The title of this post, is a quote by Count Van Zinzendorf, the leader of the Moravian movement. This year the JV Fall Conference was an amazing, challenging, and encouraging experience. We studied movements of God and how they happen. We looked at two of the movements from the past that had the biggest impact in the world for the gospel. The Acts church and the Apostles, was the first movement we looked at. We then looked at the second big Movement in History, the Moravian movement. Maybe you don’t know about the Moravians, a small group of Czech, Slovak, Polish, and German youth. If you don’t know about them, you should do some research for sure. You may have heard of the Great Awakening, John Wesley, or George Whitfield. They all had there beginning in the Moravian movement. Below are a couple things we learned and experienced during the conference. If you don’t read on, at least click the link at the bottom of my blog.
We began the conference with a brief history lesson on the Moravians in the form of a bus tour. We went to the villages where the movement was most connected. It was so amazing the hear the stories of these brave young people, in this region. We went to a church that at one point had 40,000 young people attending every Sunday. The attendance went down as people began to leave and spread around the world sharing the gospel. Some of them were met by John Wesley. Later after living in the Moravian village of Herrnhut, Wesley gave his life to Christ for real and began his missionary quests which included leading his friend George Whitfield to Christ. Over 80% of America heard the gospel because of these two men and other Moravians. Millions of sermons were shared.
We learned about a couple key components to a movement of God. The first is a lot of prayer, I mean a lot. No major movement has ever happened without prayer. The Moravian youth instituted a 24/7/365 prayer, this prayer lasted for 100 years. Talk about dedication! Are we this dedicated to the Lord?
The second component is Bold Faith. These young people went all around the world to places they had never been nor knew nothing about. One story goes like this. Four single men traveled to Greenland where they found, as they shared the gospel, that because they were single they were not respected and therefore no one would listen to them. They wrote back to the brothers and sisters in Herrnhut and the decision was made, that some young women would be sent for them to marry, so they could share the gospel. These women went willingly, knowing that they were a part of something much bigger then them. The Third element was the Spirit moving. We of course need to let this happen!
This whole conference was so impactful! Check out the video below, the spread of the gospel! Especially watch between the 1600’s and 1800’s, that is the Moravians doing. You can hear talks from the conference here: https://www.josiahventure.com/media/2016-fall-conference-inspire/