2024 THEME: “MAINTAINING OUR CAUSE”
Founders
Bishop G.M. Boone, D.D.
Mother Mae Dee Boone
Bishop George Marshall Boone was born on May 31, 1920 to the union of Shepherd and Fielda Boone, school teachers in their hometown of Oxford, Mississippi. He was blessed to be one of thirteen children favored of God to have two dedicated, loving parents, who committed their lives to their family. As the only boy in the midst of twelve girls, young George learned quite a lot about people and their relations. From his youth he had an inborn sense of responsibility for others, a trait that God would use in later years to make him a leader of men.
​
He grew up through difficult lean years of the depression and segregation, but vividly remembers the love, strength and devotion of his family, which sustained them even through the most difficult times. His parents stressed the importance of education, self-improvement and hard work as keys to survival and success. His church, the Tried Stone Baptist Church, stressed the importance of serving God in the best way possible. At the age of twelve George was baptized and he began to strive to be the best person he could be. Determined to succeed, he began working in various jobs. He received training as a blacksmith, a sawmill laborer, truck driver, and eventually as a barber, who ultimately received his license as a Master Barber. He used this training to help financially support his family.
​
In 1942, at twenty-two years of age, he was inducted into the United States Army. It was during this phase of his life that God began to open his spiritual understanding. While serving his country in the jungles of New Guinea, he accepted the witness of a comrade, Brother O.B. Barnes, who was a member of the Church of God in Christ. He received the good report concerning the Holy Ghost. Bowing in the mud and dirt of the New Guinea jungle, using a wood crate as an altar, he gave up to God and received the Spirit of God that gave utterance. Baptized the following week in the titles, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, he left the answer to God of a clean conscience and felt the call to preach the Good News of Salvation.
​
Young George returned to his hometown of Oxford, Mississippi after completing his military service. In 1946, the same year of his return from the military, he was baptized in JESUS’ NAME under the late District Elder Rush L. Lockhart, Sr., who later became his father-in-law. He began to passionately tell his nearest relatives and friends about this blessed truth. Though they were not ready at that time to receive his message, God watered and cultivated the seed that had been planted. Eventually, his mother and all of his sisters were baptized in Jesus’ Name, with each receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, with the exception of one. This was indeed a fruitful period in which Brother Boone began to grow in the knowledge of His Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Also in 1946, Brother George Boone was united in Holy Matrimony with a young woman who he had known since his early teens, Sister Mae Dee Lockhart, the daughter of District Elder Rush L. Lockhart, Sr.
​
Sister Mae Dee Lockhart was a student of Alcorn College at that time. She had been very instrumental in encouraging her future husband while he was in the service. She had frequently sent him inspiring scriptures and words of edification. The Lord was working on Brother George’s behalf even upon his return from the military service. God began to bless the budding relationship between Brother George and Sister Mae Dee resulting in Holy Matrimony. To this union six children were born, George Ralph, GeRonald, Charles David, the late Alfred Heardie, Sharon, and Shirley Ann. They also have been blessed with two daughters-in-law, Rhonda and Linda, one son-in-law, Mark A. Moore, Sr., and 14 grandchildren and 25 great-grandchildren. All of their children were raised in the church.
​
In 1947, God moved the Boone family to the state of Michigan where Brother Boone was to begin his ministry under the late Bishop Heardie Leaston. Licensed under Bishop Leaston’s ministry, Elder Boone served faithfully as his Assistant Pastor until God sent him to establish his own work. He was ordained in 1960 under the late Bishop S.N. Hancock and later served as a District Elder and Chairman of the Michigan State Council of the Pentecostal Churches of the Apostolic Faith elevated District Elder Boone to the office of Bishop over his own objections. The laying on of their hands only confirmed the high call of God upon his life. In 1970, he felt led of the Lord to establish the Apostolic Assemblies of Christ, Inc. Starting with only seven churches in the states of Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee, the Apostolic Assemblies of Christ, Inc., has grown under Bishop Boone’s leadership to span the globe. In 1989, during the National Convention of the Apostolic Assemblies of Christ, Bishop Bone was honored to receive three DOCTORAL DEGREES, conferred by the Apostolic Academy of Christ Seminary of Cincinnati, Ohio.
​
Since the time that he was saved, Bishop Boone envisioned an assembly of blood-bought believers whose name would be New Liberty. As he worked for the Lord in Michigan, he wanted to believe that this body would be planted in the South, but God didn’t lead that way. So in 1964, NEW LIBERTY APOSTOLIC FAITH CHURCH was born in Detroit, Michigan. Bishop Boone nursed it along as a mother would her younger baby. As he agonized before God for divine direction, God took him to higher heights and deeper depths. As the Lord has blessed the church, Bishop Boone has been careful to ascribe all glory to God, and generously give the credit to those helping him.
​
Looking back, we are sure that he would agree with the words of the songwriter, “Through it all, I’ve learned to depend upon His Word.” But perhaps even more appropriate are the words of the Apostle Paul that our Bishop so often quotes, “Having therefore obtained help of God I continue unto this day…” Acts 26: 22.
