The OMS Holiness Church was created as an outgrowth of the Oriental Missionary Society (OMS). In 1901, OMS was born in a storefront building in the heart of Tokyo, Japan. American missionaries Charles and Lettie Cowman partnered with a Japanese minister, Juji Nakada. They began holding Christian evangelistic meetings for 2,000 consecutive nights. (Lettie Cowman was the author of the best-selling devotional, Streams in the Desert.) Japanese churches were organized soon after, and the new association flourished in the Japanese Holiness Church (JHC).
Meeting at 36 Denker Place
In the United States, the Japanese Holiness Church was founded by six Japanese men and women in their early twenties. All but one were immigrants, born and raised in Japan, and the other was an American-born Japanese. These young people prayed for the salvation of Japanese immigrants in America, which gave birth to the vision of starting their on church.
In April 1921, they founded the Los Angeles Holiness Church in a small house near 36th Place and Denker Street, just west of the University of Southern California’s Central Los Angeles campus.
By 1936, meetings were conducted in homes across West Angeles. These meetings became the foundation of the West Los Angeles Holiness Church (WLAHC), officially established in 1955.
The Holiness Church of North America is affiliated with the Japan Holiness Church One Mission Society, formerly the Oriental Missionary Society (OMS), and other sister Holiness Conferences such as the Evangelical Holiness Church of Brazil, Taiwan Holiness Church, and the Korea Evangelical Holiness Church.
Juji Nakada
Charles & Lettie Cowmans
The greater OMS Holiness Church of North America is a conference of churches composed of local fellowships, where it finds its substance and purpose. Our church members are in a restored and intimate relationship with God and His mercy and grace through Jesus Christ, His Son. We are a congregation compelled by Christ’s love to the Good News of His grace with the world being saved and called in by God’s grace. This is our highest calling and greatest joy. We affirm that all church members are called and gifted in ministry through the Body of Christ. This includes those God called to serve as pastors whose ministries teach the Word, shepherding and equipping those under their care.
OMS Holiness Church of North America
(The OMS Holiness Church is not associated with the International Pentecostal Holiness Church.)
