment didn’t survive intact. The problem wasn’t simply that everybody suddenly changed his theology. The social realities surrounding the churches made genuine interracial organization extraordinarily difficult. Jim Crow restrictions made integrated gatherings difficult or impossible in portions of the United States, while geography and representation created additional organizational tensions.
Detailed scholarship on early PAW describes the years under Haywood and other leaders as an unusually sustained attempt at interracial Oneness Pentecostalism, but identifies 1924 as the decisive rupture. The interracial organization fractured, and the movement subsequently became increasingly divided along racial lines.
This is becoming a depressingly familiar theme in our study of Pentecostal history.
Azusa Street had demonstrated an interracial form of Pentecostal fellowship. Early Oneness Pentecostals attempted something similar. Yet American racial structures repeatedly proved powerful enough to pull Christians apart.
Pentecostals believed the Holy Spirit could enable people to speak languages they had never learned. Learning to live together across the color line proved considerably harder.
A Predominantly Black Apostolic Church
Following the racial division, PAW increasingly developed as a predominantly African-American Apostolic denomination. White Oneness Pentecostals formed or joined other organizations, and the organizational rearrangements eventually contributed to the denominational lineage that produced the United Pentecostal Church in 1945.
PAW continued on its own path. Haywood became presiding bishop in 1925 and remained in leadership until his death in 1931. PAW’s official succession records place him at the beginning of the modern bishopric line, followed by Bishop Samuel Grimes, who served from 1932 until 1967.
That long second administration helped stabilize an organization that had endured theological controversy, racial division, and organizational upheaval during its first decades. PAW had survived.
What PAW Believes
Theologically, much of what we discussed in the UPCI article applies here as well. PAW belongs to the Oneness Pentecostal tradition rather than historic Trinitarian Pentecostalism. It emphasizes the absolute oneness of God and identifies Jesus Christ as the full revelation of the one God rather than affirming three eternally distinct divine persons.
Consequently, PAW practices baptism by immersion in the name of Jesus Christ. Acts 2:38 occupies the same central position we encountered in UPCI theology: repentance, baptism in Jesus’ name, and receiving the Holy Spirit belong together in the Apostolic understanding of the new birth.
Speaking in tongues is associated with receiving the Holy Spirit, and PAW churches expect the supernatural gifts described in the New Testament to remain active in the church.
If you’ve read our UPCI article, all of this should sound familiar. That’s because UPCI and PAW occupy the same broad theological neighborhood. They just don’t live in the same house.
The Trinity and PAW
My response to PAW’s Oneness theology is therefore essentially the same as my response to UPCI theology.
I’m a Trinitarian. I believe the biblical evidence is best explained by recognizing genuine personal distinctions among Father, Son, and Holy Spirit while affirming that there is only one God. Jesus’ prayers to the Father, His statements about being sent by the Father, His preexistent relationship with the Father, and His teaching about the Holy Spirit all make more sense to me within a Trinitarian framework than a modalistic one.
So I reject modalism. I don’t reject Oneness Pentecostals. I don’t believe somebody gets into heaven because he can correctly explain the Athanasian Creed, any more than I believe somebody gets into heaven because he can correctly explain the hypostatic union or the relationship between justification and sanctification. Theology matters because truth matters, and some theological questions are certainly more important than others. But knowing Jesus and passing a systematic-theology examination aren’t identical things.
That means we can disagree seriously with PAW about the nature of the Godhead without casually announcing that millions of people who worship Jesus Christ are therefore outside the reach of Christ.
Jesus-Name Baptism
PAW’s practice of baptism in Jesus’ name follows the same reasoning we encountered among other Apostolic Pentecostals. Acts repeatedly describes converts being baptized in the name of Jesus Christ or the Lord Jesus, and Oneness Pentecostals understand those passages as establishing the apostolic baptismal formula.
Trinitarian Christians generally understand the evidence differently. Matthew 28:19 explicitly records Jesus commanding baptism in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, while references to baptism in Jesus’ name in Acts can reasonably be understood as identifying Christian baptism with allegiance to and authority of Jesus rather than necessarily recording every word spoken during the baptism.
PAW’s interpretation ties the issue to its doctrine of God. If Jesus is the revealed name of the one God, then baptizing in Jesus’ name isn’t merely a liturgical preference. It expresses the entire Oneness understanding of God.
