The agency of women in the African American church and the intersection of beliefs and social is the core of the book project that I am engaged in, titled, “Making a Sanctified World: Women in the Church of God in Christ, to be published with the University of North Carolina Press. COGIC, a Black Pentecostal denomination that is at times referred to as the Sanctified Church, was founded in 1896, and has had a separate Women’s Department since 1912.COGIC, as a denomination, has not ordained women, yet women have held a prominent role in the building and education of the denomination. Leadership for women within COGIC is anchored in the office of church mother. A revered matron in the Black Church tradition, the church mother is regarded as the spiritual head of the congregation, a foil to the pastor. Within the Women’s Department of COGIC, the church mother’s role became much more. She became an educator, a builder, and a clubwoman, but her identity was grounded first and foremost as a sanctified woman. Over time, these church mothers roles evolved, engaging education, public service, and politics. COGIC church mothers negotiation of the sanctified life and the unsanctified world reveals their activities and agency as more than otherworldly and sectarian, but community affirming and identity building. These historic tensions of Church mother’s negotiation of the sanctified life, modernity, and traditional gender roles allows for the re-consideration of Pentecostal Black churches as more than simply sectarian movements, but as a vital resource in the understanding of how women’s beliefs and civic engagement helped in the process of community building for African American men and women.