How God sent Pentecost to America

 The Azusa Street Mission at 312 Azusa Street in Los Angeles, California became world famous as the birth place of the modern Pentecostal movement that swept across the globe. Life Magazine named the Azusa Street revival as one of the top 100 events of the past millennium that changed the world.

The revival began in April 1906, when a mild-mannered black holiness preacher, William J. Seymour (1870-1922), who had been guided by the ministry of Charles Parham (1873-1929), began preaching the gifts of the Spirit, holiness, and baptism of the Holy Ghost, evidenced by "speaking with other tongues" at the home of one of his saints. After five weeks of preaching, prayer, and fasting Seymour and his saints began speaking in tongues for the first time. News of the events quickly spread. Soon the crowds became too large, so Seymour moved the group to an abandoned warehouse at 312 Azusa Street. The first meeting was held on April 14, 1906. By mid-May of 1906, upwards to 1500 people would pack the building on Azusa Street to participate in the revival around the clock. The revival was marked by fervent prayer, healing, and an outpouring of the Holy Ghost like that on the Day of Pentecost mentioned in chapter two of the Book of Acts.

The revival rapidly attracted attention from the secular media, including the Los Angeles Times, which critically reported in an article entitled, "Weird Babel of Tongues," that the "night is made hideous in the neighborhood by the howling of the worshippers, who spend hours swaying back and forth in a nerve racking attitude of prayer and supplication. They claim to have the 'gift of tongues' and be able to understand the babel."

The revival ended in 1915, but not before launching one of the largest growing Christian movements in history. Today, there are an estimated 600 milllion Pentecostal believers across the globe.