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African Pentecostalism
Africa is one of the many continents that the Pentecostal faith was brought to in the early 20th century. The faith reached Africa because of the importance of evangelization to Pentecostals. Missionaries traveled to Africa from Azusa Street, Los Angeles beginning in 1906.

History
The origins of the Pentecostal movement are traced back to the year 1906 at Azusa Street in Los Angeles, California. An African American preacher named William Seymour initiated the Azusa Street Revival by speaking on baptism of the Holy Spirit. His preaching on justification, sanctification, healing, the baptism of the Holy Ghost, and speaking in tongues attracted a variety of people and the revival lasted for many years. As a result of the revival the Pentecostal faith was born. One of the focuses of the Pentecostal faith is evangelization and the call to be a missionary. In order to be a Pentecostal missionary one must be baptized in the spirit and have a divine call to mission work. The primary role of the missionaries in Africa is to ignite the spiritual lives of those in African and later meet their emotional and physical needs.

The first location in Africa that Azusa Street missionaries were sent to was Liberia. In August 1906 Lucy Farrow, Mr. and Mrs. Julia Hutchins, and others arrived. Farrow wrote to Seymour saying God had given her the ability to speak in the Kru language and therefor baptize and heal many natives. Other missionaries from the United States joined Farrow and the Hutchins as they spread the Pentecostal faith. Revivals were held and eventually the first permanent Azusa-influenced Pentecostal mission in Africa was founded.

However, Liberia is not the original birthplace of Pentecostalism on the African continent. Many indigenous churches were established prior to foreign missionaries on the foundation of the power of the Holy Spirit. When American missionaries traveled to new regions of Africa they often encountered already developed manifestations of the Holy Spirit. In Congo Brazzaville, Ghana, and Nigeria movements that could be classified as Pentecostal had all taken on different African names. The Pentecostal movement in Africa is very complex.

In 1908 South Africa became one of the first African countries to receive Pentecostalism. A major reason for the spread of the Pentecostal faith in SA was due to the Apostolic Faith Newspaper written by Seymour. The Apostolic Faith newspaper began circulating Cape Town, South Africa and eventually resulted in the establishing of the Assemblies of God (AG) in Cape Town and Johannesburg. Azusa Street missionaries Thomas Hezmalhalch and John Lake carried Seymour’s Pentecostal message to SA in 1908. They moved throughout SA and in 1913 Lake establish the Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa (AFMSA). In 1908 Pieter Le Roux established the Pentecostal Zionist movement in South Africa. The Zionist movement and other African Instituted Churches (AICs) helped spread Seymour’s message even further although it is questioned if the term Pentecostalism can be applied to them. At the beginning of the twenty-first century somewhere between 10-40% of South Africa’s population could be called Pentecostal but this classification varies depending on how the religion is defined. The three largest Pentecostal denominations that are present in SA include the Apostolic Faith Mission, the South African Assemblies of God, and the Full Gospel Church of God.

Pentecostalism was also carried to West Africa. In 1914 William Wade Harris carried the message of Pentecostalism with him throughout the Ivory Coast to Ghana. His message converted tens of thousands of Christians. In the 1970s independent charismatic churches began to surface in West Africa at a fast pace. These churches were influenced by missions from the United States but had an African foundation.

Ethiopia--

Currently, there are many self-governing, self-propagating, and self-supporting Pentecostal churches in Africa. They utilize the same means to evangelize that early Pentecostal churches used such as door­-to-­door evangelism, meetings held in homes of interested inquirers, preaching in trains, buses, on street corners and at places of public concourse, and ‘tent crusades’ held all over the continent.” The faith is becoming one of the most substantial denominations of Christianity in Africa. The Roman Catholic Church remains the largest Christian body if Africa.