This week in Christian history: Wycliffe faces trial, Martin Luther critic born

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Sunday, February 19, 2023

Azusa Street Revival leader arrives in Los Angeles – Feb. 22, 1906

Pentecostal preacher William J. Seymour (1870-1922), leader of the 1906 Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles, California. | (Photo: public domain)

This week marks the anniversary of when preacher William J. Seymour, the man who led the Azusa Street Revival that gave birth to modern Pentecostalism, arrived in Los Angeles, California, where the outpouring began.

Seymour arrived in the city to lead a small church plant located off Santa Fe Street where he organized meetings, with many attendees coming from a local Nazarene Church.

Eventually, meetings organized by Seymour and others had to be moved to an abandoned building on Azusa Street, with the first reports of a revival making headlines in April.

“Suddenly the Spirit would fall upon the congregation,” recounted one witness, as quoted by Revival Library. “God himself would give the altar call. Men would fall all over the house, like the slain in battle, or rush for the altar en masse to seek God. The scene often resembled a forest of fallen trees.”