A Methodist Revival with Signs and Wonders in 1901 Propelled Barney Moore to Become an Early Pentecostal Missionary to Japan

This Week in AG History — January 17, 1931

By Darrin J. Rodgers
Originally published on AG-News, 19 January 2023

When Barney S. Moore (1874-1956) converted to Christ in 1901, it was during a revival with signs and wonders in a Methodist church. His testimony, published in the Jan. 17, 1931, issue of the Pentecostal Evangel, recounted that the Methodist missionary at the revival “was preaching nearly everything that is now preached in Pentecost.”

Moore recalled that, as the congregation was in quiet prayer, the “heavens opened and a rushing mighty wind” filled the small Methodist church. About one-third of the congregation fell to the ground, overwhelmed by God’s glory and the power of the Holy Spirit. Moore experienced something unexpected — he began speaking in a language he had not learned. At first the pastor was uncertain how to respond to the revival and the gift of tongues. But they soon realized they had experienced something akin to the spiritual outpouring in the second chapter of Acts. At the end of the revival, Moore counted 85 people who had decided to repent of their sins and follow Christ.

At the encouragement of his pastor, Moore attended Taylor University (Upland, Indiana) and studied for the ministry. At his first pastorate, in Urbana, Illinois, in 1904, the power of God fell again. During the revival, he wrote, a lady in his church spoke in tongues she had not learned, which Moore deemed to be classical Hebrew and Latin.

Moore was ordained in 1906 by the Metropolitan Church Association, a small Holiness denomination. Before long he heard about the Azusa Street Revival (1906-1909) in Los Angeles, which had become a focal point of the emerging Pentecostal movement. He immediately recognized the similarity between his own spiritual experiences and what was happening at the Azusa Street Revival. He cast his lot with the Pentecostals.

In 1914, Moore and his wife, Mary, followed God’s call to serve as missionaries in Japan. They established a thriving mission and, in 1918, affiliated with the Assemblies of God. When a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami hit Japan in 1923, devastating Yokohama and Tokyo and killing 140,000 people, the Moores turned their efforts toward relief work. Moore wrote a widely-distributed book, The Japanese Disaster: or the World’s Greatest Earthquake (1924), and spent years raising money to help the suffering Japanese people.

The testimony of Barney Moore demonstrates that early Pentecostals did not emerge in a vacuum. They were heirs to earlier revival traditions, including those in Methodist and Holiness churches. Moore was careful to document that his experience of speaking in tongues came before the broader Pentecostal movement came into being. His story also shows that early Pentecostals, when confronted by human suffering, were among those who demonstrated Christ’s love not just in word, but in deed.

Read Barney Moore’s article, “Glorious Miracles in the Twentieth Century,” on pages 2-3 of the Jan. 17, 1931, issue of the Pentecostal Evangel.

Also featured in this issue:

• “The Gift of Faith,” by Donald Gee

• “Evidences of God’s Grace in Japan,” by Jessie Wengler

And many more!

Click here to read this issue now.

Pentecostal Evangel archived editions courtesy of the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center.

Do you have Pentecostal historical materials that should be preserved? Please consider depositing these materials at the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center (FPHC). The FPHC, located in the Assemblies of God national offices, is the largest Pentecostal archive in the world. We would like to preserve and make your treasures accessible to those who write the history books.

Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center
1445 North Boonville Avenue
Springfield, Missouri 65802 USA
Phone: 417.862.1447 ext. 4400
Toll Free: 877.840.5200
Email: archives@ag.org
Website: www.iFPHC.org

These Assemblies of God Missionaries Fought Sex Trafficking in Japan over 100 Years Ago

This Week in AG History — June 9, 1917

By Darrin J. Rodgers
Originally published on AG-News, 09 June 2022

The June 9, 1917, issue of The Weekly Evangel featured a shocking photograph on its front cover — a picture of 10 female prostitutes in Japan, locked behind a window with bars. The caption read, “Sold! Carest thou not that we perish?” This image of sexual slavery was intended to provoke readers to pray for and support the ministry of William and Mary Taylor, early Assemblies of God missionaries who helped to free women involved in prostitution in Japan.

The caption beneath the photograph further described the plight of the women: “Sold to work evil, the conditions of thousands of these poor girls is indeed pitiful. These hopeless slaves are dolled up, painted and powdered, and then exposed to the gaze of every passerby, whose trade they are expected to solicit.”

