I own 10 books that are specifically about the Azusa Street Revival. I have maybe a dozen that cover the revival in part. Of all of those books my favorite by far is Cecil M. Robeck's The Azusa Street Mission Revival. Below I am putting my own notes from Chapter 1 of that book. These are the notes I will use as I teach at Redeemer Ministry School on Friday morning.
William Seymour
Born May 2, 1870 in Centerville, Louisiana
Parents were slaves
William moved to Indiana to 127 ½ Indiana ave (renumbered in 1898 to 427)
He was employed as a waiter
William Seymour became a Christian in the “colored Methodist Episcopal Church” in Indianapolis
Seymour left the Methodist Church because:
1. They held amillennial (the millennial reign is figurative or spiritual) rather than the literal premillenial view that he held.
2. They did not value “special revelation” from God as having much value – He did.
He probably had a sanctification experience with the Evening Light Saints (later became The Church of God Anderson, Indiana) in Indianapolis led by Daniel S. Warner. They were a radical Holiness movement that stressed wearing plain clothing and forbid the use of coffee and tobacco. They were named after Zech. 14:7. The Evening Light Saints practiced:
• Baptism by Immersion
• The Lord’s Supper
• Washing one another’s feet
The term “Saints” in the title led to gender and racial inclusiveness which was incredibly rare in that time.
In 1900 Seymour moved to Cincinnati, Ohio to attend “God’s Bible School and Missionary Training Home” led by Martin Wells Knapp. The school was:
• Racially Inclusive
• Believed in a literal premillenial return of Jesus
• Open to special revelations and impressions from God to individuals
Tuition was $150 for the 15 week course. More than 70 people took the course in 1900.
He contracted smallpox during his time in Cincinnati (during a outbreak of the disease in the area) and lost his eye due to the scarring. It was replaced with a fake one.
Seymour left in 1903 and headed toward Houston. From 1903 -1905 Houston was his home base. During those years Seymour travelled to Chicago and spent time with John G. Lake.
He also held meetings in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
During the winter of 1904-1905 Seymour felt directed by God to go get spiritual advice from a well known minister in Jackson, Mississippi. It was probably either Charles Price Jones or Charles H. Mason Co-founders of Church of God in Christ).
While in Houston he attended Lucy Farrow’s congregation in Houston.
In 1905 Charles Parham arrived in Houston with much fanfare.
Farrow became the Parham family nanny (9 children). She went back to Kansas with the Parham family for a time and Seymour took over her duties at the church.
During this time Neely Terry visited relatives in Houston and heard Seymour preach. That led to her recommending him to her church in Los Angeles and Seymour eventually being invited there to pastor.
By December of 1905 Charles Parham had moved his family and ministry base full-time to Houston.
In January 1906 Parham began the Apostolic Bible Training School. The school was conducted according to military rule with set hours for rising, eating, studying, and working.
Parham taught that the experience of Sanctification was not the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Seymour was recommended to Parham as a student by Farrow. He was accepted with the proviso that he would sit in the hall rather than the class and that he would minister only to blacks.
Parham depended on Warren Faye Carrothers (who later became a Assembly of God Executive Presbyter) in ministry due to his connections to the Houston area.
The Apostolic Bible Training School used the bible as its primary textbook. Students were expected to use it to search out topics such as:
• Conviction
• Repentance
• Conversion
• Consecration
• Sanctification
• Healing
• The Holy Spirit in His different operations
• Prophecies.
The students would listen to Parham lecture, discuss the lectures in class, preach in the streets, spend extended periods in prayer, visit the sick, teach Sunday school, preach in local churches (if available) and do the practical things necessary for the school to operate.
Parham encouraged the students to pray that God would open the doors of ministry for them to be able to serve somewhere. When Julia Hutchins invited Seymour to pastor in Los Angeles it meant that he would have to quit school. Parham and Carothers were reluctant since they wanted to accompany Seymour as he evangelized the black areas of Texas. They were also opposed since he had not been baptized in the Holy Spirit with evidence of speaking in tongues.
Mrs. Hutchinson forwarded the money for his train fare. Parham was very disappointed but said that he would send lapel pins that would identify Seymour’s workers as being a part of the Apostolic Faith movement.
Seymour departed by train on February 18, 1906 toward Los Angeles by way of Denver, Colorado. He stopped at the Pillar of Fire Training School founded by Alma White in 1898.
Seymour shared a meal with Alma White and others while in Denver. White said that he was, “very untidy in his appearance…wearing no collar, and had a greenish looking brass button in the band of his shirt.” The brass button was probably the one identifying him as a worker of the Apostolic Faith Movement. She said he prayed with “a good a deal of fervor.” She said that she had seen “all kinds of fakirs and tramps” in her life but he “excelled them all.” When Seymour prayed Alma White said, “I felt that serpents and other slimy creatures were creeping all around me.” She believed that he came her way so that she could witness “the person the devil was to use” in Los Angeles.
Sadly, Alma and her husband Kent White divorced after he accepted the doctrine of tongues as part of the baptism of The Holy Spirit. The two engaged in a vicious public feud that lasted the rest of their lives.
