Pastor Mur shares a story of how God answered a prayer in ways he never expected.

There are nearly 50 Foursquare churches in Hawaii, and 75,000 people get to go to these great churches each weekend. They are full gospel churches that grew out of the ministries of two men – Ralph Moore and Wayne Cordeiro who founded Hope Chapel and New Hope.

I attended a Foursquare church for the first time in November 1976. I had come from New Jersey to California to speak at a construction industry seminar, and planned my trip so I could attend that Sunday morning service at Angelus Temple, its founder’s church. It was the first time I had ever been to California.

I was 30 years old when God saved me in 1961. I had no background in Biblical Christianity when that happened. I had moved to Philadelphia earlier that year, and made a friend who invited me to a Billy Graham Meeting, and late one night two weeks after that meeting, Jesus came into my bedroom and my heart.

I immediately wanted to be an evangelist like Mr. Graham, and enrolled at Philadelphia College of the Bible in January 1962 after executing its written agreement never to attend a full gospel church. I unintentionally broke that agreement 18 months later, and was soon involved with full gospel churches. My dad had taught me to love to read, and in those days I read everything I could find about the Holy Spirit. My construction work moved me around, and I had to drop out of Bible College.

While there were no Foursquare churches where I lived, I discovered the writings of Aimee Semple McPherson, the founder of the Foursquare movement, and decided that I would go to her Angelus Temple if I ever got to Los Angeles. I was 45 years old when I got there for the first time.

The Angelus Temple, Church of the Four Square Gospel, built by Aimee Semple McPherson and dedicated January 1, 1923. The temple is opposite Echo Park, near downtown Los Angeles, California.
Image: 2005 photograph / Wikimedia Commons.

When the Temple’s morning service ended that day, I walked up onto the platform and stood behind the pulpit. No one paid any attention to me. I looked out into those 4,000 seats, and tried to imagine what the place looked like 50 years earlier when Sister Aimee was in her prime; and then I did something outrageous and even silly: I prayed that God would somehow involve me in that Temple and in the church it had spawned.

I said outrageous and silly because I lived 2,500 miles from there. I was the founder of a small, though growing, consulting engineering firm that demanded my attention virtually every hour of every day. Those demands had also led to a failing marriage and all the hurt and misery that entailed. My prayer lacked a serious foundation; there was nothing to build on, and I soon forgot my words. But looking back today, I realize that the first thing I learned at that church is that God answers the prayers uttered at that altar.

We must reclaim the spiritual fire we’ve lost. We must also be willing to bury what has become stale and outdated.

Pentecostals from around the world converged on Los Angeles this week to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the revival that launched their movement. About 3,000 people began the party on Saturday by marching through a downtown area carrying flags and banners. They ended their procession in the Little Tokyo neighborhood where Pentecostal pioneer William “Daddy” Seymour held his famous Azusa Street Revival a century ago.

As of yesterday a crowd of 23,000 had gathered at the Los Angeles Convention Center for special revival services. Other Azusa events were scheduled at Fred Price’s Faith Dome, Bishop Charles Blake’s West Angeles Cathedral and at Angelus Temple—the nation’s oldest Pentecostal megachurch.

Azusa is truly a miracle worth celebrating

Seymour’s unscripted, racially mixed prayer meetings, housed in a dilapidated building that was once a livery stable, attracted curious Christians from around the world between 1906 and 1909. Many of those who visited testified of receiving a life-changing “baptism of the Holy Spirit” that was contagious. Pentecostal fervor spread quickly, giving birth to countless new denominations.

What began in that tiny building on Azusa Street (furnished with crude plank benches and a pulpit made of shoeboxes) has grown to be a movement of 500 million Christians who believe that the miracles performed in the book of Acts still happen.

What started in a poor neighborhood has moved uptown. What was once derided as religious fanaticism has become mainstream. We’ve gone from rural clapboard chapels to sophisticated, glass-and-steel megachurches; from sawdust floors to plush carpets; from plank benches to cushioned seats; from tent revivals to climate-controlled television studios. And our pulpits today are made of clear plastic.

I hope this is progress.

As thousands more Pentecostals descend on Los Angeles this weekend, we need more than a festival. We must re-evaluate. What core values from Azusa Street must we reclaim? I can think of a few:

Racial equality. Azusa was an interracial experience. White pastors from Tennessee and North Carolina knelt at the altars in 1906—in an age of racial segregation—and allowed black men and women to lay hands on them and pray. In many of our churches today, the “color line” that Azusa historian Frank Bartleman said was “washed away” at Azusa Street has returned as an ugly stain.

Women’s empowerment.The Pentecostal fervor at Azusa Street dismantled gender prejudice. Some of the 20th century’s greatest women preachers trace their roots to that humble stable, where men and women shared the makeshift pulpit. Today, with all our technological advances, we tend to slam the door on women rather than give them the microphone.

Holiness and humility. Azusa was certainly not a celebrity event. Seymour and the others who frequented the Azusa mission were simple folks who lived in Los Angeles years before Hollywood’s big film studios were built. Today many Pentecostal and charismatic ministries look and smell more like Hollywood than anything holy.