Pioneers of the Sky
What the Wright Brothers and William Seymour can teach about God's ways
On January 1, 1901, as the twentieth century dawned, Pope Leo XIII entered St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, singing the song Veni Creator Spiritus, “Come, Holy Spirit.” He entered the ornate church for a special purpose: to dedicate the new century to the Holy Spirit.
Sister Elena Guerra, a prophetic nun known for her piety and good works, had written him repeatedly, pleading with him for a renewed devotion to the Holy Spirit in the church and specifically to dedicate the new century to the Holy Spirit. The Pope responded, adding his apostolic authority to her prophetic invitation.
A few hours later on the same day, at the tiny Bethel Bible school in Topeka, Kansas, Agnes Ogman experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit accompanied by speaking in tongues. It was the first modern, documented case of speaking in tongues.
Somehow, the prayer of a Pope had landed in Kansas.
Today, more than 120 years later, hundreds of millions of believers use the gift of tongues as a daily part of their prayer lives. Unlike 1901, most Christians globally believe the gifts of the Spirit like prophecy and healing are for today. Charismatic and Pentecostal movements, totaling over 600 million people, are the most dynamic, fastest-growing part of the church. Even people who don’t believe in speaking in tongues, healing, or prophecy have been impacted by the music and culture of those who are “filled with the Spirit.” It is hard to imagine a time before this was normal.
The twentieth century was indeed, as Jack Hayford said, “The Charismatic Century.” As a charismatic myself, it’s hard to imagine life without the gifts of the Spirit—why would we ever want to go back? I’ve given and received accurate prophetic words, witnessed healings, miracles, baptisms of the Spirit, and many of the other gifts, manifestations, and workings of the Holy Spirit. This is simply normal, New Testament Christianity.
Historic Precedents
For a believer living in the year 1900, the everyday church life of believers today where the gifts of the Spirit are normal would seem bizarre and difficult to imagine, like something they had only read about in the Bible.
Today, we are in a similar situation as it relates to John 17. We read Jesus’s prayer and stretch out our faith to say, “Jesus gets what He prays for,” but our vision of this future promise is cloudy, and the path forward uncertain. We have never seen John 17 unity.
One way to fuel our faith and imagine this seismic shift prophesied by Scripture is by looking at historic precedents where the impossible became the new normal.
We’ll explore two breakthroughs that took place at the turn of the twentieth century. One is natural, the other spiritual: the Wright Brothers and the invention of the first airplane, and William Seymour and the birth of modern Pentecostalism.
The Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk
As the humble Bethel Bible School was pioneering speaking in tongues and rediscovering the baptism of the Spirit, the Wright Brothers were engaged in another impossible experiment: the construction of a heavier-than-air flying machine.
Thousands of years of human history testified with a common voice: flight was impossible. Brilliant minds like Leonardo DaVinci had explored the idea to no avail. Heavier-than-air flight was a fools-errand, an irrational and impractical waste of time.
And yet, Orville and Wilbur looked to the heavens. Birds were heavier than air, and yet they could fly. If a bird could fly, so could a man. Brilliantly, they broke down the complexity of the bird’s moving wing propulsion into stationary wings with a fixed power system. They broke down flight mechanics into three independent planes of motion, with control surfaces for each plane. They built the first wind tunnel to try out scale models of their gliders.
Other new inventions would make their dream possible. The advent of small, gasoline-powered internal combustion engines provided them with a viable power source. A steam boiler could power a ship but was far too large for an airplane where every ounce of weight mattered.
On December 17, 1903, in the obscurity of coastal North Carolina, Orville Wright made the first powered flight, traversing a mere 120 feet. No crowds were there to witness it. However, the breakthrough of that day, the culmination of years of failure and experimentation, would change the world forever.
William Seymour and the Azusa Street Revival
In the first decade of the 20th century, powerful moves of God popped up independently around the globe. There was the first modern, documented case of speaking in tongues on January 1, 1901. Then, in short order came the Welsh Revival (1904), Pyongyang Revival in Korea (1907), and Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles (1906). While these events are well-known, it is important to note that there were also independent moves of God in Pakistan, India, China, and Africa. In hindsight, it is clear: a global outpouring of the Holy Spirit was underway in the first decade of the century. God was moving in a way that had not been seen since the first-century church, and on a global scale.
The Azusa Street outpouring in 1906 was especially influential. Over 600 million charismatic and Pentecostal believers today all trace their lineage through Azusa Street, and the movement has seasoned the rest of the church as well—even those who still reject it.
A One-Eyed Black Man
William Seymour was a black man, a son of former slaves, and blind in one eye. He was a student of Charles Fox Parham, the founder of Bethel Bible school in Topeka, Kansas. In spite of the remarkable experience of January 1st, 1901, Bethel had closed just four months later. Parham was soon teaching in Houston, Texas where Seymour listened to his teachings on the baptism of the Spirit while sitting outside the room. The practice of racial segregation in the southern city kept Seymour out of the main sessions. Despite this humiliating treatment, Seymour ate up the teaching on the baptism of the Spirit, the gifts, and speaking in tongues.
The dominant theology of the time claimed the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit, like prophecy, healing, and tongues, had ceased with the apostles after the first century.
Parham, Seymour, and others were the fringe of the fringe, a group of passionate believers who were convinced that God hadn’t changed, and He wanted to pour out the gifts afresh on His church. Refusing to believe what everyone thought or the testimony of their own personal experiences over the promises of the word of God, they were chasing a breakthrough.
In February of 1906, William Seymour received a call to Los Angeles. After his first sermon there, focused on the baptism of the Holy Spirit, Seymour was unceremoniously booted from his new congregation. The doors were literally padlocked to keep him out.
Seymour was a man of sorrows.
Now out on the street and without a job in a strange city, he found refuge with a small group of believers and began a prayer group. This group decided to focus on receiving the baptism of the Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues. On April 6, 1906, Seymour and his group began ten days of fasting and prayer, modeled on the ten-day prayer meeting of the early church in Acts 1. They were seeking a new Pentecost.
On April 9, after just three days of prayer, the outpouring began.
Many in the small prayer group were powerfully encountered by the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages. Incredibly, one of the women who didn’t play the piano began playing flawlessly while singing in multiple known languages, including Hebrew.
Despite this breakthrough, Seymour himself remained barren. Then, on April 12, Seymour himself experienced the baptism and spoke in tongues. At this point, the little house on Bonnie Brae Street in Los Angeles was overflowing. The meeting shifted to an old horse stable not far away on Azusa Street.
The new outpouring was characterized in the press as insane religious fanaticism. And yet, over the next three and a half years, people from around the world came through the Azusa Street Mission. It wasn’t just speaking in tongues, either. Powerful healings were happening regularly. Accurate prophetic gifts were in operation. Demons were cast out. Some nights, they even witnessed a visible cloud of God’s presence in the congregation, the Shekinah glory.
Hundreds of millions of modern believers trace their spiritual heritage not only through a barn in Bethlehem, but also through a stable in Los Angeles. Because of this breakthrough, the gifts of the Spirit, once thought to be relegated to apostolic times, are in active and regular operation throughout much of the global church.
This article is chapter 5 of Jonathan Friz’s book Jesus Gets What He Prays For. Paid subscribers can continue reading the full article below.
