Being Apart of His Movement ( JV Fall Conference)

"Sometimes small steps of faith can reverberate for centuries." Dave Patty, JV founder and president

Fall conference was such a life-giving, renewing and joyful time of fellowship for me. I love being around contagious people full of the joy of the Lord. I had been missing this wholesome fellowship and worship (in English) deeply after being in Serbia for four months. I thank the Lord for providing in such a needed time. The conference theme was INSPIRE as we discussed the early movement of God in Acts, the Moravian movement in the 1700s and the present movement we serve in today. Here is glimpse into why it was so life-giving for me:

Dave Patty opened the conference with an introduction of the Moravian movement. The next morning we had a bus tour to visit the very locations that were spoken about! This movement began in the 1700s, in the small village of Zenklava, just mile away from where we were in the Czech Republic where a young carpenter named Christian David came to faith in Christ. His home was nothing special. To you and I his home and city is "in the middle of nowhere."

At the time Catholics had outlawed Bibles for the common man and becoming a protestant believer was punishable by death. This didn't stop Christian David. He was a passionate man, fearless and fired up. He began to preach the Gospel in the surrounding towns and villages. In the small village of Suchdol, again just miles from where we were for this conference in Malenovice, CZ, revival broke out and over 300 of the town’s 700 inhabitants came to faith in Christ.

These new believers faced true persecution. One of the interesting punishments we learned about,  being a less extreme form, was to sit on a pointed piece of wood for no given amount of time and be ridiculed. Despite this, Christian David didn’t give up. He discovered that a young German Count, Zinzendore, was living in Saxony, north of Prague, and was offering space on his land for religious refugees. 

Zinzendore was just four years of age when he came to know Jesus as His Savior. His story paralleled my life in so many ways. One of my favorite quotes of his was, "I have but one passion: It is He, it is He alone. The world is the field and the field is the world; and henceforth that country shall be my home where I can be most used in winning souls for Christ.”  It reminded me of the verse in Luke where it says to whom much is given, much is expected. The Lord has thoroughly blessed me, and it just challenged me to evaluate how I am living and serving. 

Back to the story, Christian David led 280 believers from Suchdol, and many others from the surrounding villages, to form a new community on the count’s estate, naming it “Herrnhut” meaning “under the Lord’s watch.”

Years later another revival broke out in this community, generating a 24-hour prayer chain and daily small groups to study Scripture. This prayer chain lasted 100 years! In 1732 they sent the first missionaries to the West Indies and then to Greenland. Nearly 20% of the community was serving as missionaries.

When Moravians heard of people that didn't know Jesus, they went. Often this was through casting lots. In the next 20 years, Moravian missionaries went to Labrador, Estonia, Latvia, Finland, parts of Russia, South Africa, Ceylon, Tibet, and even America. They founded Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and evangelized a number of the American Indian tribes. This small community did more mission work in 20 years than the entire protestant church had accomplished in the 200 years preceding them.

It was at a Moravian Bible study in London that John Wesley came to faith in Christ. His preaching was used by God to launch the Great Awakening. Some would say that the evangelical movement in America is actually an extension of the Moravian revival.

At this conference JV hosted and inspired nearly 350 of our Josiah Venture staff and partners to ask God to let them experience a similar movement today. JV staff all over Europe are inspired to set sparks of His movement in their local cities! Such a small glimpse of how powerful this week was for me!

Will you pray that these small steps of faith reverberate for centuries?