Welcome to the Iowa Holiness Association!
A Message from the IHA President Brady Hunter
On behalf of the Iowa Holiness Association (IHA), I welcome you to the official website of the association. Since its inception in 1879, the IHA has promoted the tenets of the Wesleyan-Arminian theological tradition.
This year’s camp meeting, June 8-13, marks our 130th consecutive annual holiness camp meeting. We invite you to join us for a week of challenging, full-gospel preaching, solid, encouraging Bible study, rich fellowship, wonderful worship, and a season of seeking God together! Follow this link for more information about this summer’s camp and those who will be ministering.
Our History
The IHA has its roots in a camp meeting held at Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in June 1873. The purpose of the camp was to promote entire sanctification. At that camp, Rev. John Inskip made clear the need to be born again, then cleansed from all sin. One man who received a pure heart in those meetings was Rev. Isaiah Reid, who soon began publishing a holiness periodical, The Highway. Reid’s paper kept interest growing through the following years.
Rev. Isaiah Reid (1836-1911),
founder and first president
(1879-1908) of the
Iowa Holiness Association.
(Picture, c.1875, courtesy of the Dorothy Reid Daggett Collection.)
Early in 1879 Reid drew up a constitution for a proposed interdenominational state holiness association, and he published it in The Highway. All who wished to form an association were urged to send in their names. To further promote the cause of holiness and to advance the idea of an association, Reid and friend Oliver Hambleton made a 250-mile evangelistic trip around central and southern Iowa by horse and buggy, holding over twenty services. Excitement about the association concept grew.
In July 1879 a permanent organization known as the Iowa Holiness Association was formed at the first IHA Camp Meeting. Held at Jefferson, Iowa in July 1879, the gathering sparked a great spiritual awakening, with many returning to their homes determined to promote scriptural holiness. The annual camp met in a different Iowa location each year, until it was moved to Des Moines in 1888 and then to its present home in University Park, Iowa in 1907. By this time, rallies were being held each month in many Iowa counties to promote the holiness message of the IHA camp. Over the years the preaching of such men as Seth Rees, Joseph H. Smith, C.W. Butler, Harry Blackburn, Quinton Everst, and Gene Phillips has been a blessing to many.
For further reading (on another web site): A helpful article, An Overview of the Life of Rev. Isaiah Reid, details some of the key events and milestones in the life of the Iowa Holiness Association’s founder. Appended to the overview are several sermons by Isaiah Reid. In addition, Isaiah Reid’s full story of the events leading up to The Founding of the Iowa Holiness Association is available.
