Pentecostals consider the 1906 Azusa Street Revival...

Pentecostals consider the 1906 Azusa Street Revival in downtown Los Angeles the primary starting point for the modern, worldwide tongues-speaking movement in Christianity. But the mission building on that short street in Little Tokyo was torn down decades ago.

But an unpretentious one-story house at 216 N. Bonnie Brae St. in Los Angeles, where the first group of ecstatic worshipers met before going to Azusa Street in April, 1906, was purchased three years ago by a Los Angeles group called Pentecostal Heritage.

“It was in escrow to another buyer when we made our offer,” said Art E. Glass, chairman of Pentecostal Heritage. Delays facing the original buyer, who planned to tear down the house and build an apartment building, prompted him to yield to the religious group, Glass said.

Plans, slow in developing, have been made to refurbish the house, build quarters for a caretaker and provide a small research library. The building still contains the piano played at services there by Jennie Moore Seymour, wife of the spiritual leader, William Seymour.

About 80% of the early Pentecostal church founders trace their beginnings to the daily meetings at the Bonnie Brae house and the Azusa Street mission, Glass said.

The first major rally launching a $100,000 fund-raising drive for the project will be held Sunday evening at Angelus Temple, the domed church built by Pentecostal evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson near Echo Lake. The principal speakers at the 5:30 p.m. rally will be Bishop Vinson Synan, chairman of a large gathering of Pentecostal and charismatic Christians July 22-26 in New Orleans, and educator Oliver Haney of Atlanta.

“It will be the first time white and black Pentecostal leaders will appear together here to celebrate our roots and support this project,” Glass said. He noted that the Azusa Street revival was remarkable in 1906-1909 not only for religious reasons but also because Seymour was black and the services were always interracial.

CONVENTIONS

The Salvation Army begins its four-day Western Territorial Congress at the Pasadena Convention Center on Friday with a problem: More than 3,200 people have paid their registration fees and the auditorium seats only 2,950. The surprising response was attributed partly to the scheduled appearance of Gen. Eva Burrows, only the second woman ever elected to head the worldwide organization. Southern California units are also celebrating 100 years in the area, and Burrows will speak Friday in Los Angeles and Monday in Costa Mesa to help observe the centennial.

About 200 rabbis, scholars, lay leaders and educators are expected to attend the 27th annual convention of the Federation of Reconstructionist Congregations and Havurot at the Los Angeles Hilton and Towers Hotel starting Thursday. The “fourth” branch of Judaism--usually overshad owed by the older and larger wings of Reform, Conservative and Orthodox Judaism--consists of 58 synagogues and havurot, or small groups. The convention closes June 14.

The United Church of Christ, whose earliest congregation in Southern California began in 1887, will open a three-day regional convention Friday at the University of Redlands. The Rev. James H. Hargett, a prominent civil rights advocate in Los Angeles in the 1960s and presently pastor of Christian Fellowship Church in San Diego, will preach at the 1:30 p.m. service June 14.

The University of Redlands campus will also host more than 1,750 United Methodist clergy and lay members June 18-22 for the California-Pacific Annual Conference. Resolutions to be considered include appeals to local congregations to “explore every possible means of opening their buildings as temporary shelters” for the homeless and to oppose discrimination against victims of the AIDS epidemic.