An inspiring story
Sitting in the hallway
Where would you sit if you were not allowed in?
William Seymour was the son of formerly enslaved parents. In 1905 he wanted to study at a Bible school in Houston, but because of segregation he had to listen from the hallway outside the classroom. A year later he led a small group in an old building on Azusa Street in Los Angeles. What happened there amazed the city: Black and white, Latino and Asian, rich and poor prayed and sang together, at a time when that was almost unthinkable. Why did it happen there? Because the man who had been kept outside opened the door for everyone. A visitor wrote that 'the colour line was washed away in the blood'.
From this simple hall grew the Pentecostal movement, now hundreds of millions strong. It started with a man in the hallway.
There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free… for you are all one in Christ Jesus.Galatians 3:28