PENTECOSTAL AND Charismatic churches today have about 500 million adherents and is growing at a rate of 50,000 new members per day, according to some religious demographers.
Life Magazine has listed the Azusa Street Revival as No. 62
on its list of "The 100 Most Important Events & People of the Past 1,000 Years." Meantime,
the Religion Newswriters Association named the Azusa Street Revival on its top 10
events of the millennium.
There are many varieties of Pentecostalism. These are united, however, in their belief that the Baptism of the Holy Spirit opens the doorway to spiritual gifts such as speaking in tongues, prophecy, signs and miracles, especially healing. These, they say, should be the normative experience of every Christian as they were to Jesus' apostles after The Day of Pentecost, as described in the New Testament book of Acts.
FOUNDING FATHER
At the heart of the story is an African-American pastor, William Joseph Seymour, who opened the Apostolic Faith Mission at 312 Azusa Street, in downtown Los Angeles, where thousands attended in a multicultural environment, something unheard of in his day, in April 1906.
Though few outside Pentecostalism know of him, Seymour was the true founding father of the movement, pastoring the first distinctively Pentecostal church in the world.
Born, 1870, he was a son of slaves from Louisiana, who migrated to Indianapolis where he was converted to Christ and joined a coloured Methodist Episcopal Church. In seeking
to deepen his spiritual life he
visited various Christian groups in different States. This quest took him to Houston in 1902 or 1903, where he was to hear the new Pentecostal teaching for the first time. There in Houston, he attended a segregated Bible
college, founded by evangelist, Charles A. Parham. The
evangelist could not have Seymour inside the college
due to discrimination laws,
so he sat outside the classroom window to learn!
In this school, Seymour
heard the evangelist preaching
foundational Pentecostal doctrine, or the "Apostolic Faith," as Parham called it. Seymour became convinced that Parham's teaching on the baptism of the Holy Spirit, with the initial
evidence of tongues, was soundly Biblical and added it to his
well-established Wesleyan-Holiness theological system.
TONGUES OF TRUTH
In February 1906, Seymour accepted an invitation to move to Los Angeles and lead a small holiness pastorate. For his first Sunday morning sermon, Seymour preached in no uncertain terms that 'tongues' were the evidence of the true baptism with the Holy Spirit. Without this 'evidence' no one could claim that he or she had been baptised in the Spirit. Unfortunately this was not part of the accepted teachings of the holiness movement, which generally taught that sanctification and the baptism with the Holy Spirit were the same experience. When Seymour returned for the evening service he found the doors padlocked. A Mr. Edward Lee took pity on this homeless and penniless preacher and offered him temporary accommodation.
Not long after, he accepted an invitation to minister in a small home Bible study and prayer meeting in the home of Richard and Ruth Asberry at 214 North Bonnie Brae Street. It was here that the Spirit of God was outpoured.
Seymour announced a 10-day fast to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. On the evening of Monday, April 9, 1906, before he left for the Asberry home, Seymour stopped to pray with Edward Lee for a healing. Lee had earlier related a vision he had had the night before in which Jesus' 12 Apostles came to him and explained how to speak in tongues. Lee then asked Seymour to pray with him to receive the baptism with the Holy Spirit. They prayed together, and Lee immediately received and began speaking in other tongues. This was the first occasion of anyone receiving the baptism with the Holy Spirit when Seymour prayed for them.
Rushing to the meeting at the Asberry home, Seymour related what had just happened to Lee to the packed meeting. Lee then lifted up his hands and began to speak in other tongues. Spontaneous and passionate prayer for the baptism with the Holy Spirit broke out throughout the house. Soon their prayers were answered when Seymour and seven others fell to the floor in a religious ecstasy, speaking with other tongues as they received the Holy Spirit baptism.
Jennie Evans Moore, who would later become Seymour's wife, began to play beautiful music on an old upright piano, and to sing in what people said was Hebrew. Up until this time she had never played the piano, and although she never took a lesson, she was able to play the instrument for the rest of her life.
