History of the Azusa Revival
The revival started with a gentleman named Rev. Charles Parham who had Bible school in Topeka Kansas. He encouraged his students to study the Word of God on the subject of the Baptism of the Holy Ghost. In a watch night service, Dec. 31, 1900 the students waited on the Lord in prayer. Understand that up until this time the vast majority of all believers since the church fathers died off were not filled with the Holy Ghost. A little past midnight, 1901, Agnes Ozman was the first to be baptized in the Spirit and speak with other tongues. Soon, all of the students were speaking with tongues. In the mean time, Rev. Charles Parham moved his Bible School to Houston Texas and meets William J. Seymour, a very spiritual African American man who accepted what Parham taught but did not receive the experience. In the meantime, Seymour is invited to preach at a holiness church in Los Angeles. He doesn’t have the Baptism of the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in tongues but he preaches on it anyway. When he did, the pastor of the church shut down the meeting and padlocked the door. The tiny congregation, despite the pastor, accepts the message of the Baptism of the Spirit. They begin to hold prayer meetings. Some nights later on April 6, 1906, Brother Seymour and 7 others, were seated in a living room at 216 Bonnie Brae Street. The group was engaged in a spirit of prayer and a time of waiting on the Lord when, all of a sudden, the power of God hit and knocked them all out of their chairs. The group hit the floor speaking with tongues. From there, the revival spread like wild fire. The glory of the move of God was so strong until services were held for 3 years in a row. They met everyday, a service everyday, and sometimes they had as many as 9 services in a single day. This revival went all over the world because when people from other countries would land in LA they would hear about the revival and go to the meetings, the power of the Holy Ghost would fall on them and they would take it back to their own countries. Every Spirit filled believer of the modern era can trace their roots back to Azusa. I said all of that to get this point across to you, this powerful revival all started with a Bible study in Topeka Kansas! How important it is to maintain an active ongoing study of the Bible.
Here’s a link to a wikiapedia documentary on the Azusa Street revival published by Mariusz Jurga.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqROdLQQvz8
