When was azusa street revival

There was spontaneous preaching and altar calls for salvation , sanctification and baptism of the Holy Spirit. Lawrence Catley, whose family attended the revival, said that in most services preaching consisted of Seymour opening a Bible and worshippers coming forward to preach or testify as they were led by the Holy Spirit. The members of the mission never took an offering , but there was a receptacle near the door for anyone that wanted to support the revival. The core membership of the Azusa Street Mission was never much more than 50—60 individuals with hundreds and thousands of people visiting or staying temporarily over the years.

No instruments of music are used. None are needed. No choir- the angels have been heard by some in the spirit. No collections are taken. No bills have been posted to advertise the meetings. No church organization is back of it. All who are in touch with God realize as soon as they enter the meetings that the Holy Ghost is the leader. Meetings are held in a tumble-down shack on Azusa Street, and the devotees of the weird doctrine practice the most fanatical rites, preach the wildest theories and work themselves into a state of mad excitement in their peculiar zeal.

Colored people and a sprinkling of whites compose the congregation, and night is made hideous in the neighborhood by the howlings of the worshippers, who spend hours swaying forth and back in a nerve racking attitude of prayer and supplication. They claim to have the "gift of tongues" and be able to understand the babel.

Men and women, white and blacks, knelt together or fell across one another; a white woman, perhaps of wealth and culture, could be seen thrown back in the arms of a big 'buck nigger,' and held tightly thus as she shivered and shook in freak imitation of Pentecost.

Horrible, awful shame! Proud, well-dressed preachers came to 'investigate'. Soon their high looks were replaced with wonder, then conviction comes, and very often you will find them in a short time wallowing on the dirty floor, asking God to forgive them and make them as little children. About Us. Executive Board. Guest Book. Book Store. Audio CD Catalog. Video DVD Catalog. Music Store.

Historical Catalog. Prophecy Catalog. Funeral Catalog. Debate Catalog. Conference Catalog. Facebook Pages. Youtube Channel. Heritage Museum. Hall of Fame. Who's Who. Kgatle says that John G Lake spent the rest of ministering healing as he prayed for the sick. As a result, thousands of letters would pour in from all parts of the world, stating how the Spirit of God came upon the recipients as they opened thepaper. John G lake passed the mantle to Elias letwaba Letwaba's ministry was characterized by reported healings and miracles.

It was these miracles that really opened the doors for him Anderson Letwaba was praying for a baby who had fallen and broken its neck. Lake went out of the room, as he did not have faith for a broken neck and did not want to interfere with Letwaba's faith.

Letwaba carried on praying and the baby was healed Lake On another occasion he went to have meetings for the natives on a white man's farm. When he arrived there he was told to sleep in the fowl-house. He said, 'Thank you, baas', made a broom from twigs, and cleaned the place and went to sleep. At midnight he was awakened by the farmer who said, 'wake up, Letwaba, my wife is desperately ill, come and pray for her. The farmer then told him to go and sleep in an outside room, and apologised for putting him in a fowl-house, but Letwaba said, 'it is all right, sir, to put me there, my Master slept in a stable, and I am only a black worm 2.

For another two years Letwaba travelled, even going as far as Zimbabwe with his message. It is reported that during this time, more than ten thousand sick were permanently healed and over a hundred thousand souls were led to Christ Lindsay Early attempts to introduce racial separation in worship were resisted by the founding missionaries.

When the missionaries left the country to return to their homelands, the church was set on a course of racial separation in compliance with the racial ideology of the country. Protests by Blacks were not heeded because a paternalistic mentality characterised the White churches involvement with regard to the Black church Paul The position of American missionaries on either prohibiting or permitting racial segregation is argued by the fact that the founding missionaries in the person of John G.

In and , AFM adopted policies that would doom its considerable initial growth in the more distant future. The minutes dated 17 September , apparently at Lake's instigation, according to Roy show that the missionaries supported racial segregation.

