History of the Church of the Nazarene

The history of the Church of the Nazarene has been divided into seven overlapping periods by the staff of the Nazarene archives in Lenexa, Kansas: Parent Denominations ; Consolidation ; Search for Solid Foundations ; Persistence Amid Adversity ; Mid-Century Crusade for Souls ; Toward the Post-War Evangelical Mainstream ; and Internationalization .
History
The Church of the Nazarene is the product of a series of mergers that occurred between various holiness churches, associations and denominations throughout the 20th century. The most prominent of these mergers took place at the First and Second General Assemblies, held at Chicago, Illinois, and Pilot Point, Texas in 1907 and 1908, respectively. The primary architect of these early mergers was C. W. Ruth.

First General Assembly
The First General Assembly held in Chicago, Illinois from 10–17 October 1907 brought together the Eastern and the Western streams. The Western group was the Church of the Nazarene founded in October 1895 in Los Angeles, California by Dr. Phineas F. Bresee, a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and Dr Joseph Pomeroy Widney, a Methodist physician, and the second president of the University of Southern California. The Eastern group was the Association of Pentecostal Churches of America, a denomination formed on 13 April 1897 through the merger of two older bodies: The Central Evangelical Holiness Association and led by Fred A. Hillery and C. Howard Davis; and three churches organised by William Howard Hoople since January 1894, and formed into the Association of Pentecostal Churches of America. On 12 November 1896, these two groups met in Brooklyn, agreed upon a plan of union, which included retaining the name and Manual of Hoople's group. Prominent leaders included Hiram F. Reynolds, Davis, and Hoople. At the time of its merger with the Church of the Nazarene in 1907, the APCA existed principally from Nova Scotia to Iowa and the northeastern United States. The name of the united body adopted at the First General Assembly was Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene, and Bresee and Reynolds were elected the first general superintendents.