The Taylors and their ministry colleagues, through the Door of Hope Mission in Kobe, Japan, worked tirelessly to free woman who found themselves caught in a life of sex trafficking. Prostitution had been first legalized in Japan 300 years earlier, in 1617. In an article in The Weekly Evangel, William Taylor described the disastrous consequences of the sex trade. He pled for readers to pray for the women — whom he called “somebody’s daughter, somebody’s sister.”

Christians must not be silent about the evil of sex trafficking, Taylor warned. He cited Scripture, “Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction. Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy” (Proverbs 31:8-9).

William and Mary Taylor, citizens of Great Britain, first arrived as missionaries in Japan in 1905 and were sent by the Japan Evangelistic Band, an evangelical missions organization. William Taylor was the second cousin of Hudson Taylor of the China Inland Mission. They returned to Britain on furlough in 1910 and were baptized in the Holy Spirit. They transferred their credentials to the Pentecostal Missionary Union of Great Britain and returned to Japan in 1913, and then to the American Assemblies of God in 1917. They were among the earliest Pentecostal missionaries to Japan, and they continued their work with victims of Japanese sex trafficking into the 1920s.

The story of the William and Mary Taylor illustrates that veteran evangelical missionaries became some of the first Pentecostal missionaries, and that the Assemblies of God, since its earliest years, has supported ministry to meet the deepest spiritual and social needs of people around the world.

Read the article by William J. Taylor, “So I Opened My Mouth,” on pages 1 and 3 of the June 9, 1917, issue of The Weekly Evangel.

Also featured in this issue:

• “Pictures of Pentecost in the Old Testament,” by Alice E. Luce

• “Sweet Smelling Roses on Thorny Bushes, or God’s Encouragement Along the Way,” by Max Freimark

And many more!

Click here to read this issue now.

Pentecostal Evangel and The Weekly Evangel archived editions courtesy of the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center.

Do you have Pentecostal historical materials that should be preserved? Please consider depositing these materials at the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center (FPHC). The FPHC, located in the Assemblies of God national offices, is the largest Pentecostal archive in the world. We would like to preserve and make your treasures accessible to those who write the history books.

Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center
1445 North Boonville Avenue
Springfield, Missouri 65802 USA
Phone: 417.862.1447 ext. 4400
Toll Free: 877.840.5200
Email: archives@ag.org
Website: www.iFPHC.org

Kiyoma Yumiyama: Japan Assemblies of God Pioneer

Kiyoma Yumiyama and Thomas F. Zimmerman in the 1960s.

This Week in AG History — November 01, 1970

By Glenn W. Gohr
Originally published on AG News, 05 November 2020

Kiyoma Yumiyama (1900-2002) is one of the early heroes of the faith in Japan. He lived for more than a century, and he was one of the few people who witnessed the formational years when the American Assemblies of God (AG) began evangelizing in Japan before World War II. He also was a vibrant part of the founding and growth of the Japan AG after the war.

Carl F. Juergensen and his wife, Frederike, were the first American AG missionaries to Japan. They arrived in Japan in 1913, worked with existing Pentecostals, and soon joined the newly organized Fellowship. The Juergensens opened a gospel mission in Tokyo. Other AG missionaries, including their son, John Juergensen, and Barney Moore, Jessie Wengler, and Florence Byers, arrived a few years later.

Marie Juergesen, the oldest daughter of Carl and Frederike Juergensen, wrote a tribute to Kiyoma Yumiyama in the Pentecostal Evangel in November 1970. She reported that more than 50 years previously [now over 100 years ago], a man was selling New Testaments and Gospel portions in the streets and villages of the island of Shikoku in Japan. He also visited a prosperous-looking farmhouse, but the family refused the books. Noticing a high school boy in the home, he said: “I have an English Book here; would you like to study it?’ The young man, Kiyoma Yumiyama, purchased the Bible and read it earnestly.

Shortly after this, one of Yumiyama’s friends gathered his classmates on the high school grounds and “preached Christ” to them. This happened on several occasions, and Yumiyama was an attentive listener.

Several years later, Yumiyama was called to the bedside of his sister, who was dying. This caused him to ponder about what happens after death. Then he remembered the “Book.” He began reading it again and carried it with him as he walked the streets where he was attending medical college.

