The Go-between - Lucy Farrow

1851–1911

One of the most important religious developments of the twentieth century occurred in its first decade: the beginning of the Pentecostal movement. Historians often point to the explosion of speaking in tongues in April 1906 at a church meeting on Azusa Street in Los Angeles, but those events had been brewing for a number of years. William J. Seymour pastored that church and led the burgeoning movement. He had been influenced by the Bible teaching of Charles Fox Parham, who had started a school in Kansas. But it was an African American woman—Lucy Farrow—who introduced those two men. Her contribution to this important movement has too often been overlooked.

Born a slave in Virginia (and a niece of the famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass), Lucy grew up in the Reconstruction-era South. Details of her early life are sketchy, but she landed in Houston in the 1890s and at some point began pastoring a small mission church there. Hearing Charles Fox Parham’s teaching on the Holy Spirit at a crusade in Houston, Lucy traveled with the crusade to Kansas, leaving her church in the care of a friend, William Seymour. She came back excited about this new direction.

After William Seymour met Charles Fox Parham and moved to a new church in Los Angeles, he invited Lucy to visit him and share his ministry. People respected her connection with God. Some would come to her for prayer, asking that she lay her hands on them. Many considered her the channel through which they received the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

As you read this, you might be applauding these events or be skeptical about them. For the moment, try to put aside any questions and consider the character of this significant woman. She saw herself as a servant of God. Her whole ministry involved making connections between others and the Holy Spirit. She connected Charles Fox Parham with William Seymour. She connected Houston with Kansas and later with Los Angeles. Even later, she traveled around the country and to Africa, connecting others through her preaching and praying. (It is said that in Liberia she was miraculously able to communicate in a tribal language she did not know.)

Obviously she wasn’t seeking her own fame. History has largely forgotten about her, but we suspect that she wouldn’t mind. She was just a channel for what God chose to do.

As are we.

Peter and John laid their hands upon these believers, and they received the Holy Spirit.

Acts 8:17