The International Church of the Foursquare Gospel is an evangelical Pentecostal Christian denomination. Commonly referred to as the Foursquare Church, as of 2000, it had a worldwide membership of over 8,000,000, with almost 60,000 churches in 144 countries. In 2006, membership in the United States was 353,995 in 1,875 churches. While congregations are concentrated along the West Coast, the denomination is well distributed across the United States. The states with the highest membership rates are Oregon, Hawaii, Montana, Washington, and California. Headquarters are in Los Angeles, California.
Aimee Semple McPherson (1890-1944), an evangelist known as "Sister Aimee", founded the Foursquare Church in 1927. Los Angeles was her center of operations, and Angelus Temple, seating 5,300 people, was opened in Echo Park in 1923. McPherson was a celebrity, participating in publicity events, such as weekly Sunday parades through the streets of Los Angeles, along with the mayor and movie stars, directly to Angelus Temple. She built the temple, and L. I. F. E. Bible College next door to it, on the northwest corner of land she owned in the middle of the city.
Her son, Rolf K. McPherson, became president and leader of the church after Aimee Semple McPherson's death in 1944, a position he held for 44 years. Under his leadership, the denomination grew from around 400 churches to over 10,000.[citation needed] The Foursquare Church formed the "Pentecostal Fellowship of North America" in 1948 in Des Moines, Iowa, in an alliance with the Assemblies of God, the Church of God [disambiguation needed], the Open Bible Standard Churches, the Pentecostal Holiness Church, and others.
On May 31, 1988, Dr. John R. Holland became the Church's third President, a position he held until July 1997. In 1994, 46 years after the founding of the Pentecostal Fellowship, it was reorganized as the Pentecostal/Charismatic Churches of North America, after combining with African-American organizations, most significantly the Church of God in Christ.
In October 2003, under Risser's tenure, the church sold Los Angeles radio station KFSG-FM to Spanish Broadcasting System for $250 million. Risser's leadership led to another high-profile controversy for the church, when without the involvement of the denomination's board of directors and finance council, church funds were invested in firms that targeted the "close-knit evangelical community" but turned out to be Ponzi schemes. Risser resigned his leadership position in March 2004.
Jack Hayford has announced that he will not seek a second term as president. An interim president, Glenn Burris Jr. has been appointed until the next annual convention where it is expected that a new President will be chosen.
The Foursquare Church believes in the following:
In the United States, the church is divided into districts and then into divisions and finally individual churches. A General Supervisor oversees the national office and district supervisors, and district supervisors oversee divisional superintendents who oversee individual churches within the local region. Glenn C. Burris, Jr., currently (2004) serves as General Supervisor.
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