![]() (As it turns out, when they offered themselves as slaves in Copenhagen, they were laughed at because no one would buy white men as slaves, so they traveled to St. They determined to go by any means necessary, even when they were told they would have to sell themselves into slavery in order to minister among the slaves. Thomas in the Caribbean, and how there was a spiritual hunger but they had no one to share the gospel with them. They heard of the plight of African slaves on the island of St. In 1732, five years after the initial outpouring of the Spirit, two Moravian tradesmen, 36-year-old David Nitschmann and 26-year-old Johann Leonhard Dober, became the first missionaries to leave Herrnhut. What conviction had gripped their hearts? In a nutshell, it can be found in the story of the first two Moravian missionaries who were sent out from the Herrnhut community. The Moravian mission ship Harmony What was the source of the Moravians’ zeal? ![]() Wesley lived with the Moravians at Herrnhut for several months, and the impact they had on him was carried over into his leadership of the Methodist Revival and the Great Awakening alongside Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, in which tens of thousands were powerfully convicted of sin and surrendered to Jesus. He had already been a priest, but until his encounter with the genuine, personal faith of the Moravians, Wesley didn’t have his own personal relationship with Jesus. John Wesley, one of the leaders of this revival that hit the UK and the American colonies in the 1730s and 40s, was shocked and marked by witnessing the faith of the Moravians amid a storm at sea, and went on to fully trust Christ for salvation under their preaching (when his heart was “strangely warmed,” if you’ve heard that story). The Moravians had a powerful influence on the birth of the Great Awakening, too. William Carey, who is known as the father of modern missions, was deeply inspired by the example of the Moravians and took their prolific missions activity as a personal challenge: “See what the Moravians have done! Cannot we follow their example and in obedience to our Heavenly Master go out into the world, and preach the Gospel to the heathen?” ( This is an incredible article about the Moravian mission strategy.) ![]() Their methods are not unlike the best of modern missionary strategies: they focussed pointedly on preaching the simple gospel of “Christ and Him crucified,” they learned the local language, won the respect of the people, and contextualized their preaching, they didn’t expect their converts to become Westernized, and they made prayer their foundation and relied on the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit. They sent out hundreds of missionaries to every corner of the globe and saw dramatic success. The radical love for Jesus and fire of the Spirit that was rooted in them during those 24/7 prayer meetings gave birth to one of the most prolific missionary movements of history and became an inspiration and challenge to the modern missions movement that would soon be born. The impact of this 100-year prayer meeting reached far beyond the small settlement of Herrnhut. (stained glass window in the Rights Chapel at Trinity Moravian Church, Winston-Salem, NC) The Moravian emblem, based on Revelation 5:5-6, 14:4. Let me say that again: as a result of this dramatic move of the Holy Spirit, this small refugee community started 24/7 prayer that lasted over 100 years. They all committed to hourly “prayer watches” by which they arranged the community to cover the entire 24 hours in a day. The community adopted a radical new model for community life, which included a perpetual corporate prayer assembly in the spirit of Leviticus 6:13. The Holy Spirit was dramatically poured out with signs and wonders and supernatural love for each other, for the Scriptures, and most supremely for Jesus. “Fire shall be kept burning on the altar continually it shall not go out.”ĭays later, on August 13, 1727, a wave of repentance and revival swept through the community. The community was soon attacked by division and disagreement, and the 27-year-old Zinzendorf cried out to God for reconciliation and revival. Its story begins when Protestant refugees from the Catholic country of Moravia, the legacy of reformer John Hus, came to Germany and settled on the land of Count Zinzendorf. On August 27, 1727, a prayer meeting started in Herrnhut, Germany, that lasted for over 100 years and went on the change the world.
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