More Than a Century:

Why Our Roots Go Deeper Than Azusa Street

If you’ve been in Apostolic circles for any length of time, you’ve probably heard the critique. Someone looks at our worship, our doctrine, or the way we call on the Name of Jesus and says, "Oh, you guys are just a byproduct of that 1906 revival in Los Angeles."

They want to point to William J. Seymour and the Azusa Street Mission as our "Founding Fathers." And while we honor what God did in that old warehouse, we need to get one thing straight: 1906 wasn't the birth of the Church. It was just a wake-up call.

If we believe the Bible is the final authority, then we have to stop letting people date our "birth certificate" to the 20th century. Our DNA didn't start in California; it started in an Upper Room in Jerusalem.

The "First Church" Reality

When you look at the landscape of modern Christianity, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by thousands of denominations, all claiming to have a piece of the truth. But here is the reality we have to stand on: We don’t identify as a "denomination" because we are simply the continuation of the First Church.

If you could step into a time machine, go back to 40 AD, and walk into a gathering of believers, you wouldn't find a liturgy from the 1500s or a creed from the 4th century. You would find people baptized in the Name of Jesus, filled with the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in tongues, and living out the teachings of the Apostles.

That isn't "Pentecostalism." That is just being the Church.

Closest to the Source

Critics love to talk about "tradition," but tradition is often just the dust that settles on the truth over time. If you want to know who is closest to the truth, you don't look at who has the biggest cathedral or the oldest political ties—you look at who is following the Apostles' Doctrine the closest.

• The Message: While others point to "the Sinner’s Prayer" (a 20th-century invention), we point to Peter’s command in Acts 2:38. Which one is closer to the source?

• The Name: While others baptize using titles that were formalized centuries later by church councils, we use the Name that the Apostles actually used.

• The Experience: While some say the gifts of the Spirit died out with the last Apostle, we are living proof that the same fire that fell in the beginning is still falling today.

We aren't trying to be "modern" or "relevant." We are trying to be Apostolic. If the Apostles wouldn't recognize a church's practice, then that church has drifted. We’ve made it our mission to stay anchored to the dock where the ship first set sail.

The "Hidden" Years: Apostolic Faith through the Centuries

The biggest mistake people make is assuming that because the word "Apostolic" wasn't on a billboard in the year 1200, the experience didn't exist. History is written by the victors—usually the state-mandated churches that spent centuries trying to silence anyone who didn't follow their creeds.

But if you look in the margins, the Apostolic fingerprint is everywhere. From the "heretics" of the Middle Ages who were persecuted for baptizing in Jesus' Name, to the small pockets of believers in the 1800s—from the hills of Tennessee to the mountains of Wales—who received the Holy Ghost just like they did in Acts. The fire never went out; it just went underground.

1906 Was a Restoration, Not an Invention

Think of it like this: If you find a classic car buried under a pile of junk in a garage and you spend years restoring it to its original glory, did you "invent" that car the day you finished it? Of course not. You just uncovered the original design.

That is what happened in the early 1900s. After centuries of church tradition, rituals, and man-made creeds "burying" the truth, a group of hungry believers decided to dig back down to the foundation. They didn't invent a new way to be saved; they just stopped ignoring the old way.

We Aren't New

When we allow people to say we started in 1906, we concede the argument that we are a "modern movement." We aren't. We aren't a "sect," and we aren't a "new thing."

We are a continuation.

The next time someone tries to pin your faith to a 20th-century timeline, remind them that the fire may have flared up in Los Angeles, but the coal was lit in Jerusalem. We don't trace our lineage to a mission house; we trace it to the Empty Tomb and the Upper Room.

We aren't 120 years old. We’re nearly 2,000.