Phil Anderson and Markus Laegel gave an excellent seminar today on the Moravian commitment to community and how revolutionary this was in their time (and also today). They treated men and women, white and black, rich and poor, noblemen and farmers equally, modelling a liberating justice of the Kingdom of God. Also they were very holistic in their approach and stirred the economy and welfare of the communities they served.
This was a good upbeat for the evening, when Pete introduced his plan to restart Count Zinzendorf's 'Order of the Mustard Seed'. The members of this order vowed to do three things: to be true to Christ, to be kind to people, and to take the gospel to the nations.
In a forthcoming book titled 'The Vision & The Vow' Zinzendor's Rule of Life will be explored, and young people will be challenged to consider entering into a similar covenant with God and friends to pursue these three dimensions of discipleship for the rest of their lives. The vision is to catalyze a fresh movement of mission and justice in every sphere of society where Christ is not yet known. The vow will be marked outwardly by a ring and/or a tattoo with Zinzendorf's motto 'No man lives unto himself'.
This links in to something I felt God has been saying over the last few months, that the first five years of 24-7prayer were just the warming up for something much more impacting. And more of God in terms of real spiritual breakthrough in nations requires a higher level of commitment, and that's where the covenant comes in.
This is pretty exciting stuff and it's a pity I couldn't stay for the evening presentation, as I had to catch my plane back to Holland. We better get 24-7prayer going here as well. If you are interested, read 'Red Moon Rising', the amazing story of 24-7prayer, a well-written book with a lot of resources on the Moravians and 24-7prayer throughout the centuries.
Last week I started reading 'Red Moon Rising' and it is an amazing story. People are called to hours, days and weeks of prayer. A lot of changes took place in people's lives after that, after they were 'pushed' into the prescence of God. There is much grace in that.
Much creativity is put into the prayer rooms: paintings and writings on the walls, listening to music, worshipping, walking around, kneeling down, being all by yourself of with ten other people. Not really serene, but fun and inspiring.
I visited www.24-7prayer.com and found out that only Amsterdam, Gouda and Heidebeek are mentioned on the Dutch list. Also most prayer rooms were alive in 2001-2002. This should come by a natural and spiritual way - still I hope it will happen soon that the Netherlands are covered with prayer rooms.
The prayergroup that I am part of decided to launch one day and night of prayer. I guess because there is just four of us and we are part of a Dutch reformed church in Utrecht.. we don't know yet if a weekend or a week is possible at this moment. But we start anyway.
We really long for breakthrough, a hunger for prayer in our church and the outpooring of Gods spirit.
All the best,
Esther.
Posted by: Esther | October 05, 2004 at 22:20