One day he noticed a sign that said, “Gospel Mission.” He went inside and found answers to his questioning heart. He gave his heart to Christ. Afterwards he read through the Bible several times and grew in his faith. He moved to Tokyo and continued his medical studies, but soon felt he needed to drop out to answer a call to ministry. When he did this, his family disowned him.

In 1923, Yumiyama visited the Tokyo Gospel Hall. He wanted to know what “Pentecost” meant. John and Esther Juergensen invited him to their home where they could talk more freely. He shared with them that he was a young Christian from the island of Shikoku who had recently come to Tokyo. He had left medical school against the wishes of his parents, and now he wanted to obey the call of God to preach the gospel.

Because of his questions about Pentecostalism, John and Esther showed him in the Bible about the promise of the infilling of the Holy Spirit. He accepted this truth, and while praying, he was filled with the Holy Spirit in their living room. From that time on he remained at the forefront of Japan’s Pentecostal circle.

John and Esther Juergensen mentored him in his Christian walk. He spent days and months with them studying the Word of God and preaching the gospel. From 1925 to 1940, Yumiyama worked with Carl Juergensen. When the first Assemblies of God church was established in Japan in 1927, Kiyoma Yumiyama became its first pastor. He remained as pastor for 25 years, and the church was spared from destruction during the war when much of Tokyo was destroyed by bombs and fire.

When the Japan Assemblies of God was organized in 1949, he was a charter member and a key leader. He served for more than two decades as general superintendent (1949-1973) and was the first president of Central Bible College in Tokyo, a position he held for more than four decades (1950-1992).

Through his many years of service as a pastor, superintendent of the Japan Assemblies of God, and president of Central Bible College, Kiyoma Yumiyama made a lasting positive impact in Japan.

Read “A Man Chosen of God” on pages 8-9 of the Nov. 1, 1970, issue of the Pentecostal Evangel.

Also featured in this issue:

• “Harvest in View,” by Judith Bacon

• “The Man of Sin and His Woman,” by C. M. Ward

• “A Mixed Multitude in the Church,” by Bond P. Bowman

And many more!

Click here to read this issue now.

Pentecostal Evangel archived editions courtesy of the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center.

Do you have Pentecostal historical materials that should be preserved? Please consider depositing these materials at the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center (FPHC). The FPHC, located in the Assemblies of God national offices, is the largest Pentecostal archive in the world. We would like to preserve and make your treasures accessible to those who write the history books.

Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center
1445 North Boonville Avenue
Springfield, Missouri 65802 USA
Phone: 417.862.1447 ext. 4400
Toll Free: 877.840.5200
Email: archives@ag.org
Website: www.iFPHC.org

Barney Moore: Saved in a Methodist Revival with Signs and Wonders in 1901

Barney and Mary Moore, circa 1919

This Week in AG History — January 17, 1931

By Darrin Rodgers
Originally published on PE-News, 14 January 2016

When Barney S. Moore (1874-1956) converted to Christ in 1901, it was during a revival with signs and wonders in a Methodist church. His testimony, published in the January 17, 1931, issue of the Pentecostal Evangel, recounted that the Methodist missionary at the revival “was preaching nearly everything that is now preached in Pentecost.”

Moore recalled that, as the congregation was in quiet prayer, the “heavens opened and a rushing mighty wind” filled the small Methodist church. About one-third of the congregation fell to the ground, overwhelmed by God’s glory and the power of the Holy Spirit. Moore experienced something unexpected — he began speaking in a language he had not learned. At first the pastor was uncertain how to respond to the revival and the gift of tongues. But they soon realized they had experienced something akin to the spiritual outpouring in the second chapter of Acts. At the end of the revival, Moore counted 85 people who had decided to repent of their sins and follow Christ.

At the encouragement of his pastor, Moore attended Taylor University (Upland, Indiana) and studied for the ministry. At his first pastorate, in Urbana, Illinois, in 1904, the power of God fell again. During the revival, he wrote, a lady in his church spoke in tongues she had not learned, which Moore deemed to be classical Hebrew and Latin.

Moore was ordained in 1906 by the Metropolitan Church Association, a small Holiness denomination. Before long he heard about the Azusa Street Revival (1906-1909) in Los Angeles, which had become a focal point of the emerging Pentecostal movement. He immediately recognized the similarity between his own spiritual experiences and what was happening at the Azusa Street Revival. He cast his lot with the Pentecostals.

