Reg Layzell was a businessman that God
called to carry the Latter Rain. He was known as an apostle
in Africa, the Arctic, Canada, Mexico, Taiwan, and The
United States. He was passionate for praise and worship,
missions work, revival, the things of the Holy Spirit,
unity, prophecy, and for signs and wonders to be active in
the Church.
Reg Layzell was born in Wallington, England February 21st,
1904. He had seven brothers and one sister. His family moved
to Canada in 1907 when he was three years old. His father
was a stanch Baptist and a graduate of Spurgeon’s College in
London, England who often held up his Bible saying, “This is
God’s Word from cover to cover.” Layzell’s father had been
led to the Lord by Charles Spurgeon as a teen. As Layzell
got older and began to read the Bible for himself he read Scriptures |
— Rod Parsley, Center for Moral Clarity —  |
like, “I have come that you might have life and
you might have it more abundantly,” and “They shall lay
hands on the sick and they shall recover,” or “They shall
speak with other tongues.” Even though these passages were
in the Bible his father said they were not for today. So at
18 years old young Layzell vowed not to be a Christian until
he saw those things in the Church.
Layzell was turned off when attending church with his
parents because he saw people “singing songs about how they
loved Jesus but they were all looking at their watches to
see how quick they could get away from the One they loved.”
In 1925 Reg Layzell met and married 20-year-old Nellie
Horrox from Birchcliff, Toronto. Her family came from Leeds,
England about the same time the Layzell family came from
Essex. Although unsaved at the time she was a member of the
United Church.
1932: SALVATION AT 28 YEARS OLD
During the dark days of the
Great Depression, on a wintry November night in the city of
Montreal, Canada in 1932, Layzell saw a sign out in front of
a theater building that read “Jesus Saves.” He heard joyful
music and singing coming from the building. Out of curiosity
he entered to see people waving handkerchiefs in the air and
praising God. This was very different than any church
service he had been to before. For the first time he
actually saw people worshipping Jesus with all their heart
and with smiles on their faces.
Layzell had entered Pastor Charles and Annie Baker’s
Drummond Street Evangel Pentecostal Church. It was a
red-hot-on-fire-for-Jesus-Holy-Ghost-filled church, if words
can describe it. Layzell waited at the back of the sanctuary
to ask the pastor some “challenging questions.” He wanted to
know if the pastor believed in “praying for the sick and
casting out demons.” He wanted to know “about these tongues
that are mentioned in the Bible.” He almost dared the
pastor, “Show me there is a God!”
Pastor Baker didn’t shrink back from Layzell’s bold
questions. He simply answered, “Yes we believe in all those
things because they are in the Bible.” Pastor Baker had a
question for Reg Layzell, too: “If you ask me how to drive
to Toronto, which is 300 miles west of here, and I tell you
to take Route 2 and drive west but you go to Route 2 and
drive east, whose fault is it if you don’t reach Toronto?”
Layzell got the point. Pastor Baker then led the 28-year-old
Layzell to an adjacent room where believers were already
gathered together in prayer. In those days the Pentecostals
normally had ‘after service prayer’ in a prayer room
designated as a place for people to be filled with the
Spirit.
When Layzell entered the prayer room he saw some people with
uplifted hands, others lying prostrate on the floor seeking
Jesus. This was the first time Reg Layzell had seen a church
that believed in the Bible. That night, in November 1932,
Layzell asked Jesus to come into his heart. He was baptized
in water a few days later and within three weeks he was
baptized in the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in
other tongues in the very same prayer room. Reg Layzell’s
wife and four-year-old son, Hugh, moved from Toronto and
joined him in Montreal. Nellie also accepted Jesus as Savior
and the family attended Drummond Street for two years before
returning to Toronto.
Layzell’s first preaching experience was on the streets in
downtown Montreal. In 1947 Pastor Baker died and Reverend
William Kautz took over the pastorate. He became a faithful
member of the church from 1932 to 1946.
14 years a Christian businessmen One of the interesting
things about Brother Layzell was his business background.
Before going into full-time ministry he was 14 years a
Christian businessman and sales manager for the
Addressograph Multigraph Company, a company that sold
addressing machines used to print names and addresses on
mailing labels, envelopes, form letters, and other items.
During these 14 years Layzell acquired many leadership
skills that would later serve him well in ministry. He was
active in Gideons International, an organization that
distributes Bibles worldwide. In the Pentecostal church in
Toronto, Layzell served as a Sunday school teacher, an elder
in the church, and would sometimes preach on the street
corner in front of the church. However, he was content to
stay in business and give generously to the Lord’s work
during that period of his life. He also ministered in
various Pentecostal churches in Southern Ontario during
those years.
