The One-Eyed Preacher of Azusa Street

In April 1906, William J. Seymour — a one-eyed son of formerly enslaved parents from Centerville, Louisiana — stood in a converted stable on Azusa Street in Los Angeles and began to preach. He had been barred from sitting with white students at Charles Parham's Bible school in Houston, forced to listen through a half-open door. Yet Seymour carried a conviction that God's Spirit recognized no such barriers.

What happened next shook the world. The Holy Spirit fell on that tiny mission, and suddenly Black sharecroppers prayed alongside white businessmen. Mexican laborers worshiped next to Swedish immigrants. Women prophesied from the same platform where men preached. The Los Angeles Times called it a "weird babel of tongues." But for three years, people traveled from over fifty nations to witness what Seymour simply called the fulfillment of a promise.

Seymour never built a denomination or amassed wealth. He died in relative obscurity in 1922. But the movement that began in that former stable now numbers over 600 million believers worldwide.

Joel saw this coming. "I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh," the Almighty declared — not on the credentialed, not on the privileged, but on sons and daughters, old and young, servants both men and women. The Spirit of God has never respected the velvet ropes we place around His presence. He pours out on everyone willing to receive.