From a message by F. F. Johnson, Foreign Missionary Secretary, to the 36th General Assembly in 1941.
The Church came up the 13th day of June, 1903, and the aeroplane six months later, December 17, 1903. The Church in the extreme western part and the plane in the extreme eastern part of the same state—North Carolina. The first plane flew only a few yards, but it accomplished its purpose and proved to the world that men could do the seemingly impossible—fly. The American Government was slow to accept this new invention, so its inventors went to England with their invention, and there sold their plane and patent, and thus they developed the aeroplane. And while the planes have had many crashes and terrible accidents, they continue to make aeroplanes and today after thirty-seven years and nine months they have almost reached mechanical perfection.
So it is with the Church of God. It came up six months before the aeroplane, and all other organizations refuse to have anything to do with this that has sprung up in the Fields of the Wood, at the foot of Burger Mountain, in Cherokee County, North Carolina, as was prophesied of by David in the 132nd Psalm. Just a few humble followers accepted this that had sprung up in the Fields of the Wood. Its doctrine was too pure; man-made creeds and carnal institutions scoffed at its teachings; persecutions were terrible; Church houses were burned, and yet the work spread. Its followers claimed to be part and parcel of that early Church that had reached such glorious heights and beauty, and then crashed and lay dormant for twelve hundred and sixty years[Historian’s Note: Actually it was 1,578 years], its headquarters destroyed. And so it had to go far away as told by the prophet Isaiah and come up in the new world at the foot of Burger Mountain in the Fields of the Wood, as told by the Psalmist. Two and one half years elapsed before there was an Assembly for the last days Church of God, and in that Assembly it was urged that evangelism must be encouraged to spread into every open door, and surely that meant all the world by that Assembly. Because surely the Isles shall wait for me, and they are waiting for the Arise, shine to come to them.
The aeroplanes are going into all of the world. Their traveling facilities are wonderful. They have a regular schedule into all parts of the world, and the Church of God is commissioned to “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15).