Dixon Pentecostal Research Center to Launch Azusa Lectures

The Dixon Pentecostal Research Center announces The Azusa Lectures on Thursday, February 23, with guest speaker J. Lee Grady.  Grady is an award winning author and the editor of Charisma magazine.  The Research Center is initiating The Azusa Lectures as an annual lecture series in honor of the centennial of the extraordinary Pentecostal revival that began in Los Angeles in 1906.  The inaugural lecture will be at 7:00 p.m. in the North Cleveland Church of God Bryant Fellowship Hall.  A reception with the speaker will follow.

Grady is the editor of Charisma & Christian Life magazine, the leading news and opinion magazine for the Pentecostal-Charismatic movement.  Charisma has a monthly circulation of 250,000 and features columns by leading Pentecostals and evangelicals as well as current news events in the evangelical world.  Grady is ordained by the International Pentecostal Holiness Church and is founder of the Mordecai Project.  The Mordecai Project seeks to train and equip Christians; to encourage, strengthen and disciple ministers; and to expand Christian missionary work around the globe.  In recent years Grady’s ministry has focused on encouraging women to fulfill the call of God on their lives.  The author of three books, his most recent book is Twenty-five Tough Questions about Women for the Church.

According to Dr. David Roebuck, director of the Dixon Pentecostal Research Center, the purpose of The Azusa Lectures is to honor the rich heritage of the Pentecostal movement and to present to the Cleveland community an opportunity to celebrate the legacy of this great revival.  Founded in 1971 on the campus of Lee University, the Dixon Pentecostal Research Center is one of the world’s most significant collections of Pentecostal materials as well as the archives of the Church of God.  In addition to students at both Lee University and the Church of God Theological Seminary, numerous scholars travel to the Center to study the history and theology of the Pentecostal-Charismatic movement. 

Most historians see the Azusa Street Revival, which lasted from 1906 to 1909, as the spark that led to the explosion of Pentecostalism in the twentieth century.  The revival began when an African-American preacher by the name of William J. Seymour preached a message of Spirit baptism following salvation.  What started as a home prayer meeting attracted throngs of seekers and had to be moved to an abandoned church building at 312 Azusa Street.  Hundreds of church leaders traveled to the Azusa Street Mission, received a personal baptism of the Holy Spirit, and took that message to their homes, churches and communities.  Many denominations such as the Church of God and Church of God in Christ were influenced by the revival, and new denominations such as the Assemblies of God were born.  The Pentecostal movement quickly became a great missionary movement, and the twentieth century became what many have called the Century of the Holy Spirit.   Some scholars say the Pentecostal-Charismatic movement now numbers over 600 million people around the world.

Several people who visited the Azusa Street revival later became members of the Church of God, but one of most significant connections involved the visit of G.B. Cashwell in 1908.  Cashwell was a Methodist minister from North Carolina who traveled to the revival in late 1906 and brought the Pentecostal message back to the southeastern United States.  Throughout 1907 and 1908 he was influential in bringing many into the Pentecostal movement. A.J. Tomlinson, pastor of the newly organized Church of God in Cleveland invited Cashwell to come to town.  When Cashwell preached at the Cleveland Church on January 12, 1908, Tomlinson received the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

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