GPT Newsletter
Uniting this Generation in Intercession for Awakening and Global Evangelization

Highlights of this edition (March 6, 2008)
RESOURCE / NETWORK:  GPT Conference Call
ARTICLE: A Prayer Meeting that Lasted 100 Years! By Leslie K. Tarr 

Spring and the warm weather are almost here, and our next conference call is scheduled for next Thursday, March 13th, at 9pm EST.  Come prepared to share with one another about what God is doing this semester on your campus through united prayer. During the call we also will be continuing our discussions on the 8 distinctive goals of an effective Global Prayer Team. We will be talking specifically about the GPT distinctives 3 & 4…Please go to the SVM2 site and review them so you can be prepared to contribute to the discussion –  8 Distinctive Goals of a GPT .  Also please take a moment to read the featured article below. I believe it will greatly encourage your faith about the potential of global intercession!  As always, please come ready to ask questions and share your heart!  If you need anything don’t hesitate to call me or shoot me a quick email. - david@SVM2.net     

 

All for Jesus,

 

David Smithers
SVM2 National Prayer Track Director
Cell (405) 824-5113

                          

 

How does it work? 

First, call this number:  712-580-6300 (it’s a regular call – no extra fees – no worries!)

Then, enter the code:  1064614#. 

Then, you’ll be in the conference call.  When the moderator (David) asks for who joined the call, just say your name and the campus/church your calling from! 

 

LOGISTICS

When:  Thursday, March 13th at 9pm EST

Who:  You and any other global prayer team leaders

What:  A continued discussion on the 8 distinctive goals of an effective Global Prayer Team.  

 

A Prayer Meeting that Lasted 100 Years! By Leslie K. Tarr

 

FACT: The Moravian Community of Herm­hut in Saxony, in 1727, commenced a round‑the‑clock "prayer watch" that continued nonstop for over a hundred years.

FACT: By 1792, 65 years after com­mencement of that prayer vigil, the small Moravian community had sent 300 missionar­ies to the ends of the earth.

Could it be that there is some relationship between those two facts? is fervent interces­sion a basic component in world evangeliza­tion? The answer to both questions is surely an unqualified "yes." That heroic eighteenth‑century evangelization thrust of the Moravians has not received the attention it deserves. But even less heralded than their missionary exploits is that hundred‑year prayer meeting that sustained the fires of evangelism.

During Its first five years of existence the Herrnhut settlement showed few signs of spiritual power. By the beginning of 1727 the community of about three hundred people was wracked by dissension and bickering. An unlikely site for revival! Zinzendorf and others, however, covenanted to prayer and labor for revival. On May 12 revival came. Christians were aglow with new life and power, dissension vanished and un­believers were converted. Looking back to that day and the four glorious months that followed, Zinzendorf later recalled: "The whole place represented truly a visible habitation of God among men." A spirit of prayer was immediately evident in the fellow­ship and continued throughout that "golden summer of 1727," as the Moravians came to designate the period.

On August 27 of that year twenty‑four men and twenty‑four women covenanted to spend one hour each day in scheduled prayer. Some others enlisted in the "hourly intercession." "For over a hundred years the members of the Moravian Church all shared in the 'hourly intercession.' At home and abroad, on land and sea, this prayer watch ascended unceas­ingly to the Lord," stated historian A. J. Lewis.

The Memorial Days of the Renewed Church of the Brethren, published in 1822, ninety‑five years after the decision to initiate the prayer watch, quaintly describes the move in one sentence: "The thought struck some brethren and sisters that it might be well to set apart certain hours for the purpose of prayer, at which seasons all might be reminded of its excellency and be induced by the promises annexed to fervent, persevering prayer to pour out their hearts before the Lord." The journal further cites old Testament typol­ogy as warrant for the prayer watch: "The sacred fire was never permitted to go out on the altar (Leviticus 6:13); so in a congregation is a temple of the living God, wherein he has his altar and fire, the intercession of his saints should incessantly rise up to him."

That prayer watch was instituted by a commu­nity of believers whose average age was prob­ably about thirty. Zinzendorf himself was twenty‑seven. The prayer vigil by Zinzendorf and the Moravian community sensitized them to attempt the unheard‑of mission to reach others for Christ. Six months after the begin­ning of the prayer watch the count suggested to his fellow Moravians the challenge of a bold evangelism aimed at the West Indies, Green­land, TurkeyLapland. Some were skepti­cal, but Zinzendorf persisted. Twenty‑six Mora­vians stepped forward the next day to volun­teer for world missions wherever the Lord led.

The exploits that followed are surely to be numbered among the high moments of Chris­tian history. Nothing daunted Zinzenclorf or his fellow heralds of Jesus Christ ‑ prison, ship­wreck, persecution, ridicule, plague, abject poverty, threats of death.  Church historians look to the eighteenth cen­tury and marvel at the Great Awakening in England and America, which swept hundreds of thousands into God's Kingdom. John Wes­ley figured largely in that mighty movement and much attention has centered on him. It is not possible that we have overlooked the place, which that round-the‑clock prayer watch had in reaching Wesley and, through him and his associates, in altering the course of history?

One wonders what would flow from a commit­ment on the part of twentieth‑century Christians to institute a "prayer watch" for world evangeliza­tion, specifically to reach those, in Zinzenclorf's words, "for whom no one cared."

 

 

 

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