What Happened at Azusa Street?

the the simple answer is there was a great Revival at a mission on isua street in Los Angeles California from 1906 to 1909 that was the peak of the Revival where they were having Services day and night for three years that is the event that caused the modern Pentecostal movement to explode around the world so that's why it's important um now of course we believe that uh the Pentecostal message goes back to the Bible it starts on on the day of Pentecost throughout the New Testament and we've had God has poured out his spirit all throughout history however by say the third and fourth centuries the institutionalized Church by and large had lost this outpouring of the Holy Spirit uh there are always some who receive the spirit and as we study church history we can find groups here and there and testimonies here and there but there as of say 1900 there was no organized group specifically teaching you can and should receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost with the initial sign of speaking in tongues but isusa Street changed all that by the way if you'd like to read about it I have um a three volume series called a history of Christian doctrine so volumes one and two uh come after the Bible and they will give evidence of Pentecostal revivals or experiences throughout history but then volume three a history of Christian V uh Christian doctrine volume three the 20th century that actually tells the story of what led up to the great Pentecostal Revival and so it will include isua street now for historical accuracy what I would say there were actually two key events the first was a Bible School in TOA Kansas the leader there named Charles parm was a preacher in the Holiness movement and so he and his students begin studying how would we know that someone has receive the Holy Ghost and they came to the conclusion the initial sign in the Bible is speaking in tongues so they begin praying for that so January 1 1901 the first student received the Holy Ghost with the sign of speaking in tongues and then subsequently others and Subs great Revival well from that par moved to Houston Texas started a bible school and there was a young African-American Man actually his parents had been slaves uh that he was also holding his preacher William Seymour he went to that school and he learned this teaching then he was invited to come out to Los Angeles now at that point he himself had not actually received the Holy Ghost but he believed it accepted it he was invited to come out to Los Angeles to take a small Church there so he began preaching this well the pastor Julia Hutchins didn't agree with that so when he came back to preach again she locked him out of the building well he had traveled all the way by train from Los to Los Angeles from Houston you know uh working class person not a lot of money now now he's locked out of the church he needed a place to say something to do so a family in the church um felt sorry for him you know they took him in uh the Lee family and so they started having meetings there at some point Seymour invited the the woman who had introduced him to par Lucy pharaoh to come out there she she we would probably say she had the gift of faith because when she would pray for people people would be healed people receive the Holy Ghost and he was teaching this but neither he nor his people any of the people he was teaching in the home had received the Holy Ghost so he asked sister pharaoh to come out that maybe she could help them and so uh one day the the man of the house came home uh from work he was sick uh Edward Le he asked for prayer they prayed for him sister Farah laid hands on him Not only was he healed but he instantly received the Holy Ghost start speaking in tongues so their little meeting grew they went down the street to Bonnie brace Street uh the Asbury home and they begin having Services there people started coming well three days later Seymour received the Holy Ghost that was similar to parm because parm wasn't the first in his group either but he received the Holy Ghost several days later well this little Revival exploded where people were standing on the porch standing outside uh the porch fell through and by the way another young woman a young woman received the Holy Ghost there so to to back up so they were already they were already having their meetings in Bonnie Bray so when Lee received the spirit they went together to the Bonnie Bray house and he gave his testimony when he gave his testimony three other people received the Holy Ghost one of them was Jenny Moore who later would marry Seymour she went over to the piano and be playing the piano she had never played the piano before in her life but she said God just gave her the ability to do that well that house on Bonnie bra street still exists it's a museum that that piano was still there well as I said this group got too big so they looked for a place so they found an abandoned building on isua street they fixed it up they moved there they begin having services on Easter Sunday day in 1906 well the words soon th spread throughout the city hundreds were coming standing outside even the newspaper picked up on it they wrote kind of a mocking article but they did give it publicity people started coming from other states uh they started publishing a report of it the apostolic faith magazine people started coming from other parts of the nation from other nations missionaries from around the world and so as I said this is day and night for years people were coming and and these were a lot of these were preachers Holiness preachers and missionaries they would receive the Holy Ghost go back to their homes or to their cities or countries and bring the message so so I'm telling the story because Charles parman Topeka is significant because he started preaching the baptism of the Holy Ghost with the expectation of speaking in tongues so there probably wouldn't be a Pentecostal move without that teaching but Seymour in ausus treat is significant because that's the Revival that actually spread the message around the world and so every modern organization that's considered Pentecostal can trace its roots back to isusa Street its Founders or some of its Founders receive the holy ghost at isusa street so that would