On September 18, 2025, United Pentecostal Church pastor Steve Waldron made a brief video comparing the size of the 1990 edition of the UPCI’s Manual and the 2024 edition. He shared that the 2024 edition was 309 pages and the 1990 was 136. As an added note, the 2025 edition has 319 pages.
He questioned why there was such a difference in size, wondering if it could be a change in the print size and mentioned there being more position papers and very little changes in the Articles of Faith. He also mentioned that a person doesn’t “ever want to see your walk with the Lord replaced by the rules of men.”
He shared how he preferred a hard copy of the Manual and that the UPCI used to send one every year to their ministers, but stopped that around about 15 years ago. If a minister wants a physical copy, they now must order and pay for one. Waldron mentioned that he is more prone to read it if he has a copy in his hands as compared to a digital copy.
I applaud him for reading all or part of the Manual each year as my guess is that the majority of UPCI ministers do not do this. I’ve known this from conversing with some of them, who were unaware of something mentioned in a Manual. For instance, I’ve heard their ministers erroneously claim that the UPCI is only a ministerial organization, when from their inception their Manuals have clearly stated otherwise at the beginning of their General Constitution.
The last hard copy of the Manual I have is from 2018 and it’s 215 pages. I also have the 1990 edition and it’s 143 pages. (Waldron gave the page number for when it ends, but didn’t include the mostly blank pages after that. If we do the same for 2018, it has 211.)
I recently was able to obtain the first UPCI Manual from when Howard Goss was the General Superintendent and it has 88 pages, though it ends at 86, and the dimensions are noticeably smaller. For awhile they used to combine the Manual and Directories into one publication and in the 1952 edition, which is very close to the dimensions of the first Manual, there were 248/246 pages.
So why is there such a difference between 86 pages in the beginning to 309 in 2024? (Almost 100 more pages from 2018 till 2024.) Part of the reason is because as time went on, more sections were included. They didn’t use to include their position papers and judicial procedure. Then they added the General Board Policies section, which brought more than 30 pages, and later added a section that includes resources for local churches, which added about 30 more pages. These four additions are positive ones.
Besides the above, as the UPCI has grown, they have added departments and positions and this requires changes to the Manual that spell out the purpose, officers and their duties and qualifications, finances and more. In addition to this, every year there are changes to the Manual. Sometimes sections are removed or clarified and others are added. These often come from resolutions which are voted upon at General Conference.
The Manual also underwent a much needed revision in recent years, though I’m unsure how this impacted the size.
If you wish to watch Steve Waldron’s video, go here.
