Standing at Zinzendorf’s Grave

(image credit: J. D. Payne)

A few months ago I had the privilege of leading some training in Herrnhut, Germany with the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism. This small town is known as the location where the renewal of the Moravian Church occurred under the leadership of Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf. From his Herrnhut estate in Saxony, these Protestants developed and grew as a congregation and took the gospel to some of the most remote and difficult to reach peoples—60 years before William Carey wrote An Inquiry and launched the Protestant Missionary Movement!

There are few locations on earth where a move of the Spirit occurred that resulted in a paradigm shift in mission history. Herrnhut is one such location, with God’s Acre (Moravian cemetery) a marker of this grace to the world.

I came across Zinzendorf’s location as I walked the paths between the stones of those eighteenth century Moravian leaders. On this evening, Sarah and I were the only people present. It was a different moment than May 14, 1760 when 2100 people gathered on this spot for the Count’s burial.

It was said of the early Moravians to be a Moravian was to be a missionary. Their passion for the Lord, love for the saints, and movement for the nations remains an example as we seek to make disciples of all nations in the twenty-first century.

They desired to steward well what was received for their day. Will we do likewise during our time? Unless the Lord returns, someone will stand one day at our graves and reflect on our lives.

The following is the translation from the German on Zinzendorf’s raised tomb-stone (taken from Spangenberg’s translated biography on the Count):

Here rest the moral remains of the ever-memorable man of God, Nicholas Lewis, Count of Zinzendorf and Pottendorf, the most worthy Ordinary of the Brethren’s Unity, renewed in the eighteenth century, through the grace of God and his faithful and unwearied services. He was born at Dresden on the 26th May, 1700, and entered into the joy of his Lord on the 9th May, 1760. “He was ordained that he should bring forth fruit, and that his fruit should remain.”

I took many photos and narrated video footage during my time at Herrnhut. If you have not subscribed to my YouTube channel, please do so at this time, for I plan to post video content at a later date. Until then, check out this video I posted a few years ago on Zinzendorf and the Moravians—one of the most popular at my channel.