Thomas Ball Barratt

Who was Thomas Ball Barratt?

Thomas Ball Barratt was a British-born Norwegian pastor and founder of the Pentecostal movement in Norway.

After he began preaching at age 17, he pastored several churches in the Methodist Episcopal Church of Norway. In 1905, as head of the Methodist City Mission in Oslo, Barratt travelled to the United States with the aim of raising funds to build new premises in Oslo. He was baptised in the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues in November 1906 while staying in New York, after hearing news of the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles.

He returned to Norway in December 1906 without funds or church support. Nevertheless, starting in 1907, he held revival meetings in Oslo which attracted international attention, and he became one of the prime movers of the Pentecostal movement in Europe. Lewi Pethrus from Sweden, Alexander Boddy from England and Jonathan Paul from Germany came to Oslo, and became convinced of the divine origin of the movement. They became leaders of the Pentecostal movement in their respective countries.