The Azusa Street Mission and Revival

by Cecil M. Robeck Jr.

nutshell—the stereotypical portrait of those who attended the Azusa Street Mission1—the rich and the poor, the young and the old, the black and the white, male and female.

While the mission would become the spiritual home for hundreds, it was also a tempting, if not a satisfying watering hole for thousands more. Some people came to drink deeply from its artesian abundance out of their thirst of desperation. They went away refreshed and renewed. Others came merely to be titillated, to be splashed with its overflow. More often than not, their reward was simply the entertainment they received as they watched those who were serious about meeting God enter into states of religious ecstasy. Still others came to cast stones at the “misguided,” even the “dangerous” direction that they believed the revival was taking. Their criticisms may have seemed to be justified to sectarians who joined them in spirit, but more often than not, those who knew better pitied them. Whatever people expected as they entered the mission, they seem to have found. It was impossible to be neutral. It was impossible to remain untouched by what went on there.

For decades, the story of what went on in that bygone era typically came in vibrant and compelling testimonies.

Always they tempted and teased and tantalized newer converts in a kind of romanticized wonder. “God can do it again,” they promised. “Expect it to happen to you,” they urged. “All you

have to do is tarry and mean business,” they instructed.

8). It is this story of their encounter with God and the actions to which it led, that I hope to tell in a fresh way.

The Azusa Street Revival in a Nutshell

William Joseph Seymour, the African American pastor of the Azusa Street Mission, was ...

became a participant in the Wesleyan holiness movement. It was in 1905, in Houston, Texas, where Seymour came into contact with Charles F. Parham, the founder of the Apostolic Faith movement.

On April 9, 1906, this Bible study was visited by a move of the Holy Spirit in which people began to speak and sing in tongues. Within days this small group had grown so large that it was forced to find a more suitable facility for their meeting. They located such a building at 312 Azusa Street.

From 1906 through 1909 the Azusa Street Mission became the focus of attention not only of Los Angeles, but of thousands of people around the world as news spread about the mission that stood at the heart of a revival. People were spellbound by the claims of what God was doing there! Revival had come to the mission in a profound way, and literally thousands of people flocked there from all over the world.

the story of the Azusa Street Mission made its public debut on the pages of the Los Angeles Daily Times, April 18, 1906.

First, it grew with unparalleled speed. The Azusa Street Mission was aggressively evangelistic.

how a small prayer meeting of some fifteen people, including children, grew into an internationally acclaimed congregation of hundreds in just three months.

Estimates from the period suggest that crowds grew to as many as fifteen hundred people on any given Sunday during 1906.

They distributed tracts, set up tents, or rented storefronts, plotting out where they would be most effective as they established other permanent places for Pentecostal worship.

By September 1906, the mission had sent a score of evangelists up and down the west coast of the United States to places such as San Jose, San Francisco, and San Diego, California, to Salem and Portland, Oregon, and to Spokane and Seattle, Washington.

By December 1906 they were in Denver and Colorado Springs, in Indianapolis and Minneapolis, in Akron, Alliance, and Cleveland, Ohio, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in ...

By December 1906 the mission had commissioned and sent at least thirteen ...

It is because of the singular success of Azusa Street’s missionary program, before any others were in place, that I have chosen to claim that its story is unique to the birth of global Pentecostalism.

The second reason to explore the story of Azusa Street is that it had a profound effect on other congregations.

Seymour published the mission’s position: “The Apostolic Faith movement stands for the restoration of the faith once delivered unto the saints—the old-time religion, camp meetings, revivals, missions, street and prison work, and Christian unity everywhere.” “We are not fighting men or churches, but seeking to displace dead forms and creeds and wild fanaticisms with living, practical Christianity. ‘Love, Faith, Unity’ is our watchword.”

Third, “Azusa Street” rightfully continues to function as the primary icon expressing the power of the worldwide Pentecostal movement.

The fourth important aspect of the Azusa Street Mission and revival is that it continues to serve as an example for its outreach to the marginalized—the poor, women, and people of color.

Seymour’s commitment to the poor can be seen in his statement, “The Apostolic Faith movement stands for ‘missions’ and for ‘street . . . work.’” His commitment to prisoners is present in his declaration that “The Apostolic Faith Movement stands for . . . ‘prison work.’”

1896 and 1898 listed Seymour’s occupation as a waiter. He was employed in three different upscale hotels

The Azusa Street Mission began as a largely African American congregation that people of many other ethnic and racial groups joined, though Bartleman rightly reported that at times the crowd was predominantly

The intensity of their encounter with God led many at the mission to respond in ways that before their encounter, they could “only imagine.” It was a life-changing moment, a trans-formative time that produced a range of responses. There were those who, “surrounded by [His] glory” at the mission, broke into dance. Others jumped, or stood with hands outstretched, or sang or shouted with all the gusto they could muster. Others were so full

But the important thing to remember is that they seem to have encountered and responded to God in very different ways—ways that may have seemed foreign to or even mutually exclusive of each other.

The divine encounter that people experienced at the mission had a profound effect upon them and the ways they responded to

it.

This does not mean that people at the mission never enjoyed more silent, “reverent” times of worship—sensing the presence of God moving among them and being still and reflective. They did. Many services began with people quietly entering the mission, finding a personal space, kneeling, and pouring out their hearts before the Lord, often in whispers.

And there were many times when worshippers were so overcome

in their

encounter with God that they were left completely speechless, with nothing more than moans or groans or even silence (some called ...

Not every manifestation or phenomenon at the Azusa Street Mission came from the Holy Spirit, however.

Pastor Seymour and much of his congregation were well acquainted with what they understood to be things done “in the flesh.” It was a balancing act that Seymour led—one in which fanaticism and wildfire were not likely to displace genuine worship, but the danger was always present, and it was often most present in spectacular screams or gyrating gymnastics. Such activities had to be weighed in their context to be judged properly, but mission leaders indeed weighed and tested them before they accepted

them.

Azusa Street Mission offered regular services. These services differed from those offered by the majority of Los Angeles’

congregations in two respects. First, Azusa Street’s services ran seven days a week. To be sure, Sunday was the biggest

day,

Services were scheduled daily at 10 A.M., at 3 P.M., and ...

Second,

“the three meetings run very near together.” Despite the posted schedule, the services at the mission often ran into one another not only hour to hour, but day to day—melding, almost, into one long, three-year service through the course of the revival. People simply lost track of time as they entered into the presence of the Lord.

It practiced Christian baptism by immersion in water using the traditional Trinitarian formula. It offered the Lord’s Supper regularly, sometimes accompanied by the washing of the “saints’” feet in the manner of many Anabaptist and Wesleyan holiness congregations. It embraced strict standards of “holiness,” viewing many things practiced by the wider culture as “worldly” and thus to be avoided.

It engaged in evangelistic and missionary activities, and it provided opportunities for visitors to encounter

God in fres...

While the mission valued and celebrated spontaneity, every service also included the predictable. There were public prayers, singing, testimonies, preaching or teaching from the Bible, and time spent around the ...

members of the Azusa Street Mission believed that God co...

All one needed, they believed, were simple childlike faith and persistent prayer to a loving God who cared greatly about the physical and spiritual suffering of individuals.