That’s why arguments about the baptismal formula became so important in early Apostolic Pentecostalism. The debate was never really just about which words the preacher says before putting somebody under the water. The question underneath it was: Who is Jesus?
Holiness and the Spirit-Filled Life
PAW also stands within the Pentecostal holiness tradition. Conversion is expected to produce a changed life, and receiving the Holy Spirit isn’t understood merely as having an interesting spiritual experience. The Spirit is expected to transform the believer’s character, worship, conduct, relationships, and witness.
Historically, Apostolic Pentecostal churches have often maintained conservative standards of dress and personal conduct similar to those we encountered in the UPCI. Standards vary among congregations and across generations, so it would be misleading to make a checklist of clothing and grooming rules and pretend it describes every PAW church.
The larger principle is holiness. God has called a people out of the world, and their lives should demonstrate that they belong to Him. PAW’s contemporary statements continue to emphasize Christ redeeming and purifying a people characterized by good works and by lives that bear witness to Him.
Worship
PAW worship is recognizably Pentecostal and also deeply shaped by the African-American church tradition. Expect energetic preaching, congregational participation, gospel music, raised hands, audible prayer, altar ministry, and an expectation that the Holy Spirit may interrupt whatever appeared on the printed order of service.
That last part is practically a Pentecostal sacrament. Prayer occupies an important place in Apostolic spirituality. So do testimony, healing, prophecy, tongues, interpretation, evangelistic preaching, and calls for people to respond at the altar. PAW’s theological identity may distinguish it from Trinitarian Pentecostals, but culturally and experientially there is no mistaking the family resemblance.
If you’ve spent much time in Pentecostal churches, you wouldn’t walk into a PAW service and wonder whether you’d accidentally wandered into an Episcopal evensong. You’d know where you were.
Bishops, Dioceses, and Councils
PAW government differs noticeably from the Assemblies of God and resembles an episcopal system more closely. Its organizational vocabulary includes bishops, suffragan bishops, district elders, dioceses, councils, and a Presiding Prelate.
The denomination is divided into episcopal districts overseen by bishops. PAW’s current structure includes districts across the United States and international jurisdictions, while its Executive Bishops’ Council participates in the broader governance of the organization.
That gives PAW a distinctly different institutional feel from congregationally oriented Pentecostal bodies. And it helps explain why the title Bishop appears so frequently when reading PAW history. You’re not just encountering Pentecostal pastors who decided bishop sounded impressive. It’s part of the denomination’s actual polity.
Women in Ministry
Women have also played substantial roles within PAW life. The denomination maintains an International Women’s Ministry Auxiliary, and women appear in denominational leadership as evangelists, district elders, auxiliary leaders, and bishops. Its current Board of Bishops listings include women among honorary bishops, while its 2026 elected leadership includes women in important organizational offices and educational ministries.
This gives us another reminder that Pentecostal approaches to gender don’t always fit neatly into the categories outsiders expect. Apostolic churches may be extremely conservative in some teachings concerning gender, appearance, marriage, and family while simultaneously recognizing women as powerful ministers, evangelists, and church leaders.
Pentecostal history has been doing that almost from the beginning.
Music and the Black Pentecostal Tradition
This is an area where PAW’s influence reaches beyond organizational statistics.
African-American Pentecostal churches became enormously important incubators of gospel music, and PAW participated in that larger cultural world. G. T. Haywood himself wrote hymns and gospel songs. Later PAW congregations produced and nurtured musicians, singers, preachers, and worship traditions whose influence crossed denominational boundaries.
That pattern continues into the present. Gospel artist and bishop Marvin Sapp, for example, is a PAW member and has participated prominently in the denomination’s conventions. PAW publicly identified him as a longtime member when responding to controversy surrounding an offering at its 2024 International Summer Convention.
That helps explain something statistics can miss. A denomination doesn’t have to be the largest organization in its religious family to have substantial cultural influence.
Indianapolis
Indianapolis occupies an unusually important place in this story. It was the city of G. T. Haywood and Christ Temple. It became one of the major centers of early Apostolic Pentecostalism, and today the international headquarters of the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World remains there.
That’s a nice historical continuity. Los Angeles gives us Azusa Street. Springfield gives us the Assemblies of God. Cleveland, Tennessee, gives us the Church of God. Memphis gives us major pieces of the COGIC story. And Indianapolis gives us PAW and G. T. Haywood. We’re gradually constructing a Pentecostal map of America without actually trying to.
