You're holding history in your hands. Are you ready to rediscover it? Recently, historians recovered the lost sermons that helped prepare Los Angeles for the Azusa Street Revival. This sermon series by Joseph Smale, The Pentecostal Blessing, is republished here for the first time in more than 110 years. As you read these sermons, you'll connect to those early believers of the Pentecostal Movement. Imagine the possibilities of reaching into the past and finding a better understanding of their worldview and spirituality than ever before. Experience the same rousing call to revival that led to Azusa as you rediscover the vibrant spiritual life available to every Christian today.

An ethnography and examination of a new wave of Pentecostalism in Canada and the US.

Early Americans have long been considered "A People of the Book" Because the nickname was coined primarily to invoke close associations between Americans and the Bible, it is easy to overlook the central fact that it was a book-not a geographic location, a monarch, or even a shared language-that has served as a cornerstone in countless investigations into the formation and fragmentation of early American culture. Few books can lay claim to such powers of civilization-altering influence. Among those which can are sacred books, and for Americans principal among such books stands the Bible. This Handbook is designed to address a noticeable void in resources focused on analyzing the Bible in America in various historical moments and in relationship to specific institutions and cultural expressions. It takes seriously the fact that the Bible is both a physical object that has exercised considerable totemic power, as well as a text with a powerful intellectual design that has inspired everything from national religious and educational practices to a wide spectrum of artistic endeavors to our nation's politics and foreign policy. This Handbook brings together a number of established scholars, as well as younger scholars on the rise, to provide a scholarly overview--rich with bibliographic resources--to those interested in the Bible's role in American cultural formation.

Joseph Smale was a catalytic figure in the church life of los Angeles, leading many towards the 'Promised land' of Pentecostal blessing in 1905-1906; although his subsequent experiences led him to retreat from the burgeoning Pentecostal movement. Joseph Smale (1867-1926) was one of the central figures involved in the chain of events leading to the 1906 Azusa Street revival in los Angeles. This study presents the diverse influences which impacted Smale - formative years in Britain, growing up in Cornwall and Somerset amid a rhythm of Wesleyan revival; reformed theological training under the tutelage of C.H. Spurgeon in London; migration to the united States; plus hard experiences in the 'school of anxiety' - which were all precursors for Smale's influential role as champion of Pentecostal revival. Smale's leadership will resonate with every church leader who prays for revival and longs for more Holy Spirit power experimentally. Furthermore, his story is also educative for those contending with some of the more problematic and 'untidy' aspects of Pentecostal-Charismatic experience, involving painful power struggles, hurts, abuse of freedom, spiritual excesses and so on. Smale's 'Moses' designation and biography still have relevance for the church in the present day.

Why is it that the Pentecostal movement today lacks the power of its Azusa Street roots? What teaching served as the foundation of the 1906 Azusa Street Revival, and how is it that most Pentecostals repudiated that foundation less than six years after the revival began? In this all-too-true tale, you'll discover larger-than-life -- and flawed -- men of God, scandalous animosity among Christian brothers, and a contentious prayer challenge in what could be described as a game of spiritual "Russian roulette." The book relates the roles of William J. Seymour, Charles F. Parham, and William H. Durham in the seismic shift which occurred in early Pentecostalism. This groundbreaking look at the nexus of the Holiness and Pentecostal movements explains how one of God's special works of grace became "The Rejected Blessing."