The Rev. Charles Ellis III, presiding bishop of the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, said he hopes to instill a heightened sense of mission and outreach when he takes over as leader of the organization’s South Carolina State Council and its more than 40 congregations.
Ellis, senior pastor of the 7,000-member Greater Grace Temple in Detroit, will be installed Friday in a 7:30 p.m. convocation at Bible Way Church of Atlas Road in Lower Richland.
The ceremony is expected to draw more than 1,000 people.
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Past South Carolina Bishop Paul Bowers of Ohio will be the chief consecrator for the service. The Rev. Darrell Jackson, senior pastor at Bible Way, will serve as host minister.
Ellis will be installed as diocesan of the South Carolina district, a position he has held on an interim basis in tandem with his duties as Pentecostal Assemblies of the World’s presiding bishop and pastor.
The Pentecostal Assemblies of the World is the oldest and second largest Apostolic Pentecostal church organization in the world.
“I think that in order to empower people and transform people, the people first have to like you,” Ellis said Friday. Many people have come to know him through his television show “Amazing Grace” on the Word Network, but his travels across the state also have brought him face-to-face with leaders and parishioners, he said.
As diocesan, he plans to come to South Carolina at least three or four times a year. Ellis noted that his father, the late Bishop David Ellis Sr., who rescued Greater Grace Temple from foreclosure and built it into a thriving 19-acre complex of ministries, also served a Southern state, Georgia, as diocesan.
There is always a bit of hesitancy when a new person comes on board, he said. “It’s a question of does this person know our culture, does he know our ways,” he said.
But serving as interim as already helped him prepare and set the stage for encouraging a mission outlook similar to that fostered at his own church.
“Greater Grace Temple is huge on outreach - and when I say huge I mean huge,” he said. “When the summer months hit we do as much ministry outside these doors as we do inside.” Some outreach include sports camps for youngsters, outreach to the homeless, ministries for grandparents raising grandchildren, support for victims of domestic abuse and substance abuse and those in need of prayer and support in their daily lives.
Ellis said his role will be to provide tools. “Some will fit and some won’t.”
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