By Rev. Dr. Ed & Janice Hird
-an article for the Light Magazine
Who might have imagined almost 120 years ago in
1906 that a one-eyed black preacher in Los Angeles would eventually impact over
800 million people around the globe?
William Joseph Seymour (May 2, 1870 – September
28, 1922) was the second of eight children born to recently freed slaves Simon
and Phyllis Seymour in Centerville, Louisiana. His father contracted a fatal
illness while serving in the Union army, dying in 1891. The twenty-one-year-old Seymour became the
primary bread winner, growing subsistence crops to help his deeply impoverished
family survive.
His spiritual heritage was a combination of
Roman Catholic and Baptist. At a young
age, Seymour felt a call to ministry which he resisted. He taught himself to read and write. At age
25, he moved to Indianapolis, where he served as a railroad porter and as a
waiter in a fashionable restaurant.
During that time, Seymour was infected with smallpox, which almost
killed him, and left him blinded in his left eye. He had a deep spiritual
encounter with the Evening Light Saints group, a Church of God holiness movement
in Cincinnati.
He spent a month at Charles Parham’s bible
school in Houston, Texas, where he was taught about the Holy Spirit. Because of
Jim Crow laws, Seymour was only allowed to listen to the lectures from the
hallway. During that time, he was invited to pastor a holiness church in Los
Angeles, founded by Julia Hutchinson who intended to become a missionary in
Liberia.
Seymour’s new pastoral position did not last
long, as the door was padlocked on him. With
no salary or place to live, Seymour was invited by Richard Asberry to stay at
214 Bonnie Brae Street. This is where after a month of intense prayer and
fasting, Seymour and several others first spoke in tongues. By that time, the
overflow of participants caused the front porch to collapse, motivating Seymour
to look for a new location.
Initially, Seymour rented a derelict building
formerly used by an African Methodist congregation at 312 Azusa Street. An arsonist had previously set it on fire,
destroying the roof which had to be replaced. The building suffered from smoke
and water damage. One newspaper declared
it a complete loss. While the earlier congregation met on the second floor,
William decided to meet on the first floor which had been used as a church
parking lot for horses. As a result, the
horse flies were notoriously painful during the church services, especially in
the hot summers. The dirt floor was
covered with straw and sawdust. The
ventilation was so poor in many of the services with Sunday crowds of up to
1,500 people that they would put their head under the pews looking for fresh
air.
The Azusa Street revival was more than anything
else a revival of prayer. For more than three years, Azusa Street prayer services
occurred three times each day at 10 AM, noon and 7 PM. Seymour himself prayed
five hours a day, often with his head hidden under a shoe box. His gift
was to prayerfully usher people into the presence of God. Azusa Street, like most revivals, was also a
revival of music. Their favorite hymn
was ‘The Comforter Has Come’ by Frank Bottome.
There was also much spontaneous singing in the Spirit. Being soft-spoken, Seymour was more of a
teacher than a preacher. He was not known as a great orator. John G. Lake said that Seymour had “more of
God in his life than any man I had ever met…I do not believe that any other man
in modern times had a more wonderful deluge of God in his life than God gave to
that dear fellow.”
A major aspect of the Azusa Street revival was
healing, with signs and wonders. They had a wall in which no-longer-needed
crutches, canes and other medical aids were featured. Like in New Testament times, many deaf people
could hear again and the blind could see.
Roberts Liardon, who sees Seymour as one of God’s General, spoke of a
time when the fire department was called because some people saw fire on top of
the Azusa building. There was no fire. Seymour said that the people saw the
flames of Pentecost on top of the building. From three or four blocks away,
people would feel a supernatural pull to come and attend the services.
Particularly notable were the racially
integrated worship services, which was virtually unheard of in that time
period. Seymour noted that the colour
line was washed away in the blood. He did not want an all-black or an all-white
church. The diversity and unity among
races and cultures at Azusa Street was unique.
Historian Vinson Synan commented, “From that day, I would say,
Pentecostalism has had more crossing of ethnic boundaries than any movement in
the world in Christianity.” Yale Historian Seymour Alstrom said “Seymour
exerted greater influence upon American Christianity than any other black
leader, because of his outreach across the colour line to inspire whites and
all other people.” Seymour was one of the greatest civil rights leaders,
perhaps a precursor to Martin Luther King Jr. Seymour insisted that in God’s
Kingdom, , all God’s children are treated equally and with respect.
The Azuza participants were
serious about service and community. They
would come and serve people meals when they were sick, and clean their house.
The newspaper coverage was rarely
sympathetic. A local Apostolic Faith
newspaper at its peak had 50,000 subscribers.
The Apostolic Faith editor Clara Lum was offended when William Seymour
married Jennie Evans Moore on May 13, 1908. So Lum stole the paper's mailing
list and started publishing The Apostolic Faith newspaper in Portland. She also started a new denomination which forbade
marriage. Despite Seymour’s pleading, Lum would never return the mailing list.
This greatly hampered Seymour’s ability to communicate with his growing global
family.
Gentleness and humility was a major aspect of
the Azusa Street revival. He was not full of himself. He was full of God. Seymour wanted the Holy Spirit to be in
charge. William H. Durham said of
Seymour:
He is the meekest man I have ever met. He walks
and talks with God. His power is in his weakness. He seems to maintain a
helpless dependence on God, and is as simple-hearted as a little child, and at
the same time is so filled with God that you can feel the power and love every
time you get near him.
William Durham noted how love and unity
permeated Azusa Street like a sweet fragrance.
Seymour emphasized the need for both the gifts and fruit of the Holy
Spirit: “The Pentecostal power, when you sum it all up, is just more of God’s
love. If it does not bring more love, it is simply a counterfeit.” Seymour
remarked: “If you get angry, speak evil, or backbite, I don’t care how many
tongues you may have. You have not the baptism of the Holy Spirit.” He went on
to say: “Since tongues is not the evidence of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit,
men and women can receive (tongues) and yet be destitute of the truth. Tongues
is one of the signs, not the evidence. No one in our work shall be known as
receiving the Holy Ghost simply because of speaking in tongues alone.”
A huge missionary force was raised up in the
Azusa Street revival, sending people to every continent. Seymour modelled this
openness to missions, saying :
I can’t forget how, kneeling at the old board
in Azusa Street, I promised God I would go where he wanted to go and stay where
he wanted me to stay, and be what he wanted me to be. I meant every word of it,
and God has taken me at my word.
Sixty percent of Guatemalans, 49%
of Brazilians, 56% of Kenyans, and 44% of those in the Philippines have been
impacted by the historic Azusa Street revival. Yale University has recognized
Seymour as ‘one of ten most influential leaders in American religious history.’
In 1999, the Religion Newswriters Association named the Azusa Street Revival as
one of the top ten events of the past millennium.
Despite his being used so
powerfully, Seymour experienced great suffering, sadness, and pain. He was one
of the world’s most successful failures.
At the end, he was virtually deserted and rejected, feeling that he
indeed had failed. After two heart
attacks, he died at age 52 in his wife Jenny’s arms. his last words were "I love my Jesus
so." Douglas Nelson said that Seymour died of a broken heart over people
missing his vision for world-wide racial reconciliation.
Might we be willing to learn from
Seymour how important it is to reconcile with other believers through the power
of the Holy Spirit?
Rev. Dr. Ed and Janice Hird, co-authors of God's Firestarters
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