Azusa Street Revival

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The Azusa Street Revival, also known as Miracle At Azusa Street and And The Fire Still Falls, (1906–1909) took place in Los Angeles, California and was led by William J. Seymour (1870–1922), an African American preacher. It began with a meeting on April 14, 1906 at African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Seymour preached that speaking in tongues was evidence of Holy Spirit baptism; his first Los Angeles parish therefore expelled him. Seymour continued preaching until he and a small group experienced glossolalia. Crowds began to gather and a mission space was found at 312 Azusa Street, in a run-down building in downtown Los Angeles. It had a dirt floor and was once used as a livery stable. The rent was only $8.00 a month, and it would hold as many as 900 people. Worship there was frequent, spontaneous, and ecstatic, drawing people from around the world to a revival that lasted about three years and brought much attention to it. Services were going almost around the clock. The Azusa revival was multi-racial, welcomed poor people, and encouraged the leadership of women, which was very controversial at the time. The revival drew many from the Holiness Movement, Baptists, Mennonites, Quakers, and Presbyterians as well as people from various other denominations. The location is part of Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, California.

Azusa's "five-fold doctrine" was:

salvation;
sanctification or holiness;
speaking in tongues as evidence of Spirit baptism
divine healing;
the "very soon" return of Christ.

Pentecostalism has earlier roots, but the Azusa Street Revival launched it as a worldwide movement. Beginning in 1905, Frank Bartleman began publishing a series of articles for the holiness periodicals Way of Faith in Columbia, South Carolina, and God's Revivalist in Cincinnati, Ohio. These articles stressed the need for spiritual renewal among Christians. Thus, he gained a respectable reputation during the years immediately preceding the Revival.

In April of 1906, William J. Seymour became pastor of the Azusa Street Mission on Azusa Street in downtown Los Angeles. Bartleman had followed him to Richard Asbury's house on Bonnie Brae then to Azusa Street, after Seymour was forced to leave the Nazarene church in the area. Seymour was asked to leave because of his assertion that Christians had to demonstrate speaking in tongues as evidence of Spirit baptism.

Seymour started a little paper, printing 5,000 copies. Soon he was printing 50,000, still not enough to meet the demand.

The revival lasted three and one-half years, and spread over the world as spiritual leaders received their Pentecost (Canada by R. E. McAlister and A. H. Argue; Norway, Sweden, Denmark, England, Germany, and France (directly and indirectly) by T. B. Barratt; Chile by Dr. W. C. Hoover; Brazil by Daniel Berg and Gunnar Vingren; Ukraine and Russia by Ivan Voronaeff, and a number of others).

The Azusa Street Centennial, held in Los Angeles in April 2006, brought huge numbers to the city. Masses of people met at Angelus Temple, the West Angelus Church of God in Christ, and other locations for seminars and worship services for a week-long celebration. Attendees received guided tours of the original site of the Azusa Street Mission and the Bonnie Brae Street House in downtown Los Angeles.

A play dramatizing the events of the Azusa Street Revival is sometimes produced by Pentecostal churches as both a way of outreach to nonmembers and to teach their own members about their theological history.