return to:  A A ALLEN MIRACLE RESTORATION REVIVALS (formerly of Dallas, Texas and Miracle Valley, Arizona)

 Asa Alonzo Allen THE MIRACLE MAN (1911 - 1970)

A.A.Allen was one of the most important evangelists of the Voice of Healing movement. He was known as the miracle man. He was incredibly gifted, dramatic and controversial. Allen was born in Sulphur Rock, Arkansas, March 27th, 1911. His childhood was one of growing up in poverty and just plain hard work. His father was known to be a heavy drinker and his mother lived with several different men. In 1934, Allen was converted in a spirit-filled Methodist church. Then about 1936 he was ordained as an Assemblies of God minister and launched out in his preaching ministry. Revivalism during the times of the depression was tough on evangelists. Extreme fortitude and God's grace empowered Brother Allen to continue on. But in 1947, he settled into pastoring a small church in Corpus Christi, Texas, and left the field. Two years later, Allen attended an Oral Robert's tent meeting in Dallas. Allen was amazed by the impact of Robert's revival meeting and was convinced that a great revival was underway. That meeting exposed Allen to miracle after miracle and he was convinced that the Spirit of God was moving across the land with great power displays. Allen left that meeting with such a passion to reach the lost with God's miracle working power that he asked his church board to allow him to start a radio program and they refused. This seemed to discourage Allen immensely. But Allen had inside of him a great fortitude that pushed him beyond the barriers imposed by man and he resigned from pastoring to hit the gospel road again. It was at this point that Brother Allen started his Healing Revival Campaigns. Allen was keen at summing up what people were hungering after. He saw the great crowds being drawn to the gigantic tent of Oral Robert's. In 1955 Allen made a bold move of faith and purchased a tent for 8,700 dollars that was way beyond his natural abilities to pay for. But with God's blessing, he entered the golden era of tent evangelism with a healing theme. This was a turning point for this determined man of God. Allen was known as a man that the poor responded to. Like David of old, he drew those in debt, in distress and discontented. There was just something about his ability to relate to their needs and give them gospel hope. And they responded to him by the thousands. During his crusades, he was known as a minister who never ran from the hard cases. If there was someone blind, no problem, Allen would pray. Many of the traveling evangelists had their own special niche and Allen was no different. Allen had an incredible ability to set the stage of a service through music like no other of his day. Allen was one of the first to open his revival meetings up to all races. This brought a different kind of persecution, but Allen would use it as a platform to stand on and preach. Allen was a powerful preacher and was not fearful of prophetic declarations that had spiritual punch to them. While in London he preached a dynamic message entitled, "God is a Killer." On one occasion he delivered a prophecy declaring a vision that he had of the "Destruction of America." Allen was apostolic in the sense that he thrived when under pressure. He felt that he was one of the most persecuted men in the ministry because he believed God for miracles. Allen, like many of his fellow evangelists, had religious enemies. Attacks of all sorts were railed at him. One of the most severe of those attacks started after a 1955 arrest for drunk driving in Knoxville, Tennessee. Allen never stood trial and forfeited his bail. The whole incident, even today, is still unclear exactly what happened, although well known evangelist R. W. Schambach said that he knew that Allen was not drunk because he was with him that night in the car. In Allen's ministry publication, Miracle Magazine, he printed his response to the accusations for his ministry supporters. "Allen declares that all this is but a trick of the devil to try to kill his ministry and his influence among his friends at a time when God has granted him greater miracles in his ministry than ever before." With talk and newspaper reporters never seeming to stop, Allen found himself on the road without much denominational support. Even his fellowship, the Assemblies of God, asked him to withdraw from public ministry until this matter was resolved. Allen was very hurt feeling that he had been abandoned in a great time of personal need even though he had been with them for eighteen years. Allen felt that to withdraw from public ministry would ruin his ministry and give the appearance of guilt. He surrendered his ordination papers and was on his own. By the mid-1950's Allen began to urge the Pentecostal ministers to establish independent churches that would be free of denominational controls. He felt that the denominations were limiting what the Spirit of God was trying to do. Allen felt that programs had replaced the old wooden altars. The churches no longer expected to get their increase through the old fashioned revival altar bench, or through the miracle working power of God leaned more and more on organizational strength, and natural ability.  After Jack Coe died Allen purchased his tent in 1958. Coe's tent had sat over 22,000 and Allen now boasted that he now owned the largest tent in the world. During a time when the evangelists of the Voice of Healing began to disappear, Allen was a master at raising the support that he needed to keep the ministry going. Allen was one of the first to call poverty a spirit and believed in God's ability to perform miracles financially. His teaching on prosperity was a major theme in his meetings during the 60's. Allen's style was bold and outgoing. He sometimes wore lavender suits with white patent leather boots. His television commercials declared, "See! Hear! Actual miracles happening before your eyes. Cancer, tumors, goiters disappear. Crutches, braces, wheelchairs, stretchers discarded. Crossed eyes straightened. Caught by the camera as they occurred in the healing line before thousands of witnesses." At the height of his ministry he had over 340,000 subscribers to the Miracle Magazine, was preaching in all the major cities and auditoriums across the country, was heard on radio and had written many cutting edge books. There are still many thousands of people today that were touched by the power of God working through Brother Allen. He was one of the first to birth a national television ministry and the first to air deliverance's from demons and prophecy. His Holy Ghost rallies were shown where up to twelve hundred received the baptism of the Holy Spirit in a single service. Brother Allen helped pioneer revival in the Philippines where he preached repeatedly to over fifty thousand people each service, built a Bible School and started over four hundred churches.

 I first heard of A. A. Allen in the late fifties, we had a little radio by our bed and we started picking him up on that strong station in Texas.  We would listen to his broadcast every night, to portions of his live services. During this time my baby girl was born.  And as sometimes happens, I almost had a nervous breakdown. I was on the edge of losing my mind. Being a Baptist, I had no one to turn to and I didn't know what to do. Then one night while we were listening to Bro. Allen's broadcast, as I sat in a chair bouncing my baby on my knees to get her to sleep, suddenly, the power of God came over me and I felt iron bands begin to unclamp at the top of my head and I felt each one all the way to my feet and I was delivered instantly. *That has never returned. Not long after that Bro. Allen came to the Fairgrounds Auditorium in Birmingham, AL. We had the opportunity to go. When David Davis started that white Hammond Organ, that was the most beautiful music I ever heard in my life. There is nothing more beautiful this side of Heaven. On that night was when the baby with 26 major things wrong with him was healed. Also, a little boy from Russellville, AL was there, he had a brace on that started at his neck and went to his ankles, Bro. Allen prayed for him, then sent men to his truck to get pliers + screwdrivers to remove this brace. Needless to say the little boy was healed and ran all over that auditorium. The child had polio and his Parents would not bring him. A neighbor brought him to the meeting. Later, Bro. Allen had his big gospel tent in Atlanta, GA and on that Sunday afternoon a man was brought in on a stretcher with cancer. His stomach was so swollen that his pants lacked about 8 inches meeting. Immediately when Bro. Allen prayed for him, his stomach went down to normal and Bro. Allen pulled the man's pants together.

return to:  A A ALLEN MIRACLE RESTORATION REVIVALS (formerly of Dallas, Texas and Miracle Valley, Arizona)