Spurling and eight others organized the Christian Union at the Barney Creek Meeting House on August 19, 1886 in Monroe County, Tennessee.[5] In 1896, three Tennessee evangelists (William Martin, Joe M. Tipton, and Milton McNabb) with links to Benjamin H. Irwin's Fire-Baptized Holiness Church brought the message of entire sanctification to the western North Carolina countryside when they held a revival in the Shearer Schoolhouse near Camp Creek in Cherokee County.A feature of this revival was that some participants, including children, spoke in tongues when they experienced sanctification (this was later understood to be the baptism of the Holy Ghost, as spoken of in Acts 2).This phenomenon caused great excitement and controversy in the community, and leading Baptist and Methodist leaders soon denounced the revival.[6] The worshipers began to meet in the house of William F. Bryant (1863–1949), a Baptist deacon prior to his joining the holiness movement, who assumed leadership of the group.[7] Organization was made necessary because Irwin's more fanatical teachings were influencing the movement, and there was a need for authority to discipline erring members.[8] It would be Ambrose Jessup Tomlinson and his organizational skills, however, that would be responsible for the growth of the Camp Creek Holiness Church into a national denomination.A Quaker and colporteur (the publishing and distribution of religious materials) for the American Bible Society, Tomlinson had received the sanctification experience (but had not spoken in tongues) and had connections with Frank Sandford's Shiloh church in Durham, Maine."[11] The 1st Assembly decided that foot washing was on the same level as the sacrament of communion and, like other holiness groups, condemned the use of tobacco.[13] The Church of God was a part of the holiness movement and believed in entire sanctification as a definite experience occurring after salvation.Cashwell had returned to the South after being baptized in the Spirit at Azusa Street, spreading the revival and bringing many holiness groups into the Pentecostal fold.