1946: THE CALL TO PREACH
In 1940, Layzell bought a ranch on
Bruce Peninsula near the town of Wiarton, 140 miles north of
Toronto, with the intention of constructing a Christian
camp. He also bought a house in Wiarton in 1944, nine miles
away from the ranch. His family lived there until 1946. His
son Hugh finished high school in Wiarton where he met his
future bride Audrey. By 1945 World War II was coming to an
end and Layzell had made sufficient investments to retire.
He was only 41 years old.
In 1946 Layzell received a letter from the district
superintendent of the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada in
British Columbia asking him to preach revival meetings there
and share his testimony as a Spirit-filled Christian
businessman. It was at this time that Layzell decided to
take a year off from work and see what God wanted him to do.
Brother Layzell was zealous for revival, the things of the
Holy Spirit, praying for the sick, and for signs and wonders
to be in the Church. He traveled to many churches
ministering the Gospel without charge and was well known in
that regard. His first stop was a church in Abbotsford in
the Fraser Valley of British Columbia where the pastor was
very ill. When he arrived, the pastor’s wife told Layzell
that since she was caring for her husband, he would have to
take the service himself. Layzell often told the story of
trying to lead the singing himself and called it a
“disaster.” The spiritual climate in the church was hard as
stone. After the service Layzell told the pastor’s wife that
he was going to spend the next day in fasting and prayer.
During this time of seeking God something powerful happened.
Brother Layzell received a revelation of the sacrifice of
praise. The Holy Spirit dropped this verse in his spirit,
“But thou art holy, O thou that inhabits the praises of
Israel” (Psalm 22:3). The revelation was that God inhabits
the praises of His people. That you didn’t have to feel
anything to offer up a sacrifice of praise to God and if you
would give Him that sacrifice of praise He would respond to
it by pouring out His Spirit (Hebrews 13:15). After this
revelation the heavens opened and “the people really entered
into the presence of the Lord.” From 1946 to 1947 Brother
Layzell taught and preached mostly on prayer, the sacrifice
of praise and Mark 16:14-20.
Layzell continued to minister in several other churches in
the B. C. area. One of the small churches he ministered in
was in Mission City. After returning to Ontario, Layzell was
asked to “come out and take the church.” Initially he flatly
refused because he always said that he would never pastor.
Later he was convicted by the Holy Spirit and felt it was
God. In August of 1946, Layzell and Nellie sold everything
and moved with 18-year-old Hugh, 10-year-old Ruth, and
eight-year-old Marion to pastor the church. For the next two
years Layzell did not travel. The church tripled in size and
he enlarged the building to minister to the increase.
GLAD TIDINGS TEMPLE: VANCOUVER, 1948
By 1948 Layzell had preached in many other churches,
including Glad Tidings Temple in Vancouver, which had lost
its pastor through a moral failure. The people were looking
for a new pastor and asked Layzell if he would consider
taking over the church. A woman by the name of Sister Gail,
who had been a missionary to Japan, had a prophetic vision
of Layzell being their new pastor. Layzell agreed and took
the church in the spring of 1948.
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1948: ENCOUNTER WITH THE LATTER RAIN
In July of 1948 Reg Layzell attended a weeklong camp-meeting
where he had heard of an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. At
the meeting were George and Ernie Hawtin, Percy Hunt and
Herrick Holt. Ernie Hawtin and Percy Hunt were formerly teachers at
Bethel Bible Institute and were reportedly asked to resign
because of a dispute over the Bible School property.
When they left the school they took 70 students with them
and joined with Four Square pastor, Herrick Holt, who had
recently started an independent work called Sharon Orphanage
and Schools located in North Battleford, Saskatchewan. They
were holding services in a former Air Force base building
where the ministry of the laying on of hands and prophecy
were restored. The leadership at Sharon Orphanage and
Schools had attended a William Branham meeting where they
saw Branham moving in the Spirit, flowing in words of
knowledge and praying for the sick. To watch a man who
believed in signs, wonders and miracles prompted them to
seek the Lord for a deeper relationship with Him.
Sometime later the Hawtins called the ministry team and
student body to join them in fasting. The students fasted
for three weeks. Ernie Hawtin fasted for 40 days. At the end
of the fast they gathered together in prayer where the Holy
Spirit fell on Brother Ernie in a mighty way. He was an
uneducated, simple man that God anointed as a prophet.
During this meeting he prophesied for about 30 minutes
“speaking of a coming revival and the gifts of the Holy
Spirit being restored and received by the laying on of hands
and prophecy.” After this George Hawtin sent everyone to
their dorms to “search the Scriptures.” When they came back
the next day they all pointed to the Scriptures in Timothy
where Paul speaks of Timothy receiving the gifts of the
Spirit by the laying on of hands and prophecy. After this
the Hawtins began to lay hands and prophesy over the
students and others. That was February 12, 1948.