Lake spoke of the necessity of getting adequate accommodation for the holding of services in Doornfontein especially for the Coloured people. Less than two months later, they decided that, 'the baptism of natives shall in future take place after the baptism of the White people'. At the executive meeting in February it was decided that the superintendent over the 'native work' must be White. The minutes of July read: 'in future, the baptism of Whites, Coloured, Indians and Natives shall be separate'.

However it might be true that the poor missionaries were under social pressure because Pentecostals, like other churches in South Africa during apartheid, yielded to the pressures from White society and developed racially segregated churches. The AFM is a striking example of the differences in outlooks of White and Black members of the same church Anderson The American missionaries supported racial segregation because to a certain extent they were stimulated by societal and racial mind-sets.

In addition to practices in the country at that time and self-generated separation for reasons of language and cultural differences Chandomba Horn clarifies that during the first few months White and non-White were even baptised together, however at the end of some Afrikaans speaking brothers came onto the Executive Council.

The fact that they understood the history and the nature of the racial feelings in South Africa better, possibly contributed to the gradual separation of the races. It is possibly correct to conclude that the pioneers deviated from non-racialism because of White racist pressure rather than theological conviction.

Another aspect of racial segregation was seen in the membership of the AFM as exemplified by Matika that until , only White people could be legal members of the AFM.

The church participated freely in the repressive government of racial segregation. It was eager to promote good relations with the traditional Afrikaner churches, especially the Dutch Reformed Church. In , four years before the National Party government took over, the AFM took a resolution that the mission stands for segregation that highlighted its support for the philosophy of apartheid.

The fact that the Black, Indian and Coloured are saved does not render them European. The church also asserted its support for Bantu Education, that is, Native Education: The mission stands for a lower education [for Black people] but is definitely against a higher education. The practice led to the establishment of four major groupings in the AFM: the White parent church, a large Black daughter church, a Coloured mixed race daughter church, and an Indian daughter church.

The Black church consisted of many different components, ordered primarily by language and region Clark A separate meeting hall was opened in which services could be held. It was a reversal of the initial interracial character of the movement that supported interracial worship between the movement's adherents.

In addition the AFM instituted a series of racially motivated policies and structures whose effect was to fundamentally change the way in which persons participated in the church Richardson American missionaries adopted racial policies that were socially acceptable at that time to divide the church into four main sections namely the Black, Coloured, Indian and the White section.

They did not do so because they believe in racial segregation. Therefore the meetings in the early AFM were non-racial, it is only at the departure of the American missionaries that the AFM became segregated. The conclusion is that the services hosted by American missionaries at the central Terbanacle Congregation were characterised by Pentecostal experiences and non-racialism. Therefore the main impact of Azusa Street Revival in the early developments of the AFM of South Africa was its ability to unite people beyond their differences of race, gender, age and color and Pentecostal experiences.

Anderson, A. Pneumatology and syncretism in African Pentecostalism, Journal of Pentecostal Theology 10 1 , Bergunder, M. Burger, I. Chandomba, L. Clark, M. Cox, H. Creech, J. Czegledy, A. DeKock, W. Dubow, S.

Fatokun, S. Fiedler, K. Friesen, A. Hollenweger, W,J The Pentecostals. SCM Press, London. Horn, N. Howard, D. Kgatle, M.

Khathide, A. Klaus, B. Lapoorta, J. Leatherman, C. Letson, H. Liardon, R. Lindsay, G. Machingura, F. Matika, B. Maxwell, D. McDonnel, K. McGee, G. International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Morgan, K.

The Boer War and the media Twentieth Century British History, 13 1 , pp. Nel, M. John G. Lake as a fraud, con man and false prophet': critical assessment of a historical evaluation of Lake's ministry. Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae, 42 1 , pp. Omenyo, C. Oosthuizen, G. Paul, S. Poewe, K. Pomerville, P. The Pentecostal contribution to contemporary mission, university microfilms international, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena.

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