A Global Church
Although PAW’s history is deeply connected with African-American Christianity, it isn’t merely an American organization. The denomination developed international missions and episcopal districts outside the United States, and its current organizational structure includes jurisdictions extending into other nations. PAW describes itself as an international Apostolic body, and its denominational organization continues to support global missions and international councils.
That international dimension also reminds us not to equate Oneness Pentecostalism with UPCI. The UPCI is much larger numerically, but it doesn’t own the word Apostolic. PAW, UPCI, and numerous other organizations belong to the wider Oneness Pentecostal world.
Understanding that distinction makes the whole Pentecostal family tree much easier to follow. Well, maybe not much easier. Let’s say slightly less confusing.
PAW and the UPCI
The relationship between PAW and UPCI is particularly interesting because their histories repeatedly intersect. Both emerged from the early Jesus-name movement. Both affirm Oneness theology. Both emphasize Acts 2:38, Jesus-name baptism, receiving the Holy Spirit with tongues, holiness, spiritual gifts, evangelism, healing, and Christ’s return.
But organizationally they’re separate. The racial fragmentation of early Oneness Pentecostalism contributed to separate organizational trajectories. PAW became predominantly Black, while organizations with largely white constituencies underwent additional mergers and reorganizations that eventually contributed to the creation of the UPCI in 1945.
So when someone says “Apostolic Pentecostal,” don’t automatically translate that into “UPCI.” They might be UPCI, but they might be PAW too, or they might belong to another Oneness organization entirely. “Apostolic” describes a much larger religious world.
Richard D. Howell Jr.
PAW entered a new leadership era in 2026 with the election of Bishop Richard D. Howell Jr. as Presiding Prelate. Howell is senior pastor of Shiloh Temple International Ministries in Minneapolis and had previously served as diocesan bishop for the Minnesota, Wisconsin and Dakotas district. PAW’s current leadership listings identify him as Presiding Prelate alongside First Assistant Bishop A. Glenn Brady and Second Assistant Bishop C. Shawn Tyson.
That makes this an interesting moment to be writing the article. We’re not merely describing an organization whose interesting history ended with G. T. Haywood. PAW is still changing.
Its current leadership continues to speak publicly about evangelism, community involvement, racial concerns, ministry development, and the role of an Apostolic church in contemporary society. Its organizational structures have also continued to evolve; PAW’s own 2026 material discusses proposed constitutional changes and the continuing influence of its 2009 Apostolic Manifesto on denominational governance.
The Part of the Story I Didn’t Know
For me, the most interesting thing about PAW isn’t simply discovering another Pentecostal denomination.
It’s discovering another piece of the story we’ve already been telling.
We started with Azusa Street and William Seymour. Then we watched Pentecostalism spread into the Assemblies of God, COGIC, the Church of God, and Foursquare. With UPCI we encountered the New Issue and discovered how a dispute over baptism in Jesus’ name became a dispute over the nature of God.
PAW reveals another side of the same history.
It shows Black and white Oneness Pentecostals attempting to build an interracial religious organization in the middle of Jim Crow America. It introduces G. T. Haywood, one of the most important Pentecostal leaders most Christians have never heard of. And it shows us how the racial divisions of American society didn’t merely affect where Christians sat on Sunday morning—they helped shape the denominational map we’re still looking at a century later. That’s worth knowing.
PAW’s Place in Pentecostalism
The Pentecostal Assemblies of the World occupies an unusual place in Pentecostal history. It isn’t the largest Pentecostal denomination we’ve studied, and outside Apostolic circles its name may be unfamiliar. Yet its history takes us remarkably close to the center of several developments that shaped modern Pentecostalism: Azusa’s interracial vision, the emergence of Oneness theology, Jesus-name baptism, the breakup of interracial Pentecostal organizations under Jim Crow, the development of Black Pentecostal institutions, and the global spread of Apostolic Christianity.
And then there’s G. T. Haywood. A Black pastor in Indianapolis became one of the principal theologians, organizers, songwriters, and leaders of early Oneness Pentecostalism while attempting to preserve interracial Christian fellowship in an America determined to segregate almost everything.
I disagree with Haywood’s Oneness theology. But after learning his story, I understand why he matters.
That’s precisely why PAW belongs on Jew & Greek. The purpose isn’t merely to write pages about denominations everybody already knows. Sometimes the more interesting job is uncovering the Christian history that was sitting there all along while most of us somehow missed it.
PAW was one of those for me. It probably won’t be the last.