real power

Moravian Prayer Movement
100 year prayer meeting established by Moravian believers in 1727. Prosecuted Christians from Bohemia and Moravia sought Zinzendorf, a devout nobleman living in Saxony (modern Germany). Zinzendorf had named the community Herrnhut, meaning “the watch of the Lord.”

Sadly during the first five years of Herrnhut’s existence the community scarcely resembled its name. By the beginning of 1727, Herrnhut, now numbering about three hundred, was racked with dissension. Any hope of revival was out of the question. In desperation, Count Zinzendorf and others convenanted to seek God for one of the most basic focuses of all intercessory prayers, spiritual awakening.

And then on May 12 it happened. An unusual visitation of God swept through Herrnhut. In days, all dissension disappeared, every unbeliever was converted. Of those days, Count would later say, “The whole place represented a truly visible habitation of God among men.”

The entire community was seized by a spirit of intercession. By August 27, 24 men and 24 women had covenanted to spend one hour each day in intercessory prayer, thus sustaining continuous prayer. Before long, many others made similar commitments. On and on the intercessions went, month after month, year after year, decade after decade. Quoted in Decision magazine, historian A.J. Lewis relates: “For over one hundred years, the members of the Moravian church all shared in the ‘hourly intercession’. At home and abroad, on and and sea, this prayer watch ascended to the Lord.”

The Moravians’ spirit of intercession took on tangible form as they started sending missionaries abroad. Within the first 2 years of beginning their intercession for the nations, 22 Moravian workers had died. Future Moravian missionaries would refer to that season as “the Great Dying”.

But still they persisted, and still they prayed. Within 65 years the Moravians dispatched 300 missionaries throughout the world. Some of their victories, indeed, altered history. Just eleven years after the beginning of the continuing prayer watch, for instance, a young man troubled by deep spiritual doubts and apprehensions wandered into a Moravian prayer meeting in London. Years later he would say of that night that his heart was “strangely warmed” as he came to a personal knowledge of Jesus Christ. The man’s name was John Wesley.

from Love on its Knees by Dick Eastman

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