IF you don't, then skip Easter and Christmas

Today is Pentecost Sunday. IF your church doesn't preach the Holy Ghost today, His Outpouring, His Infilling and empowerment two thousand years ago and today you are only getting half the story. The promise of the Father, the Holy Spirit was as critical to the establishment and enlargement of the Kingdom of God on planet earth as was the Coming of the Son for our redemption. IF Holy Spirit isn't celebrated today then skip resurrection Sunday and Christmas in the coming twelve months. Most people filled with the Holy Spirit will say as I do, it was as significant as being born again and more dramatic in impact. The testimony of the Disciples on that Day of Pentecost was the same. They went from just being aware of the death and resurrection to being able to proclaim it with boldness...That is what is missing today. We proclaim His death and resurrection..but without Boldness. BE YE FILLED! It's not a suggestion nor an option. It's a MANDATE!

Here's a history of the latter day outpouring at Azusa Street...

Azusa Street

The group from Bonnie Brae Street eventually discovered an available building at 312 Azusa Street, which had originally been constructed as an African Methodist Episcopal Church in what was then a black ghetto part of town.[10] The rent was $8.00 per month.[14] A newspaper referred to the downtown Los Angeles building as a "tumble down shack". Since the church had moved out, the building had served as a wholesale house, a warehouse, a lumberyard, stockyards, a tombstone shop, and had most recently been used as a stable with rooms for rent upstairs. It was a small, rectangular, flat-roofed building, approximately 60 feet (18 m) long and 40 feet (12 m) wide, totaling 4,800 square feet (450 m2), sided with weathered whitewashed clapboards. The only sign that it had once been a house of God was a single gothic-style window over the main entrance.[10]

Discarded lumber and plaster littered the large, barn-like room on the ground floor.[15][16] Nonetheless, it was secured and cleaned in preparation for services. They held their first meeting on April 14, 1906.[9][13][17] Church services were held on the first floor where the benches were placed in a rectangular pattern. Some of the benches were simply planks put on top of empty nail kegs.[8][10] There was no elevated platform, as the ceiling was only eight feet high.[17] Initially there was no pulpit. Frank Bartleman, an early participant in the revival, recalled that "Brother Seymour generally sat behind two empty shoe boxes, one on top of the other. He usually kept his head inside the top one during the meeting, in prayer. There was no pride there.... In that old building, with its low rafters and bare floors..."[1]

The second floor at the now-named Apostolic Faith Mission[9] housed an office and rooms for several residents including Seymour and his new wife, Jennie. It also had a large prayer room to handle the overflow from the altar services below. The prayer room was furnished with chairs and benches made from California Redwood planks, laid end to end on backless chairs.[1]


The Apostolic Faith Mission on Azusa Street, now considered to be the birthplace of Pentecostalism.By mid-May 1906,[11] anywhere from 300[2] to 1,500 people would attempt to fit into the building. Since horses had very recently been the residents of the building, flies constantly bothered the attendees.[17] People from a diversity of backgrounds came together to worship: men, women, children, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, rich, poor, illiterate, and educated.[13] People of all ages flocked to Los Angeles with both skepticism and a desire to participate.[2][17] The intermingling of races and the group's encouragement of women in leadership was remarkable, as 1906 was the height of the "Jim Crow" era of racial segregation,[9] and fourteen years prior to women receiving suffrage in the United States.

Services and worship
Worship at 312 Azusa Street was frequent and spontaneous with services going almost around the clock. Among those attracted to the revival were not only members of the Holiness Movement, but Baptists, Mennonites, Quakers, and Presbyterians.[14] An observer at one of the services wrote these words:

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.[7]
The Los Angeles Times was not so kind in its description:

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.[4]
Charles Parham was also sharp in his criticism:

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![4]
The first edition of the Apostolic Faith publication claimed a common reaction to the revival from visitors:

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.[8]

Among first-hand accounts were reports of the blind having their sight restored, diseases cured instantly, and immigrants speaking in German, Yiddish, and Spanish all being spoken to in their native language by uneducated black members, who translated the languages into English by "supernatural ability".[7]

Singing was sporadic and in a cappella or occasionally in tongues. There were periods of extended silence. Attenders were occasionally slain in the Spirit. Visitors gave their testimony, and members read aloud testimonies that were sent to the mission by mail. There was prayer for the gift of tongues. There was prayer in tongues for the sick, for missionaries, and whatever requests were given by attenders or mailed in. 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 worshipers coming forward to preach or testify as they were led by the Holy Spirit.[18] Many people would continually shout throughout the meetings. 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.[4]

Come Fall on US TODAY