Pentecostal Body Elects New Leader

The International Pentecostal Holiness Church (IPHC) has elected its longtime evangelism director to head the 4 million-member denomination.

Bishop Ronald Carpenter Sr. was elected general superintendent of the IPHC on Friday during the church’s 26th annual General Conference held last week in Greensboro, N.C.

Carpenter, whose term begins in September, spent the last 12 years as executive director of Evangelism USA, an IPHC outreach. He previously served as the superintendent of the denomination’s Upper South Carolina Conference before being elected vice chairman of the IPHC in 2005.

Carpenter succeeds Bishop James D. Leggett, who saw the church expand into 100 nations during his 12-year tenure. He currently serves as chairman of the Pentecostal World Fellowship and will become president of Holmes Bible College in Greenville, S.C., in September.