be the Assemblies of God the Church of God in Christ um and that would include the United Pentecostal Church um and either received the Holy Ghost at isza Street or preachers from isua Street went to these places and and people received the Holy Ghost under those preachers and even the modern charismatic movement indirectly would go back to that so really all Pentecostals and charismatics can say isua street is what made the impact now I will also note at that point baptism in the name of Jesus Christ had not really been preached as a Doctrine in interestingly parm started baptizing in jesus' name early on although he never connected it to a doctrine of the Oneness of God but he just sought in the Bible and was doing it I'm not sure he he may have baptized Seymour in Jesus name I don't think we have any records of any baptism I we what we do know is the first general superintendent of the United Pentecostal Church Howard Goss he was in Kansas he was a non-believer he was an atheist he came to one of parm's Revival IAL and what shocked him and convinced him God was real he saw people speaking in tongues so this was a miracle and so that converted him from atheism and unbelief he began seeking god well he was baptized and he testified in the name of Jesus Christ by parum he later received the Holy Ghost and as I said he became our first general superintendent now that was actually a part from isua street but many of our other leaders were either received the Holy Ghost at isusa Street or as I said somebody from isua Street went to their area and preached the message so for example GT Haywood um he heard the message um from isza Street I think his pastor had gone to isua Street I remember a number of years ago we did an anniversary service at isusa Street and there was an elderly lady uh who was there a member of the United Pentecostal church and she had received the Holy Ghost as a child at isua Street um also uh one of our former General superintendents my predecessor Kenneth Haney his grandmother and grandfather were missionaries in Japan they came back when they heard about isua Street and they received the Holy Ghost at isua street so actually our leadership has direct connection to the isus Street Revival but as I said Jesus name baptism was not really preached um and in their official the isua street papers of the mission they talk about the traditional three-fold formula but but even before that some were being baptized in Jesus name and we do have reports that uh from the Mexican church that some of their people from Mexico were baptized in Jesus name in Los Angeles at that time so it it seems like whether at isua street or in Los Angeles at the same time some were baptizing in jesus' name but it wasn't really seen as a major Doctrine however when the Great Revival kind of died down in 1909 and of course by this time the message and the experience was spread all throughout the nation and even the world well in 1913 a group of leaders said let's go back to Los Angeles and let's have a worldwide camp meeting let's let's give a new impetus to this revival so there was a campground in the losangeles Los Angeles area called a Royo SEO and actually the Z Street Mission used this for its camps people would come out there and camp for a week and have services so they organized the worldwide camp meeting in 1913 at a Roy oo well at that point they were going to have a baptismal service and one of the ministers were just remarking about different types of baptism he says you know some people baptized by triple merant but he said we know that's not right because in the Bible they didn't baptize one for the father one for the son one for the Holy Spirit they just baptized one time in the name of Jesus Christ well that was kind of shocking because you know Pentecostals are oriented towards we need to do what the early church did so when he just pointed out well the apostles always baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that really surprised people because most people hadn't thought about it that led to a process of uh which is another story but people leaders started searching the scriptures and they came to the understanding well the reason for this is the the fullness of the godhead is in Jesus Christ so when you baptize in the name of Jesus you are including Father Son and Holy Spirit so about six months later the First new converts are baptized in Jesus name about a year later some of the preachers started saying you know what even though we're already baptized we need to be re-baptized and so a key man in that was Frank art who was a pastor in Los Angeles and his associate Glenn cook who was a noted evangelist and in 1914 they baptized each other in the name of Jesus Christ because these were rebaptism that really launched uh the one is Pentecostal movement as a distinct movement so to summarize to Pika Kansas 1901 uh initiated the emphasis on receiving the Holy Ghost with the sign of tongues isua Street 1906 to 1909 is the key Revival that spread the Pentecostal movement around the world a Royo SEO 1913 is where Jesus name baptism was first noted um and then 1914 is when the Oneness movement really became distinct by the insistence on even if you've been baptized another way you should be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ now that's a very still a very shorthand survey but it goes back to isusa Street really was the great Revival that led to the entire Pentecostal movement in the world today

there's nothing left of that building I think there is a plaque I know there's a plaque at Royal SEO because we put it there we celebrated the 100th anniversary but the SoCal District of the United Pentecostal church has a lease on a building at isusa Street and their goal is to make it a center for every week to have services and and every week you know different groups can come and Lead services but to renew that experience at AO street so you can see the sign you can take a picture of the sign uh you can see the spot and as I said I think there's a little plaque on the spot but there's there are no buildings left from that time which maybe that's a good thing because we don't worship and we don't do pilgrimages to buildings but it is nice to go to the historical spot to see where it all happened