LOS ANGELES -- One hundred years ago, a series of boisterous revival meetings in a converted stable on Azusa Street launched a global movement that overcame differences in class, gender and race to unite around the belief that the Holy Spirit still works miracles.
Today, there are about 600 million Pentecostal and charismatic Christians whose roots are in the Azusa Street revival. They make up the fastest-growing segment of Christianity, thriving especially in the Southern Hemisphere, with their beliefs having an impact on nearly every Christian denomination.
The congregation met in the round, with Seymour facilitating the interactive gathering from the center of the room. The meetings were in the style of the black church, with hand-clapping, foot-stomping and shouting. But, at the height of the Jim Crow era, they included blacks, whites, Hispanics and Asians from the Los Angeles melting pot -- up to 1,300 people at a time.
Newspaper reporters covered the rowdy meetings, and the reviews were less than flattering.
Believers were described as "Holy Rollers," "Holy Jumpers," "Tangled Tonguers" and "Holy Ghosters."
Christians from other traditions were also critical, saying the movement was hyper-emotional, misused Scripture and lost focus on Christ by overemphasizing the Holy Spirit.
Undeterred, the Pentecostal Christians were motivated to share their faith with urgency. According to Robeck, they considered salvation a personal experience and expected physical healing and other miracles to occur when the Gospel was preached.
Believing the Second Coming of Christ was imminent, Azusa Street missionaries were sent throughout the world. And Evangelists from other countries traveled to the mission to experience the revival before bringing it to their own congregations.
Robeck said social factors contributed to the movement's spread. Los Angeles was in the middle of a wave of immigration, and people in the midst of such change were desperately seeking answers. Seymour preached a message of empowerment that appealed to them.
While the mainstream media ridiculed Azusa Street, Frank Bartleman, an evangelist, kept a diary of what he saw and experienced. His vivid accounts, more than 500 in all, were published in Christian newspapers across the country. The Azusa Street mission also published a newspaper, the Apostolic Faith, which was distributed to 50,000 people, some of them overseas.
"That spread curiosity around the world and brought pilgrims from around the world," said Vinson Synan, dean of the school of divinity at Regent University in Virginia Beach, who has researched Azusa Street history.
Services continued to be racially mixed, with Bartleman writing that "the color line was washed away in the blood of Jesus."
Synan points out that having a black man, Seymour, in charge "with white men under his authority" was considered miraculous.
"From that day on I would say Pentecostalism has had more crossing of ethnic boundaries than any movement in the world in Christianity."