News of the outpouring spread like wildfire among the
Pentecostals throughout Canada, the United States and to
Brother Layzell. When Reg Layzell attended the camp-meeting he
experienced first hand the Latter Rain. He saw people
receive personal prophetic ministry and the ministry of the
laying on of hands to receive the gifts of the Spirit. This
encounter with the Holy Spirit at this meeting had a
tremendous impact on Layzell’s life and ministry.
After the meetings were over he asked the Hawtin brothers to
minister at his church in Vancouver. The duo agreed and came
to Glad Tidings Temple with several others. These men formed
the prophetic presbytery team and held meetings from
November 8 to 22. This prophetic team offered personal
prophecy and impartation to many believers at the church
including Hugh and Audrey Layzell, several pastors and
others who came from different parts of British Columbia and
Washington State. These candidates had spent at least three
days in prayer and fasting preparing themselves to receive
prophecy and the ministry of the laying on of hands. During
the services they would sit on the first row of the church
until such a time as the prophetic team felt the unction of
the Holy Spirit to minister to them. Then they would call
them forward and prophesy.
Reg Layzell spent the next three months in intense prayer –
around four hours daily – asking God to pour out His Spirit
mightily on the church and to send more men. He told the
Lord, “If men were not coming in then I’d know it wasn’t my
call and I was going to get out.” One day he heard the
prayer room door open and close. A voice came up behind him
speaking in a Scotch brogue accent and said, “May the Lord
God Almighty give thee the desires of thine heart.” Layzell
took the stand that the Holy Ghost had to draw the people to
the church by His Spirit and not by man’s human efforts –
and He did. The church grew from 65 people to over 800
on-fire believers. They had more young men in the church
than young women.
During the services there were many that testified of
hearing a “heavenly choir of angels singing.” There were
words of knowledge, spiritual songs, prophetic singing and
the song of the Lord heard in every service. There were
people speaking in unknown tongues and others who heard
unfamiliar languages like Chinese. Although a temporary sign
and wonder, there were even people whom the Holy Spirit
anointed to play the piano and sing prophetically who
formerly could not play at all.
In 1949 the Assemblies of God condemned the doctrine of the
‘Latter Rain Movement’ as heresy. Some later accused the
Hawtins of teaching a post-tribulation rapture. Their
position was that a pre-tribulation theology was the only
correct one. Any one teaching otherwise would endanger his
credentials with the denomination.
Hugh Layzell says he did not recall any issue with
pre-tribulation teachings at the time of the 1948 and 1949
revival. He further stated that his dad certainly believed
in the imminent return of the Lord, the catching away of the
saints and that “the purpose of the presbytery ministry was
seen to be involved in the setting of members in the Body of
Christ, each one with a gift or ministry (talent) so the
Body of Christ could come to perfection or maturity.” He
said the focus on the teachings in those days was not just
the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the ministry of the laying
on of hands and the impartation of the gifts of the Spirit
and prophecy, but rather on the unity of the believers found
in John 17:22 and Ephesians 4:13. It was this unity that
they saw necessary as a precursor of the Lord’s return. Even
the “restitution of all things” message found in Acts 3:21
dealt with this unity “which God hath spoken by the mouth of
all his holy prophets since the world began.” This prayer of
Jesus was displayed for all to see on a sign in the foyer of
the church. Layzell believed that Jesus was coming very soon
and the latter rain outpouring was for the purpose of
fulfilling the Great Commission and bringing in the final
harvest.
During this time Layzell thought it necessary to leave the
Assemblies denomination and “left with regret and without
any bitterness.” His son Hugh Layzell recalls him saying,
“The head office in Toronto wouldn’t investigate what the
revival was really all about and that they just didn’t like
the people of North Battleford where the laying on of hands
started. So they opposed it.”
Some say the genesis of the controversy was started when R.
E. McAlister, a well respected Pentecostal leader who had
attended the Azusa Street meetings in 1906 as a young man
with Pastor William Joseph Seymour, wrote an article in the
Pentecostal Testimony, the official publication of the
Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada, opposing the practice of
the laying on of hands and prophecy for the impartation of
the gifts of the Holy Spirit. McAlister was probably the
first Canadian who received the baptism of the Holy Spirit
when he attended Azusa and later established the first
Pentecostal church in Kinburn, Ontario near Ottawa in 1911.
None of this mattered much to Layzell. He had been touched
by the Holy Spirit and knew what God had called him to do.
He was willing for his life and ministry to be judged by its
fruit.
