Azusa Street Mission to Hold New Year’s Eve Revival Celebration
The Azusa Street Revival is set to be rekindled on the eve of the new year. Looking to 2021, leaders from many of the denominations and churches that were born from the 1906 revival will celebrate at the birthplace of the Western version of Pentecost.
Apostles Fred and Wilma Berry, international representatives through the Azusa Street Mission and Historical Society, will host the event on Dec. 31, 2020, at the Azusa Street Mission starting at 5 p.m. The theme of the celebration is “Contending for God’s Glory.”
With William J. Seymour spearheading what became known as one of the most important revivals in modern-church history, the Azusa Street Revival paved the way for believers to encounter God in new and miraculous ways: speaking in tongues, baptism in the Spirit and what many called “unusual” forms of worship. Seymour encountered much pushback in his early days of leading the revival, and yet his legacy paved the way for the modern Pentecostal movement.
The mission is planting a unity tree as a symbol of hope in a time of great racial dissension, with Sean Feucht leading worship in the background.
This theme of unity will be prevalent throughout the entire celebration and is rooted in the history of the Azusa Street Revival. In an interview with Charisma News, Fred Berry spoke of the significance that unity played in Seymour’s efforts. “The color line is washed away in the blood of Jesus,” was a major slogan at the time, and one that Berry and Wilma seek to encourage in 2021 and beyond.
In fact, Berry told Charisma staff of a meeting in which Seymour prophesied of a greater Azusa Revival in 100 years. Fulfilling this call on his life to encourage that revival is Berry’s greatest mission.
Looking toward 2021, Berry said, “We’re looking for something we’ve never seen. We know what it looks like in the days of Billy Graham, and we know what we’re expecting. It’s got to be something bigger than we’ve seen, and it’s got to be unified.”
The Lord has blessed the mission during 2020 in many ways, among the greatest being the ability to reach more people with the Zoom calls in which Berry has participated. Through these, he says, an important lesson has been reinforced: “There’s no limit in the Spirit.”
Nicknamed “God’s Living Flintstones” for their first names, Fred and Wilma Berry eagerly plan for and await this multicultural, multigenerational event, praying it will be a blessing to all who participate.
Registration and ticket information for the Azusa Awakening New Year’s Eve Celebration can be found here. The event will also be livestreamed on Facebook. Find more information at azusastreetmission.org. {eoa}
