Over recent weeks I’ve been away on ministry with my Cross & Crescent team speaking about the Challenge of Islam in western societies and the how we, the church, need to respond. I’ve also been with our Australian Prayer Network national coordinator, speaking on ‘understanding God’s prophetic agenda across the world and in Australia today.’ As I’ve travelled, I have been touched by what I’ve seen and heard from those who one might call a ‘remnant’ within the wider church. Those who are committed to see real change: life-transforming change, change that has both personal and societal significance.

Now in a previous bog the ‘Winds of Change’, I wrote that, “I believed that God is seeking to release a fresh anointing – a special grace of humility, compassion and the miraculous, that will see arise a new standard of kingdom authority, an authority that will have the power to silence the enemy at the gates of cities and territories, even nations. He will accomplish it – it has already started in some of the most difficult nations where the church has been systematically persecuted, He’s answering their cry for real freedom. It will be powerful; it will be magnificent; it will be wonderful and it will have the capacity to draw many to Christ as their Lord and Saviour.” During my recent trips, I’ve met brothers and sisters in Christ who are positioning themselves to catch this fresh new wind of God’s Spirit as it blows once again across nations.

In this article I want to reflect back to a passage of time in history that saw great spiritual change occur in the midst of real religious and socio-political turbulence. I have discovered that at times it is good to look back in order to look forward in relation to what God might do in us and through us. Therefore, I want us to consider those who we have come to know as the Moravians Believers, – Christian’s from Zinzendorf’s Moravian settlement at Herrnhut. Who through their humility, simplicity, prayer, mission and authentic life-style – key characteristics of this fresh outpouring, that I highlighted in my ‘Winds of Change’ article, once empowered them to become prayer focused, mission obedient world-changers.

The Moravian’s have had a significant impact upon my personal faith, theology and life-style, since coming to the Lord in the early 70’s. Prayer, the power of the Spirit and missions were written indelibly on the walls of my heart through reading and learning about these men and women of God. I would like here to briefly consider the fruit of the global awakening that has flowed for centuries into all areas of the church worldwide because of these faith-filled dedicated brothers and sisters. Consider the following three areas:

First, God honoring, loving relationships empowered them in their life, work and worship. They knew how to give sacrificially and how to honor one another in love and respect. Through such a lifestyle, they developed an accepting and forgiving spiritual community that shared with all-comers, in a compassionate and sacrificial way.

Second, the power of their sustained persistent praying, produced a godly passion and appetite for missional activity for the lost. Many of them sold themselves into slavery in South America just so they could carry the light of the Gospel into closed societies and cultures. The Moravians were the first missionaries to the plantation slaves at St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. They even went to strange out of the way places called, Lapland and Greenland, and to some parts of the African continent. The Moravian’s birthed an amazing missions movement; its effects are still felt even today.

Third, they had this motto that all in Herrnhut lived by, that, No one works unless someone prays. This took the form of a corporate commitment to sustained persistent prayer and ministry to the Lord. This kind of prayer went on unbroken 24/7: that is, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and it went on everyday for over 100 years. Some prayer meeting!

It has been said that, the Moravian’s 100 year plus prayer vigil and missionary exploits, marked one of the purest moves of the Holy Spirit in Church history; a movement that radically changed the expression of Christianity at that time. Many prayer and mission leaders today, feel that virtually every great missionary endeavor of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, regardless of denominational association, was in no small way, the fruit of the Moravian’s compassionate sacrificial service and sustained prayer.

Let me bring this to our doorstep.

God wants to renew His Spirit in all of us – this is a global phenomenon right now, because God is romancing His Church! As I wrote in the ‘Winds of Change’, it’s time to put aside every intimidation and every entanglement that seeks to restrain us; we must throw off the weight of conformity, even the spirit of unbelief and allow the Spirit to have full sway in our life, work and worship relationships. To be done with the shallow emaciated religion that is affecting large portions of the western church.

We need to be willing before God to lay aside things in our life for the sake of others. This is what is happening in many non-western nations - where there is incredible hostility and persecution against the church of Jesus Christ. In the midst of such difficulty they are experiencing a fresh new wind of the Holy Spirit, seeing both the miraculous and salvations in their midst.

God is restoring the ancient fire – the flames of Pentecost - that once inspired the early church, ordinary believers like the Moravians and many like them through the centuries. God is seeking a holy restoration. However, this restoration first starts with each of us! It’s about His Holy fire in us. The harvest sure is plentiful but the workers are few; prayer and then - go! (Lk. 10:2-3) That’s our call.

However the first step must be a renewal of the Holy Spirit which begins with the restoration of the fire on God's altar – us! Rom. 12:1… to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice…holy and acceptable... it’s our most reasonable service… (NIV)