1950s-70s: MISSIONS – THE APOSTOLIC DIMENSION
Reg Layzell had a world vision. In the early days he had
been influenced by his friend the evangelical Canadian
pastor and evangelist Oswald Smith (1889-1986). Smith was
best known as the founding pastor of The Peoples Church in
Toronto. He was well traveled and used radio broadcasts to
preach the Gospel and generate a zeal for international
missions. Even Layzell’s Drummond Street pastor wrote an
article encouraging the importance of missions. Pastor Baker
penned: “Missionary giving has increased our range of
usefulness. It has given us a part in the evangelization of
the world and thus has enabled us to bear fruit far beyond
the range of our local activities. It has pushed out the
four walls of our assembly to include the uttermost parts of
the earth.”
Reg Layzell was convinced that a church should spend more
money on missions than it did operating the church. His
passion for missions can be found in this statement, “To me,
if you’re not doing missionary work, you haven’t got a
church. If you’re spending all your money on the Pentagon at
home and sending no soldiers out, you’re not getting very
far.” To that end, Brother Layzell started a full-time Bible
School where men and women through the 50s and 60s were
trained in ministry and sent into the nations through the
ministry’s Glad Tidings Missionary Society.
Then, in the late 1950s the church entered the apostolic
dimension by sending missionaries into the nations “through
the ministry of the laying on of hands.” The first
missionaries were Ray and Florence Erickson, who were sent
to Taiwan. They were later followed by Nick Krushnisky, who
has a church in Taipei today.
In the winter of 1956, during a week night service, there
was a prophetic call to Glad Tidings to Uganda, East Africa.
When Layzell applied to the British Governor of Uganda for
permission to enter the country to do missions work, the
application was refused because the Archbishop of the
Anglican Church did not want Pentecostals in Uganda.
Undaunted, Layzell believed this call was of God. The church
began to pray fervently for an open door. In December 1956,
Layzell’s son Hugh and daughter-in-law were sent to Kenya to
work with Elim missionaries of New York until the door
opened to Uganda. That door opened in May 1960, enabling
Hugh, Audrey and others from Glad Tidings to pioneer the
Full Gospel in Uganda where a great and powerful move of God
took place that continues today.
Other missionaries were sent out like 22-year-old Kayy
Gordon in June of 1956, to work among the Inuit Eskimos in
the Canadian Arctic. Others were sent into Malaysia and
Mexico. Layzell sent out some 44 missionaries in all with a
mighty zeal for the Lord to reach the lost and pioneer new
churches.
Apostle Reg Layzell didn’t believe in bringing missionaries
back home to collect money so they could continue their
mission. God had given him a different strategy. He believed
that when the church sent out missionaries it should make
sure their needs were met as long as they were on the field.
Thanks to Reg Layzell’s business background he was able to
mentor many members of the church in business. Some even
became very wealthy and were active supporters of the
mission outreaches. Many offered a double tithe, 10 percent
to the church and 10 percent to missions. Not only did
Layzell send out missionaries into the nations, he pioneered
six other churches in Abbotsford, Chilliwack and Surrey in
B. C. and a church in Bellingham, Washington.
In the 1970s Reg Layzell began to travel into Washington,
Oregon and California to encourage and strengthen the
churches and to help pioneer new works. He wrote several
books including, “The Pastor’s Pen,” “Path of the Just” and
“The Key of David.” He ministered with many other well-known
spiritual pioneers like Dick Iverson, George Evans, Leonard
Fox, Myrtle Beal, Joe Morris and David Schoch.
WELL DONE FAITHFUL SERVANT
In November of 1984 Apostle Reg Layzell died of meningitis
in New York State, where he was considering opening another
church. He was 80 years old. His funeral service was held at
Living Hope (formerly Maranatha Missionary Bible) in
Hamilton, Ontario, founded by his son Hugh with wife Audrey.
His good friend Dick Iverson from Bible Temple in Portland,
Oreg. presided over the service. Nellie passed away in
August the same year. If Layzell would have been
disappointed in anything it surely would have been that
Jesus didn’t return in his lifetime and that Jesus’ prayer
“that they may be one as we are” was not yet fulfilled.
Reg Layzell should be remembered first as a true shepherd
and one who had a zeal for the restoration of the apostolic
church. He had a great passion for equipping and training
young men and women for ministry and world missions.
Sometimes referred to as the Apostle of Praise, the
revelation of the sacrifice of praise and that God lives in
the praises of His people were central to his message. He
spent his entire ministry life advancing the Gospel of Jesus
Christ, equipping believers, pioneering churches and
preaching on restoration. Today thousands of people around
the world and hundreds of churches can trace their spiritual
lineage back to this man. Truly he was an apostle of the
Latter Rain.
A special thank you to Apostle Hugh Layzell for sharing
his memories and photos of his father’s life and ministry so
we could pen this piece of Christian history.
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