​
"Sail on, Little Ship. Sail on."
Bishop G.M. Boone, D.D.
Mother Mae Dee Boone was born March 20, 1923 in Taylor, Mississippi, to the holy union of Rush L. and Beatrice Lockhart. The first born of seven children, Freddie Lee, Vaster Lee, Rush Lee, Jr., Haywood Lee, Lula Mae and Bertha Mae.
​
Some of Mae Dee’s earliest recollections centered around helping to care for her younger brothers and sisters. Thus, at an early age she learned to place the needs of others ahead of her own needs and developed the trait of quiet leadership which has served her so well through the years as a Minister’s Wife, Church Mother and Presiding Bishop’s wife. Though she grew up during trying times of depression and segregation, her parents instilled in her the qualities of cleanliness, to be industrious and personal pride.
​
She graduated from Oxford Training School in Oxford, Mississippi. An honors student throughout her school years, she decided at an early age that she wanted to go to college to become a dietitian. She attended Alcorn College in Alcorn, Mississippi. She was honored in her high school paper as the “most religious girl in school.” While young Mae Dee was still a child, her father and later her mother embraced the message of the baptism in Jesus’ Name and the infilling of the Holy Ghost. At an early age, she was baptized in Jesus name by her father. At the age of 12, she received the precious gift of the Holy Ghost; her Aunt Isabell was tarrying with her when she received the Holy Ghost.
​
​
Subsequently, her father, Elder Rush L. Lockhart, Sr. became a spiritual pioneer, one of the first to carry the Apostolic message throughout the state of Mississippi. He was instrumental in establishing the Southern Tri-State Council of the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World and was later elevated to the office of District Elder.
​
Being reared in a pastor’s home, young Mae Dee remembered not only the things of God, but also about how to deal with the people of God. She attended her father’s church, True Church of Jesus Christ in Oxford, Mississippi. She was serious about her walk with God and was determined to do whatever her Heavenly Father might ask. With only one exception – she did not wish to marry a minister. Little did she know the things that God had in store for her future! In her early teens, she became acquainted with a dashing, handsome, athletic and somewhat mischievous young man by the name of GEORGE MARSHALL BOONE. At that time, he was not yet saved according to Acts 2:38. Yet God was planting the seeds of a love that would later grow to matrimony in their hearts. Before he was inducted into the United States Army, George Boone asked Mae Dee if she would return his letters. In her modest, quiet way, she simply withheld her answer. Later, he wrote to Elder Lockhart with news that he had received the Holy Ghost while in the jungles of New Guinea, George ask Elder Lockhart to ask Mae Dee to send scriptures to him, and Mae Dee wrote to him and told him to read the book of Esther.
​
Brother George Boone was honorably discharged from the United States Army while Sister Mae Dee was a student at Alcorn College, majoring in Home Economics. After a short courtship, she and Brother George were united in Holy Matrimony on August 25, 1946. To this union 6 children was born George Ralph, GeRonald, Charles David, Alfred Heardie (deceased), Sharon Ann and Shirley Ann. She has 2 daughters in law, Rhonda and Linda, 1son in law, Mark A. Moore, Sr., 14 grandchildren and 25 great grandchildren.
​
As God would have it, when Brother George finally professed the call that had been burning within him for some time to preach the Gospel, Sister Mae Dee submitted to the will of God. She told her husband that if he was determined to be a preacher, “You had better be a good one and not a jackleg.” 68 years of marriage, she has stood by his side as his help meet, working in her own quiet way to help him achieve his goals.
​
In 1947, they moved to Detroit, Michigan and joined Zion Apostolic Faith Church under the leadership of Bishop Heardie Leaston. She served at Zion as the church Secretary and worked in the kitchen. She worked hard to help raise their six (6) children in the fear of God and was blessed to witness all of her children baptized in Jesus’ Name and filled with the Holy Ghost.
​
In 1964, her husband founded the New Liberty Apostolic Faith Church also in 1970 Bishop Boone founded the Apostolic Assemblies of Christ. In all of her various capacities as Wife, Mother, Grandmother, Great-Grandmother, Bishop’s Wife, Church Mother and First Lady to the Presiding Bishop, Mother Boone has sought to be an asset rather than a liability to her husband’s ministry. Her favorite scripture “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” Psalms 133:1 has been a guiding influence in her relationship with the people of God.
​
Not content to rest upon her own laurels or her husband’s accomplishments, Mother Boone went back to school some years ago and obtained her Real Estate license thus mastering another profession beyond that of wife and homemaker. She worked at Bowers Real Estate and Staten Real Estate.
One of Mother Boone’s most observable characteristics is her shy, quiet smile behind her hand.According to the scriptures, one of the rewards of a virtuous woman is that her children shall rise up and call her blessed. We, her spiritual children, add our voices to those of her natural children in saying…. Mother Mae Dee Boone You Truly Are a Blessed Woman of God.
​
​