When I began a ministry to college students at age twenty-two, I was unprepared for how mean-spirited and unkind church people could be. Yesterday, I told the story of Count Zinzendorf’s formative years and his resolve at nineteen “to live for him who died for me.” After Count Nikolaus inherited his grandmother’s estate, a group of persecuted Protestants from Moravia and Bohemia (now the Czech Republic) appealed to him for religious asylum, so he gave them a corner of his estate. Word spread about this tiny settlement called Herrnhut meaning “The Lord’s watchful care” and all manner of religious dissidents showed up to live there. Since they spoke various languages, observed different customs and held distinctive beliefs, dissension soon followed and reached a feverish pitch. Count Nikolaus called leaders together to conduct an in-depth Bible study about how to live together in Christian community. They entered into a covenant called “The Brotherly Agreement” in 1727 and everyone signed this rule of life detailing how they would behave in this new settlement. A remarkable spirit of unity came upon its citizens. Later that same year, the town came together for a communion service, presided by Count Nikolaus, now its leader. A powerful sense of God’s presence fell upon the assembly. People decided to organize a prayer vigil in one-hour increments for two objectives: “to lay prostrate before his throne both day and night, offering to him the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving for all his kindness shown to us” and “to lay before the Savior the distress of all known to us.” They prayed twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred sixty-five days a year for the next one hundred ten years! They sent missionaries the world over, including settlements in Bethlehem and Nazareth, Pennsylvania.
Christian Gregor, a member of the original Herrnhut community, wrote a hymn that is still sung among those of Moravian descent as a farewell and a birthday prayer: