Azusa Street Revival
Seymour was invited to Los Angeles for a one-month engagement at a local church, but found himself barred due to his controversial views on baptism with the Holy Spirit after his first Sunday.
Stanley H. Frodsham, in his book, With Signs Following, quotes an eye-witness description of the scene: The revival was characterized by spiritual experiences accompanied with testimonies of physical healing miracles,[4] worship services, and speaking in tongues.
In 1905, William J. Seymour, a 34-year-old son of freed slaves, was a student of well-known Pentecostal preacher Charles Parham and an interim pastor for a small holiness church in Topeka, Kansas.
[6][7] Neely Terry, an African American woman who attended a small holiness church pastored by Julia Hutchins in Los Angeles, made a trip to visit family in Houston late in 1905.
[8] While in Houston, she visited Seymour's church, where he preached on receiving the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in other tongues, and though he had not experienced this personally, Terry was impressed with his character and message.
[8][10] Seymour arrived in Los Angeles on February 22, 1906,[11][12][13] and within two days was preaching at Julia Hutchins' church at the corner of Ninth Street and Santa Fe Avenue.
He was invited to stay in the home of congregation member Edward S. Lee, and he began to hold Bible studies and prayer meetings there.
[16] Seymour and his small group of new followers soon relocated to the home of Richard and Ruth Asberry at 216 North Bonnie Brae Street.
On April 9, 1906, after five weeks of Seymour's preaching and prayer, and three days into an intended 10-day fast,[15] Edward S. Lee spoke in tongues for the first time.
[19][20] News of the events at North Bonnie Brae St. quickly circulated among the African American, Latino and white residents of the city, and for several nights, various speakers would preach to the crowds of curious and interested onlookers from the front porch of the Asberry home.
Since the church had moved out, the building had served as a wholesale house, a warehouse, a lumberyard, stockyards, a tombstone shop, and had most recently been used as a stable with rooms for rent upstairs.
Frank Bartleman, an early participant in the revival, recalled that "Brother Seymour generally sat behind two empty shoe boxes, one on top of the other.
[24] People from a diversity of backgrounds came together to worship: men, women, children, Black, White, Asian, Native American, immigrants, rich, poor, illiterate, and educated.
[14]The Los Angeles Times was not so kind in its description: Meetings are held in a tumble-down shack on Azusa Street, and the devotees of the weird doctrine practice the most fanatical rites, preach the wildest theories and work themselves into a state of mad excitement in their peculiar zeal.
Colored people and a sprinkling of whites compose the congregation, and night is made hideous in the neighborhood by the howlings of the worshippers, who spend hours swaying forth and back in a nerve racking attitude of prayer and supplication.
[9]The first edition of the Apostolic Faith publication claimed a common reaction to the revival from visitors: Proud, well-dressed preachers came to "investigate".
Soon their high looks were replaced with wonder, then conviction comes, and very often you will find them in a short time wallowing on the dirty floor, asking God to forgive them and make them as little children.
The core membership of the Azusa Street Mission was never many more than 50–60 individuals, with hundreds if not thousands of people visiting or staying temporarily over the years.
[26] In a skeptical front-page story titled "Weird Babel of Tongues",[24] a Los Angeles Times reporter attempted to describe what would soon be known as the Azusa Street Revival.
"Breathing strange utterances and mouthing a creed which it would seem no sane mortal could understand", the story began, "the newest religious sect has started in Los Angeles".
[27] Another local paper reporter in September 1906 described the happenings with the following words: disgraceful intermingling of the races...they cry and make howling noises all day and into the night.
They run, jump, shake all over, shout to the top of their voice, spin around in circles, fall out on the sawdust blanketed floor jerking, kicking and rolling all over it.
They have a one eyed, illiterate, Negro as their preacher who stays on his knees much of the time with his head hidden between the wooden milk crates.
[19] Christians from many traditions were critical, saying the movement was hyper-emotional, misused Scripture and lost focus on Christ by overemphasizing the Holy Spirit.
[28] Issues were published occasionally up until May 1908, mostly through the work of Seymour and a white woman named Clara Lum,[20] a member of the Apostolic Faith Mission.
Seymour remained there with his wife, Jennie, for the rest of their lives as pastors of the small African American congregation,[22] though he often made short trips to help establish other smaller revivals later in life.
[14] As The Apostolic Faith and many secular reports advertised the events of the Azusa Street Revival internationally, thousands of individuals visited the mission in order to witness it firsthand.
[22][24] Reverend K. E. M. Spooner visited the revival in 1909 and became one of the Pentecostal Holiness Church's most effective missionaries in Africa, working among the Tswana people of Botswana.
[9] Missionary Bernt Bernsten traveled to the area from North China to investigate the happenings after hearing that the biblical prophecy of Acts 2:4 was being fulfilled.
[8][20] So many missionaries went out from Azusa (some thirty-eight left in October 1906) that within two years the movement had spread to over fifty nations, including Britain, Scandinavia, Germany, Holland, Egypt, Syria, Palestine, South Africa, Hong Kong, China, Ceylon and India.
