OUR
HISTORY
An excerpt from Diana Dunn Fiery...
I grew up going to Beams of Light in Sapulpa from a young girl until the time I was a young adult. I have many fond memories of the church services, out of town youth rallies and annual summer Youth Camps at Robbers Cave State Park every year. My parents, Curtis & Deborah Dunn, attended Beams of Light in Sapulpa until their deaths in (hers in 2003 and his in his in 2012). My great uncle, Raymond Carter on my father's side was a minister and pastor in the fellowship. My grandfather on my mother’s side was a renowned minister. When not a traveling evangelist, he was pastor of a church (Grace Tabernacle) and did a radio broadcast in Los Angeles in the 1930’s and 1940’s. His name was Gordon Bennington and he also had a newsletter publication called, Rivers of Grace. He, along with my mother, Deborah Bennington and her first husband, Jay Dee Dunnseveral of the Webb family, and Harley Hunt, former pastor of Sapulpa Beams of Light and many, many other early saints attended the Grace & Glory Bible College in Kansas City, Missouri. (Deborah and her first husband, Jay Dee, were married in 1946 by Charles C. Webb at Christian Assembly in Kansas City.)
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While researching online (and finding very little at times), I thought it would be valuable to also briefly summarize some of rich roots and background that led up to the founding of the church (such as information on the early Pentecostal revival in the early part of the 20th century, a little background on the Webb Family, and also information on the Grace & Glory Bible School.) So along with giving as much detailed history of Sapulpa Beams of Light as possible, the goal is to touch just a little on rich history and Godly heritage (and include other related interesting links) telling some of the foundation of the founding of Beams of Light Church in Sapulpa.
Charles Chester Webb (1903-1980) (known as Charles C. Webb or C.C. Webb) was the oldest brother of five children of John T. and Rose Etta Webb. Two of his siblings, Oliver W. Webb (known as O. W. Webb )(1908-1953) and sister Hattie Webb (1905-1997) also became ministers of the gospel. As so many other young people did in the 1930's and 1940's, Charles, O.W. and Hattie all sat under the teachings of A.S. Copley (Grace & Glory Bible School-Kansas City) and Mary M. Bodie and attended there around 1930. A.S. Copley and Mary M. Bodie were greatly influenced by what was called The Revival That Changed A Century that had swept certain parts of the country around 1900 and a few years afterward. Among other Pentecostal denominations that sprang up from this move of the Holy Spirit was the Pentecostal Grace Movement and its fellowship of churches.
O.W. Webb had established Beams of Light Tabernacle in Tulsa in 1944 and also maintained a children's home both while in Bristow and later in Tulsa. From 1936, he also had a widely heard "Beams of Light" Radio Broadcast, that at one time was heard coast to coast. O.W. Webb was also the leader of an undenominational group and a number of churches were established with his help and encouragement. Besides the far reaching Beams of Light radio broadcast, the Beams of Light Fellowship Paper he began (with a mailing list of 22,000 at its peak in 1954), became the Full Gospel Grace Fellowship paper and is still mailed out today on a regular basis over sixty years later though on a smaller scale than at its peak.
Sometime during the late 1940's, Charles C. and his wife Ema with their three children, came to Sapulpa and began Beams of Light Church, at that time, in close association with Beams of Light Tabernacle in Tulsa began a few years before by Charles' younger brother O.W. Webb.
Beams of Light Church in Sapulpa was first called Beams of Light Mission church and had its beginnings at 21 N. Elm Street in downtown Sapulpa in a brick building built by Charles C. Webb that is now occupied by the Sapulpa Masonic Lodge. Several lots of land were then acquired toward the south end of town on the northeast corner of Water and Murphy Streets, and as time went by, some of these lots surrounding the future church location were resold to fund the construction of the new church in 1953.
