Glad Tidings Church

Early Day Meetings Detailed
From its beginnings, Glad Tidings was identified with a succession of notable evangelists. In 1917 Maria Woodworth-Etter conducted a meeting at “Old Glad Tidings” that proved to be a major turning point in the work’s development. A decade later Robert Craig referred to the campaign as one that could go down in history because of the great outpourings of the Holy Spirit in San Francisco.

A similar remarkable event occurred in April, 1919, in the meetings conducted by Aimee Semple McPherson. At that time Pastor Craig had predicted a “ministry of an unusual order” for Mrs. McPherson, and he associated with her meetings in San Jose in August, 1921, setting up a “Glad Tidings McPherson Campaign Headquarters” opposite the South First Avenue location of the meetings. It was this meeting that Dr. Charles S. Price, also a later associate of Robert Craig, received the baptism in the Holy Spirit.

From the dedicatory service of the Temple in November 1925, a series of meetings were conducted with some of the best known and beloved evangelists of the Pentecostal movement. On that occasion Charles A. Shreve of Washington, DC, like Pastor Craig a former Methodist minister gave his testimony of Pentecostal baptism. Over 2000 people were in attendance at these opening services.

One evangelist, George Alfred Trenner, a former Presbyterian who held a campaign at Glad Tidings in August, 1927, reported, “It is the purpose of God that the Holy Spirit shall be recognized as the Chief Executive of the church and the administrator of the affairs of the lives of individual Christians. God has no other revival for the church apart from the spirit of Pentecost.”

One of Pastor Craig’s closest associates in ministry was Evangelist J.N. Hoover of Santa Cruz. A former Baptist minister, Brother Hoover spared no pains to denounce the intellectual arrogance of the established denominations, especially as they were penetrated by modernistic theology. In a message preached on Sunday afternoon, June 19, 1927, Evangelist Hoover made his position clear. “Modern theology is thoroughly unorthodox and is more responsible for the absence of young people from our churches than the moving picture show.”

Perhaps the most uniquely memorable of the evangelists to hold meetings at Glad Tidings we Smith Wigglesworth. He was a product of the Pentecostal outpouring that occurred in the Anglican church in the parish of Alexander T. Body. A workman without formal education, Wigglesworth became associated with the Salvation Army and married an officer. In San Francisco, as elsewhere, his methods were sometimes considered unconventional. Donald Gee said of him, “Diseases like cancer made him blaze with holy anger. Very often he made people run up and down aisles and even out into the streets to ‘act’ faith. His violent laying on of hands would almost send the seeker flying. But he was intensely sincere. Over a period of eight years Wigglesworth conducted three crusades in San Francisco.

Without a doubt, the most impressive meetings in the history of Glad Tidings Temple were those conducted in the late 20’s and 30’s by William Booth-Clibborn, grandson of the founder of the Salvation Army. “Born in Switzerland in a great tide of revival, he was cradled, as it were, in the mighty throes of the work of soul saving, and from infancy his life has been molded to great issues… “  Many thousands have been reached with the message of hope, hundreds being converted and filled with the Holy Ghost. Mr. Booth-Clibborn’s ministry is distinctive and appeals to all.