In 1914, Moore and his wife, Mary, followed God’s call to serve as missionaries in Japan. They established a thriving mission and, in 1918, affiliated with the Assemblies of God. When a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami hit Japan in 1923, devastating Yokohama and Tokyo and killing 140,000 people, the Moores turned their efforts toward relief work. Moore wrote a widely-distributed book, The Japanese Disaster: or the World’s Greatest Earthquake (1924), and spent years raising money to help the suffering Japanese people.

The testimony of Barney Moore demonstrates that early Pentecostals did not emerge in a vacuum. They were heirs to earlier revival traditions, including those in Methodist and Holiness churches. Moore was careful to document that his experience of speaking in tongues came before the broader Pentecostal movement came into being. His story also shows that early Pentecostals, when confronted by human suffering, were among those who demonstrated Christ’s love not just in word, but in deed.

Read Barney Moore’s article, “Glorious Miracles in the Twentieth Century,” on pages 2-3 of the January 17, 1931, issue of the Pentecostal Evangel.

Also featured in this issue:
• “The Gift of Faith,” by Donald Gee
• “Evidences of God’s Grace in Japan,” by Jessie Wengler
And many more!

Click here to read this issue now.

Pentecostal Evangel archived editions courtesy of the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center.

Do you have Pentecostal historical materials that should be preserved? Please consider depositing these materials at the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center (FPHC). The FPHC, located in the Assemblies of God national offices, is the largest Pentecostal archive in the world. We would like to preserve and make your treasures accessible to those who write the history books.

Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center
1445 North Boonville Avenue
Springfield, Missouri 65802 USA
Phone: 417.862.1447 ext. 4400
Toll Free: 877.840.5200
Email: archives@ag.org
Website: www.iFPHC.org

The Assemblies of God and Japanese Sex Trafficking in 1917

This Week in AG History–June 9, 1917
By Darrin Rodgers

Also published in AG-News, Wed, 11 Jun 2014 – 3:04 PM CST.

The June 9, 1917, issue of The Weekly Evangel featured a shocking photograph on its front cover — a picture of 10 female prostitutes in Japan, locked behind a window with bars. The caption read, “Sold! Carest thou not that we perish?” This image of sexual slavery was intended to provoke readers to pray for and support the ministry of William and Mary Taylor, early Assemblies of God missionaries who helped to free women involved in prostitution in Japan.

The caption beneath the photograph further described the plight of the women: “Sold to work evil, the conditions of thousands of these poor girls is indeed pitiful. These hopeless slaves are dolled up, painted and powdered, and then exposed to the gaze of every passerby, whose trade they are expected to solicit.”

The Taylors and their ministry colleagues, through the Door of Hope Mission in Kobe, Japan, worked tirelessly to free woman who found themselves caught in a life of sex trafficking. Prostitution had been first legalized in Japan 300 years earlier, in 1617. In an article in The Weekly Evangel, William Taylor described the disastrous consequences of the sex trade. He pled for readers to pray for the women — whom he called “somebody’s daughter, somebody’s sister.”

Christians must not be silent about the evil of sex trafficking, Taylor warned. He cited Scripture, “Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction. Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy” (Proverbs 31:8-9). The Taylors continued to speak out against sex trafficking, serving with the Assemblies of God in Japan until the late 1930s. During World War II, the Taylors returned to America and ministered at the Japanese American Relocation Camps, in which the United States government incarcerated over 100,000 people because of their Japanese ancestry.

Read the article by William J. Taylor, “So I Opened My Mouth,” on pages 1 and 3 of the June 9, 1917, issue of The Weekly Evangel.

Also featured in this issue:

* “Pictures of Pentecost in the Old Testament,” by Alice E. Luce

* “Sweet Smelling Roses on Thorny Bushes, or God’s Encouragement Along the Way,” by Max Freimark

And many more!

Click here to read this issue now.

Pentecostal Evangel archived editions courtesy of the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center.

Do you have Pentecostal historical materials that should be preserved? Please consider depositing these materials at the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center (FPHC). The FPHC, located in the Assemblies of God national offices, is the largest Pentecostal archive in the world. We would like to preserve and make your treasures accessible to those who write the history books.

Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center
1445 North Boonville Avenue
Springfield, Missouri 65802 USA
Phone: 417.862.1447 ext. 4400
Toll Free: 877.840.5200
Email: Archives@ag.org