On this day 308 years ago, Nicolaus Ludwig Zinzendorf was born into a wealthy family in Germany, and inherited the title of Count. He became a strong Christian, and as a teenager was one of the founders of the Order of the Grain of Mustard Seed, in which each member pledged to use his position and influence to spread the Gospel. He allowed a group of Moravians to settle on his estate, and in 1727 they experienced an intense and powerful experience of the Holy Spirit during a communion service, marking the beginning of the Moravian renewal.
In 1731, when he was attending the coronation of Christian VI in Copenhagen, Zinzendorf met a former slave from the West Indies, Anthony Ulrich. Zinzendorf was moved by Ulrich’s story and invited him back to Germany. As a result, two men were sent to the West Indies to live amongst the slaves and preach the Gospel. This was the start of the Protestant World Mission movement, and in subsequent years members of the Moravian community were sent out to Africa, America, Russia and many other places so that by the end of Zinzendorf’s life in 1760 there were active missions from Greenland to South Africa.
Although William Carey is regarded as the “Father of Modern Missions”, protestant mission work actually began with Zinzendorf and the Moravians about 60 years before Carey became involved. Zinzendorf had no formal theological training, but he is regarded as one of the most important German theologians. He allowed women to be preach, hold office and be ordained. The Moravians did not regard themselves as a separate denomination; they would frequently start a new church and then turn it over to whatever denomination they perceived to be most effective in the area.