Rev. B. S. Cole

Bennie Cole was born October 22, 1930, into a good Baptist family of three children, with an older sister and brother. He was introduced to Pentecost at age fifteen by two neighborhood brothers: Baron and Kenneth Pope. They both became members (together with a sister, Robbie, and a younger brother, Richard) of the church Bennie later founded in 1967 and continued to pastor until his retirement after forty-four years.

On February 22, 1948, Bennie received the Holy Ghost lying flat on his back on top of the floor furnace at 967 South Pryor Street, Atlanta, Georgia, and felt a call to the ministry shortly thereafter.

He married his pastor's daughter, Rachel Montgomery, on January 2, 1949, and volunteered to relieve his pastor, T.C. Montgomery, of the responsibilities of church janitor. He also led the song and worship service.

Twenty-one months later, on November 23, 1950, a son, Benjamin Stephen Jr., was born to this couple.

In 1951 Bennie Cole and his wife resigned their jobs in Atlanta for him to enroll in the Pentecostal Bible Institute and for her to serve as the first secretary for the Tupelo Children's Mansion. Another son, Phillip, was born to Bennie and Rachel on October 5, 1952, in Tupelo, Mississippi.

In 1954 at the age of twenty-four, he graduated from the Pentecostal Bible Institute, returned to Atlanta with his family, and assisted his brother-in-law, Pastor R. B. Montgomery, at First Pentecostal Church.

At the Southeastern District conference in 1954, he was approved for local license and elected to serve as the youth director for the North Georgia section of that district. In 1956 the district conference elected him to serve as youth president, and he remained on that committee for the next three years.

On October 22, 1958, Bennie's present for his twenty-eighth birthday was a bundle of joy named Malinda Joy.

On April 9, 1959, the Southeastern District conference convened in Ocala, Florida, and Bro. Bennie Cole was elected to serve as Conquerors president of the newly formed Georgia-South Carolina District. Camp meetings and conferences were held under a tent erected on a plot of donated land on Nowhere Road in Athens, GA.

In 1963 Bennie Cole was elected the new pastor of the United Pentecostal Church of Athens, Georgia, where he served for four years. On October 23, 1963, a new member was added to the family. Daniel Lee was born the day after his father's thirty-third birthday.

At the close of their fourth year in Athens, Bennie Cole began to feel a deep burden for his home town of Atlanta: such a large city with so few churches. They began to pray for God's perfect will in this matter. He told his wife that he wanted to raise up a church that would give more to missions than it would cost to build the local church itself.

On July 11, 1969, Bennie and Rachel had their fifth and final child, Jonathan Mark.

At the district conference on September 8, 1977, Bennie Cole was appointed to fill the unexpired term of the secretary treasurer of the Georgia District. He remained in that office for ten years until 1987.

In 1979 he was elected to fill the unexpired term of the resigning Southern Regional Presbyter and served on the Executive Board of the UPCI. He was reelected the following year for a two-year term.

In 1980 Apostolic Tabernacle moved to its current location. At the District Conference of 1987, Bishop C. C. Wheatley stunned the conference with his resignation as district superintendent due to health problems. The conference elected B. S. Cole to the office and he continued to serve for eighteen years.

In addition to all the foregoing, Bennie Cole served thirty-eight years on the board of directors of the Tupelo Children's Mansion, and seven years on the Board of Directors of New Beginnings. He passed from this life on June 17, 2018.