GROWING IN THE SPIRIT
They could hardly keep what had happened a secret neither did they have any desire to do so. Meetings at the Bonnie Brae house ran 24 hours a day for at least three days. People reported falling under the power of God and receiving the baptism with the Holy Spirit with the evidence of tongues while listening to Seymour preach from across the street. Groups from every culture and race began to find their way to 214 Bonnie Brae Street desperately seeking for more of God.
The crowds grew so large it became impossible to get close to the house, and the press of people who tried to get into the house became so great that the foundation collapsed, sending the front porch crashing into the steep front yard. No one was hurt. It became necessary to find a larger location to house the growing numbers of seekers, hungry for God.
A suitable place was soon found and rented at 312 Azusa Street, and the mission was begun.
It was an abandoned two-storey building located in the old
downtown industrial district, which was a part of an African-American ghetto area.
REPORTS
One historian reported: "Meetings begin at 10 o'clock every morning and are continued until near midnight. Proud
preachers and laymen with great heads, filled and inflated with all kinds of theories and beliefs, have come here from all parts, have humbled themselves and got down and have wept in conscious emptiness before God and begged to be 'endued with power from on high,' and every honest believer has received the wonderful
incoming of the Holy Spirit to fill and thrill and melt and energise his physical frame and faculties, and the Spirit has witnessed to
His presence by using the vocal organs in the speaking forth of
a 'new tongue'."
Frank Bartleman, author of What really happened at Azusa Street states: "Divine love was wonderfully manifest in the
meetings. They would not even allow an unkind word said against their opposers or the churches."
One man at Azusa said,
"I would have rather lived six months at that time than 50 years of ordinary life. I have stopped more than once within two blocks of the place and prayed for strength before I dared go on. The presence of the Lord was so real."
Scores of people were seen dropping into a prostrate position in the streets before they even reached the mission. Then many would get up, speaking in tongues without any influence from the Azusa people. God had come to accomplish His work!
Historian, G. H. Lang
reported "Scores of personal and eyewitness accounts attest that many who came to ridicule the meetings were knocked to the floor where they seemed to
wrestle with unseen opponents, sometimes for hours. These
people generally arose convicted of sin and seeking God.
One foreign-born reporter had been assigned by his paper to record the "circus-like" atmosphere in a comic-relief fashion. He attended a night-time meeting, sitting far in the back. In the midst of the meeting a young woman began to testify about how God had baptised her with the Holy Spirit when she
suddenly broke into tongues.
After the meeting the reporter sought her out and asked her where she had learned the language of his native country. She answered that she didn't have any idea what she had said, and that she spoke only English. He then related to her that she had given an entirely accurate account of his sinful life, all in the language of his native tongue."
Other eyewitnesses reported
seeing a holy glow emanating from the building that could be seen from streets away. Others reported hearing sounds from the wooden building like explosions that reverberated around the neighbourhood. Such phenomena caused onlookers to call the Fire Department out on several occasions when a blaze or explosion was reported at the
mission building.
William Joseph Seymour died of a heart attack in 1922. A play known as Miracle on Azusa Street is sometimes produced to commemorate him and the revival. A feature film on Seymour's life entitled Azusa Street began
production in 2006, the centennial anniversary of the Azusa Street Revival. The film is written and directed by Richard Rossi. Seymour has been named one of the top 10 Christians of the 20th century by Christian History magazine.
The fires of Azusa Street have spread to many nations of the world. Pentecostalism is alive and its growth continues unabated.
Tony Cauchi is the librarian
at the Revival Library, Kings Centre, Bishop's Waltham, Hants, UK. More information
on global revivals may be found at www.revival-library.org.
Mr Cauchi may be reached via email at tony@revival-library.org. Send feedback to mark.dawes@gleanerjm.com
