The Azusa Street Revival (1906-1909)

The following is an excerpt from my dissertation project on the subject of revival. I wrote the book over a two year period, finishing in 1998. Given the current state of the American Church as a whole and what we've sensed God doing at the church I serve in Bend, Oregon, it's appropriate to include this material here for this season. Hope you find it interesting. This snapshot is of The Azusa Street Revival.

The Azusa Street Revival (1906 - 1909)

As the work in Wales had moved across the ocean, things were just beginning to heat up in Los Angeles, where the Azusa Street Revival was in its infancy.  Several leaders in California had been in contact with Evan Roberts by mail, with both sides encouraging one another to continue pressing in with God.

Azusa Street was preceded however, by evangelist Charles G. Parham who was leading a Bethel Bible College class in Topeka, Kansas.  Just prior to Christmas 1900, he gave an assignment to his students to study the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Three days later, the students assembled with Parham and corporately reached the conclusion that tongues were the normal result of this subsequent filling after salvation.  The students and teachers then embarked on following the Biblical pattern of praying and waiting for this Spirit baptism.  On New Year’s Day, 1901, forty students and 70 visitors were gathered in the chapel when the first students began speaking in tongues.  Within three days, nearly all of the students spoke in other tongues, along with a group of 12 ministers from a variety of denominations.

As notoriety of this outpouring spread, an influx of people came to hear and see for themselves what was going on.  Reporters, linguists, the curious and God seekers all came. 

Soon, Parham fell into a period a difficult times and re-grouped in Houston, Texas, where he began teaching Bible school classes once again.  Among his students was William Seymour, a black Nazarene Holiness preacher.  Being black (and blind in one eye), and living in a time of extreme prejudice, he had to sit in the doorway of the building to hear Parham lecture.

In 1906, Seymour moved to Los Angeles to accept an associate position in a local church.  While he had not yet spoken in tongues, in his first meeting in the church he told of what he had heard and seen in Houston. He stated in his sermon that when you are baptized in the Holy Spirit, you spoke in tongues. The church’s senior pastor Julia Hutchins thought otherwise.  That afternoon he returned to church for service and found himself locked out of the building.  The trouble was the issue of “initial evidence.” Pentecostals teach that the initial evidence of the baptism in the Holy Spirit is speaking in tongues.  At this juncture of history, all but a small handful of Christians believed otherwise;  that one did not have to speak in tongues to have the baptism.  This led to Hutchins locking the church door.

Seymour simply went down the street and held services.  On April 9th, Edward Lee received this baptism.  Soon, crowds were so large that the floor caved in during one meeting because of all the people.  Seymour began preaching from a store-front porch to hundreds on a lawn, and finally moved to a large room at 321 Azusa Street.

Services ran almost continuously.  Seymour would sit behind his makeshift pulpit of two wooden boxes, often with his head in the top one while he was praying.  Frank Bartleman, an eyewitness of the revival wrote,

Seeking souls could be found under the power almost any hour of the day or night.  The place was never closed nor empty.  The people came to meet God.  He was always there.  Hence a continuous meeting.  The meeting did not depend on the human leader.  God’s presence became more and more wonderful.  In that old building, with its low rafters and bare floors, God broke strong men and women to pieces, and put them together again for His glory.  It was a tremendous overhauling process.  Pride and self-assertion, self-importance, and self-esteem could not survive there.  The religious ego preached its own funeral sermon quickly. [Frank Bartleman, Azusa Street, 58.]

Seymour began producing a newspaper publication titled, The Apostolic Faith, which chronicled the events in Los Angeles.  Stories of people being baptized in the Spirit and miraculous conversions seasoned its content.  The mailing list eventually reached as high as 25,000.  As a result, people began flocking to Azusa Street from across the United States, Canada and Europe.  Bartleman relates the following,

It seemed that everyone had to go to Azusa.  Missionaries were gathered there from Africa, India, and the islands of the sea.  Preachers and workers had crossed the continent and come from distant lands with an irresistible drawing to Los Angeles.    They had come up for “Pentecost,” though they little realized it.  It was God’s call.  Holiness meetings, tents, and missions began to close up for lack of attendance.  Their people were at Azusa.  Brother and Sister Garr closed the Burning Bush Hall, came to Azusa, received the baptism in the Spirit, and were soon on their way to India to spread the fire.  Even Brother Smale had to come to Azusa to look up his members.  He invited them back home promised them liberty in the Spirit, and for a time God wrought mightily at the New Testament Church, also. [Frank Bartleman, Azusa Street, 53-54.]

Most came seeking the baptism in the Holy Spirit with evidence of tongues.  Others came to mock, ridicule, and shut the meetings down.  Seymour braved the criticism, riding it out on his character.  Importantly, after someone began speaking in tongues, he instructed them not to go out into the streets speaking in an unknown language, but instead to speak about Jesus.

As a ten-year-old, A.C. Valdez was an eyewitness of the Azusa Street revival.  Evidence of the fruit of this move of God came from his own household.  He shares his first-hand exposure to the baptism in the Holy Spirit:

Late one night when I was fast asleep, my mother came into my dark bedroom after a service at the Azusa Street Mission.  She bent over and touched my shoulder.  As I brushed the sand out of my eyes to wake up, she began talking fast in some language I had never heard before.

I was frightened.  Why wasn’t she talking English?  What had come over her?  Then, suddenly, she began crying, but I knew right away she was crying from joy, not sadness.  I kept wondering if she would ever use English again.  Then the other language stopped, and she said:  “Son, I have had a most glorious experience!  I have just been baptized in the Holy Ghost and have been given the gift of tongues!” [Valdez, and Scheer, Fire On Azusa Street, 3-4.]

While many were saved in this move of God, the main focus was the re-discovered gift of the baptism in the Holy Spirit.  Other manifestations were present as well, such as interpretation of tongues, singing in the Spirit, [simply, to sing in “glossalalia,” or one’s “prayer language] prophecy, quaking, running, [sometimes as God touched an individual, they would arise from their seat and run all over the building, hugging as many people as possible because of the joy that they were experiencing] healing and falling under the power of the Spirit.  “Men would fall all over the house, like the slain in battle, or rush for the altar en masse to seek God.  The scene often resemble a forest of fallen trees.” [Valdez and Scheer, Fire On Azusa Street, 60.]

It is interesting that Seymour himself did not speak in tongues until some time after the mission on Azusa Street had opened.  Bartleman adds that everyone who was baptized in the Spirit spoke in tongues.

The revival commenced from 1906 to 1909.  Seymour continued on as pastor of the church until his death in 1929.  The modern Pentecostal movement was jump started around the world from Azusa Street, as key individuals came, experienced, and carried the baptism in the Holy Spirit back with them to their country.  While the emphasis was on tongues, one must remember the New Testament purpose of the baptism in the Holy Spirit;  it was power in witnessing.  After the resurrection and prior to His ascension, Jesus in Acts 1:8 said,

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

The fruition of this prophecy came a chapter later in Acts 2:1-4.  It reads,

1 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.  2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.  3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.  4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

The very nature of emphasis within this revival necessitates witnessing.  As this emphasis spread around the world, many were won as a result of a Christian receiving this gift.  The Pentecostal movement itself has experienced rapid growth because of the baptism in the Holy Spirit.