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[Above: Bill Curtis, personal photo]

Count Zinzendorf, Herrnhut, and the Moravians began a movement that changed the world as we know it today. It is thanks to their story that you are holding this issue in your hands. When my dad, Ken Curtis, heard of the Herrnhut community’s 100-year, round-the-clock prayer vigil, he felt called to produce a movie on this story, which we did in 1982, called First Fruits. (You can stream this film for free on Redeem TV.) The story is so rich that most of it could not be included in the film. My dad produced the first Christian History magazine to tell more of this story about Count Zinzendorf and the Moravians. 

Prayer and revival

Prayer is the cornerstone of revival. A. T. Pierson said, “There has never been a spiritual awakening in any country or locality that did not begin in united prayers.” The Holy Spirit worked in those 100 years of prayer, drawing many closer to Jesus and leading hundreds if not thousands of people to the mission field. It was, in fact, one of the largest events to do so. 

As you will learn in this issue, John and Charles Wesley and countless others were deeply affected by the Moravians. As I’ve learned more about other revivals throughout history in the last few years, I keep coming back to story of the 100-year prayer vigil that inspired my dad to launch CH. Christian History Institute has always existed to help Christians learn from how God worked in the lives of other believers before us. 

In 2019 I experienced the specific work of the Holy Spirit in new and transformative ways during a missions trip to Brazil. That experience made me curious about how Christians before me have encountered the Holy Spirit. And as I’ve learned more, I’ve become especially fascinated by the Holy Spirit’s work in revivals, which led to this series.

I recognize that not all of you will be as excited about this revival series as I am. Last summer while I was visiting with my college roommate, he asked what current projects I found stimulating at work. I went on enthusiastically for a while about this Christian History series on revival and the accompanying film series we’re producing. I was surprised at his lack of response, so I asked what he was thinking. He explained that to him “revival” meant the annual week-long meetings he was required to attend at the church his dad pastored when he was a kid. It was a week he dreaded. The “revival” meetings felt like an obligation to endure, and he hated being out late and not having time to get his homework done. 

Lasting fruit

This conversation helped me to realize how many different understandings of “revival” Christians have depending on their life experience. If you, like my college roommate, have had a negative experience with meetings called “revivals,” I hope that this series will show you a different picture. The annual week-long meetings my friend described, scheduled events planned by human beings, are not the subject of this issue. While the Lord uses human-planned events all the time for his good purposes, the revivals we’re looking at in this series are events that we can see in hindsight were God-ordained, not orchestrated by human schedules. 

In fact, as Michael McClymond, the advisor for this issue, points out, we really can’t call something a revival until years later when we see the lasting fruits. While they’re happening, revivals are normally very messy, and they often make people uncomfortable (much like Scripture itself). And we freely acknowledge that some things people claim are from the Holy Spirit end up producing rotten fruit that doesn’t look at all like Jesus. But even though the rotten apples tend to get a lot of press, they don’t tell the whole story. 

I hope that these stories of how the Holy Spirit has worked in specific times and places throughout history to revive people’s spirits to live the life God wants them to live will spark your curiosity about what God has done and wants to continue doing through revivals. CH 

Bill Curtis

Executive editor

By Bill Curtis

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