Bishop R. Goodwin was born in Columbia SC, March 26, 1917, the third of seven boys of the ten children born to Mr. and Mrs. Goodwin.  From day one, on  making his entrance into this world of the lost and sinful, the midwife, Fannie Mander, who delivered his at birth, in handing him to his mother said these words: Margaret, HERE’S YOUR PREACHER! How prophetic were those words spoken by an obscure midwife not realizing the mighty work that God was unfolding – a GIFT of an apostle to a dying world.

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Through the years Bishop Goodwin has had his share of conflicts, oppositions, and persecutions.  The devil know he was here to root up, to pull down and to break down the unfruitful works of darkness. 

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After running a while in sin and darkness as every unregenerate man or women, the call of God was made on his life, similarly to the conversion of the apostle Paul.  In 1947 he was knocked down in Chicago on Roosevelt near Blue Island Avenue.  Knowing that he was facing, death he asked the Lord:  Lord, am I dead?  The Lord said, ‘Not yet, call on my name and I’ll save you!’  There he promised the Lord to serve his the rest of his life, only help him to live his life all over new again.  Which prayer God honored and saved him.  He was baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, tarried four days until God filled him with the precious gift of the Holy Ghost, speaking in tongues as the Spirit gives utterance.  In 1948, the Lord blessed him and revealed to him that ‘The Holy Temple’ is the Title of God’s body – the church.

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We can say with the Psalmist David, ‘Blessed is the man whom thou choosest and causest to approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts:  we shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house, even of thy holy temple.’  (Psalms 65:4) Truly he is blessed and all those under his ministry are blessed.  As the song we so often sing at Headquarters ‘We are blessed, we are blessed!  We don’t deserve it, but yet we are blessed

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Written By Bro. K. Richards