User:Cb31989/Azusa

The Asuza Street Re

In April of 1906, William J. Seymour, an African-American holiness movement preacher, was invited to preach in a black Nazarene church in Los Angeles, U.S.A.. After his first sermon, proclaiming that speaking in tongues was the "initial evidence" of being baptized in the Holy Spirit, he was locked out of that church. Subsequently, Seymour was invited to stay in a home at 214 Bonnie Brae Street and to hold services there with a small group of interdenominational persons.

This was the time Rayford W. Logan referred to as the low point in Afro-American history, the period before the NAACP, when Jim Crow laws were demonstrated in the churches in the United States. However, this was not so in the Pentecostal movement in Los Angeles, the parent-church of this particular Apostolic Faith Mission. Frank Bartleman, a trusted reporter for holiness groups, reported that "the color line has been washed away in the Blood."

The purpose of those attending these meetings was to seek for the infilling of the Holy Spirit, having heard, through Seymour, Charles Fox Parham (a white Pentecostal pioneer and teacher), and others, of this Pentecostal experience being received by believers in the U.S. Midwest. When a number received this experience, the word spread, and the meetings were transferred to larger quarters in an old Methodist church on Azusa Street. Here, Seymour instituted the concept of no collection plates for his church. He, likely with others of the leaders, decided upon their statement of faith and the text of their doctrines and standards. These can be found in the first 13 Los Angeles editions of their church paper The Apostolic Faith.

Among those attending the meetings on Azusa Street was Florence L. Crawford, a Methodist laywoman. There she received the experience of sanctification and the power of the Holy Spirit. At her baptism in the Holy Spirit, she related that God "permitted me to speak in the Chinese tongue, which was understood by a Christian Chinese who was present." She also testified to receiving a miraculous healing of her eyes, which had been damaged by spinal meningitis.

Parham soon denounced the revival as a "darky camp meeting," saying, "God is sick at His stomach!" and "What good can come from a self-appointed Negro prophet." Indeed, he is not mentioned after the second The Apostolic Faith paper, dated October, 1906.

Only five months after Seymour's Los Angeles beginning, Crawford, a dynamic white woman, entered wholeheartedly into evangelistic work, assisting Seymour. Thousands of inquiries had begun coming in from people who wanted to know more about the Pentecostal outpouring, so Crawford, with the help of Seymour's secretary Clara Lum and others, began putting into newspaper format the record of what was being said and done in the meetings, titled The Apostolic Faith. [Note: Several publications fully credit Lum with all the Apostolic Faith writings of this time, calling Crawford the editor. Indeed, Crawford's personal articles have her byline.]

In addition to her efforts in the publishing work, Crawford said that she felt God's call to travel beyond the boundaries of Los Angeles with the Pentecostal message. Her first ministries were along the West Coast where she worked as an itinerant home missionary. On December 25, 1906, she made her initial visit to Portland, Oregon.

In the meantime, Rev. Martin L. Ryan also attended the Apostolic Faith Mission in Los Angeles in 1906 and had been accepted into their group, after having experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit. He opened an Apostolic church in Portland, OR, on Second and Main.

According to the Portland Apostolic Faith Mission's history book The Apostolic Faith: Trinitarian Fundamental Evangelistic, Crawford had been invited to preach in "an independent church on Second and Main Street." Soon afterward, Ryan, his wife, and three children moved to Spokane, WA to start another Apostolic church.

In 1908, Crawford, with a mailing list from Seymour's Apostolic Faith Mission in Los Angeles, moved to Portland and began printing The Apostolic Faith newspaper. A representative of the Portland Apostolic Faith Mission wrote that the publication of The Apostolic Faith newspaper continued uninterrupted, with the final edition from Los Angeles being printed in June, 1908. Los Angeles did, indeed, have a 13th and final edition, marked that it was from Los Angeles and dated May, 1908. Writing nothing specific of any other editions of the 13th issue, a representative of the Apostolic Faith Mission in Portland explained, "The first edition of the 13th issue of The Apostolic Faith paper which was published in Los Angeles in May 1908, (after Florence Crawford moved to Portland) contained this note: 'For the next issue of this paper address The Apostolic Faith Campmeeting [sic], Portland, Oregon.' It also refers to Florence Crawford as 'Sister Crawford' and mentions her activities in Portland." Such a notation does appear on the second page of that paper; however, another edition of the 13th issue apparently came out in July-August, 1908, from Portland. A search of the Los Angeles 13th edition did not find the words "Sister Crawford," Crawford's name, or a mention of the Portland work. It did, however, have an article that was apparently by the paper's editor, Florence Crawford, with the byline "F. L. C." Her work in Portland is not directly mentioned in this issue; it is basically a short testimonial and sermonette.

In the meantime, Seymour's secretary Clara Lum soon followed Crawford to Portland, bringing another copy of that mailing list, and began working for Crawford, and Seymour suddenly quit publishing the Los Angeles The Apostolic Faith paper. As seen above, the Portland Apostolic Faith Mission defends this, but while some other church organizations are carefully and specifically silent about the incident, others have stated that the reason was that Seymour no longer had his mailing list, which was also his list of supporters from all over the United States and the world, and especially those in the Midwest. However, the Portland Apostolic Faith Mission has replied to this that Crawford and Lum only took two lists, leaving twenty other copies of the list with Seymour. Interestingly, the Portland-based church indeed boasts many supporters from the Midwest in their own early history, in the above-mentioned book titled The Apostolic Faith: Trinitarian Fundamental Evangelistic, which is called an "historical account" of this reorganized church in Portland.

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The Azusa Street Revival (1906–1909) took place in Los Angeles, California, and was led by William Seymour (1870–1922), an African American preacher.

Seymour preached that glossolalia, or "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 on Azusa Street, in a run-down building in downtown Los Angeles. 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. The Azusa revival was multi-racial, welcomed poor people, and encouraged the leadership of women, which was very controversial at the time. The location is part of Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, California.

Azusa's "five-fold doctrine" was:
 * salvation;
 * sanctification or holiness;
 * 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. 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.