Tennessee had Tri-City services planned for Knoxville, Nashville and Memphis….

Tennessee had Tri-City services planned for Knoxville, Nashville and Memphis. An outside speaker was brought in. Memphis’ meeting took place in Ellis Auditorium and the scheduled speaker was T. L. Lowery.

I served as chairman of the usher committee. It was a simple task and all went well except I had forgotten to tell the ushers we needed a head count. When we turned in the offering to the state council men in a room off from the auditorium they ask me for a head count. Hastily I gathered the ushers and said we need a head count. The auditorium was large and people were scattered. The ushers got counts in their designated area and the total was (I can’t remember) but it was below 300 maybe around 200. I wrote the specified number and went to the councilors and gave them the written number and they all laughed at me. I had no idea what they were laughing about.

Several months later the West Tennessee Camp meeting took place and Orville Hagan, state overseer gave an exciting report of the tri-city services and Memphis had over 500 in attendance.

Then a few months later we attended the Dallas General Assembly and again Hagan spoke about the success of the Tennessee tri-city meetings. Memphis had over 1000 in attendance!!

This is what the Church of God refers to an evangelistic count. It is an exaggerated count to glorify the meeting.