The Azusa Street Revival (1906 - 1913) 

Although the newspapers ridiculed Seymour and called him "an old colored exhorter, blind in one eye" (he was 35 when he arrived in Los Angeles), Seymour rode out the persecution and became the primary leader in the Azusa outpouring. 

He urged people to lift up Jesus. "Don't go out of here talking about tongues; talk about Jesus," he would say. Joseph Kelly, a missionary to the Philippines was in the U.S. and decided to go to the meetings and "expose the tongues business." When he arrived, one Spirit-filled woman began to speak to him in a language she didn't know. Kelly nearly fell off his chair. She had spoken the language of a hostile Philippine tribe located in the interior of Mindanao where he had ministered.

George Studd, who had been a member of the famous English cricket team, the "Cambridge Seven," and the brother of missionary C.T. Studd, was baptized in the Spirit at the Azusa meetings and gave away his inherited fortune to Christian causes.

Among those who received the baptism in the Holy Spirit was Charles H. Mason who turned the Church of God in Christ into a Pentecostal blaze.

Gaston B. Cashwell returned to the South from Azusa street and saw several Holiness organizations turn Pentecostal, including the Pentecostal Holiness Church, the Fire-Baptized Holiness Church and the Pentecostal Free-Will Baptist Church.

Azusa street was a revival of major proportions. Thousands came to Christ. Segregationists saw that "the color line was washed away by the Blood," as writer Frank Bartleman, who chronicled those days, said. He promoted the revival by sending out up to 500 news reports about it to publications all over the world.

What happened at Azusa Street has fascinated church historians for decades and has yet to be fully understood and explained. For over three years, the Azusa Street "Apostolic Faith mission" conducted three services a day, seven days a week, where thousands of seekers received the tongues baptism. Word of the revival was spread abroad through The Apostolic Faith, a paper that Seymour sent free of charge to some 50,000 subscribers. From Azusa Street Pentecostalism spread rapidly around the world and began its advance toward becoming a major force in Christendom.

The Azusa Street movement seems to have been a merger of White American Holiness religion with worship styles derived from the African-American Christian tradition which had developed since the days of chattel slavery in the South. The expressive worship and praise at Azusa Street, which included shouting and dancing, had been common among Appalachian Whites as well as Southern Blacks. The mixture of tongues and other gifts with Black music and worship styles created a new and indigenous form of Pentecostalism that was to prove extremely attractive to disinherited and deprived people, both in America and other nations of the world.

The interracial aspects of the movement in Los Angeles was a striking exception to the racism and segregation of the times. The phenomenon of Blacks and Whites worshipping together under a Black pastor seemed incredible to many observers.

Another Azusa Pilgrim was William H. Durham of Chicago. After receiving his tongues experience at Azusa Street in 1907 he returned to Chicago where he led thousands of mid-western Americans and Canadians into the Pentecostal movement. He had traveled halfway across the country by train to see the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Los Angeles.

Had Durham read and believed reports in the Los Angeles Daily Times, he would have stayed in Chicago. Scorn and ridicule dripped from the Times reports which told of a "new sect of fanatics breaking loose". Turning off San Pedro Street onto the short block of Azusa Street, Durham soon stood before an old, two-story building that had once been an African Methodist Episcopal church and later a stable. "As soon as I entered the place I saw that God was there," Durham wrote. Hundreds of people were there yet, he noted that it appeared nobody was in charge, "The Holy Ghost seemed to have perfect control. My soul melted before the Lord," he later said.

William Durham

The Assemblies of God was birthed in the fires of revival that swept the world at the turn of this century. Participants in the revival were filled with the Holy Spirit in similar fashion to the disciples and followers of Jesus on the Jewish Feast of Pentecost. So participants in this revival were called "Pentecostal".

Like those in the upper room, the followers of the 20th century revival spoke in tongues as they received the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Other supernatural manifestations such as prophecy, interpretations, spiritual conversions, and healings also took place (Acts2).

With the exception of scattered reports around the world in intervening centuries, the resurgence of the Holy Spirit's outpouring is generally traced to Topeka, Kansas, in January 1901. Soon the winds of the Holy Spirit carried the revival south and into the western regions of North America. Houston and Los Angeles became other sites for the revival in following years which eventually birthed the Assemblies of God in 1914.

Participants in the revival were not welcomed back into their former churches. As a result many broke from their denominations, forming new and smaller churches throughout the country. Distance and limited communication left these new Pentecostal churches feeling isolated. To counter this sense of singularity, numerous publications appeared telling of the revival.

In 1913 a Pentecostal publication, the Word and Witness, called for the independent churches to band together for the purposes of fellowship and doctrinal unity. Other concerns for facilitating missionaries, chartering churches, and forming a Bible training school were also on the agenda.

The first meeting was held in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in April 1914. It brought together some 300 church leaders, opening with 3 days of prayer and preaching before business was discussed. Apprehensive about creating another denomination, those attending agreed to form a loosely knit fellowship of independent churches. So began the General Council of the Assemblies of God.

Next: Lessons From the Past: What Our History Teaches Us -->