Happy Birthday – The Moravian Revival

Happy birthday. August has special meaning to the Van Vliet

family. My Grandmother was born in August. So was my father. As was I, and three of my children. Yep all born in August. Its a pretty significant month around our house.

The month of August also holds the title of being the month God birthed one of the most powerful historic revivals that is credited with beginning the modern missions movement. It was also the start of the modern fulfillment of the restoration of the tabernacle of David of 24/7 worship and prayer, sustained for 100 years. The Moravian Revival.

In 1727 Holy Spirit swept powerfully through a communion service in a small community of believers in the village of Herrnhut, Saxony Germany. “And verily the thirteenth of August, 1727, was a day of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We saw the hand of God and His wonders, and we were all under the cloud of our father baptized with their Spirit. The Holy Ghost came upon us in those days great signs and wonders took place in our midst. From that time, scarcely a day passed but what we beheld His almighty workings amongst us. A great hunger after the Word of God took possession of us so that we had to have three services every day.” (Source) This place, Herrnhut has meaning for us as well: We have two sons that live in the “Herrnhut apartments” at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, an apartment complex bearing that name as a prophetic reminder of just what God can do through a generation of young people. Our son Josiah is there doing fire in the night, praying in the night watch from midnight to six AM.

But what I love so much about this historic revival is what happened just 4 days later:

On August 17th, the Holy Spirit was poured out on the children at Herrnhutt. Count Zinzendorf wrote:

“The children of both sexes felt a powerful impulse to prayer, and it was impossible to listen to their infant supplications without being deeply moved. …The Spirit of grace and supplication poured out upon the children so powerful that it is impossible to give an adequate description in words.” (Source) The historic account goes on to describe how parents and other adults quickly joined the children on their knees. Nine days later they were praying 24 hours a day, seven days a week and that prayer movement lasted 100 years. Children lead the start of a prayer movement then, and today there are houses of prayer all across the world, fueled by the passionate pursuit of intimacy with Jesus and a slew of young people.

65 years into this revival over 300 missionaries had accepted the call of God to bring the gospel to the nations. William Carey, Baptist missionary known as the father of missions was born during this moravian revival in that first 65 years. He himself credits this revival for sparking the fire to go to the nations. Born in 1761.

It is this revival God is longing to release, one led by children, what I believe is a Josiah Generation Revival.

Liela and I have been praying and prophesying for this move of God to be released through a Josiah Generation of youth, children and those college aged young people for many years. In the last 20 years we have heard from many of the prophetic voices of today prophesying revival over this generation:

Patrica King Prophesied in 2016 “I have a word of the Lord this morning regarding children — there is a company of children being raised up who will be extremely sensitive to the Holy Spirit and who will work miracles at an early age. God is going to visit children in waves of revival. They will have heavenly encounters. (Source)

Chuck Pierce Prophecy from 2004: “We need to train our children in the release of the anointing, discerning of evil spirits, and how to operate in receiving divine revelation from the Throne Room. I feel this is a time to train our children in a supernatural dimension that will give them authority in the days ahead on this earth. I do not want my children to be afraid of the supernatural. We find, in the first two chapters of Daniel, that he was trained to understand the supernatural; knowing how to receive divine revelation. He knew how to seek the Lord in almost any situation. The Lord is going to require us to parent our children like this in days ahead.” (Source)

Cindy Jacobs Prophecy: A Prophetic Call to Revolution – August 5, 2000 “I am calling radical revolutionaries to the church. There is a sound going forth from heaven, says the Lord. I am calling from the north and the south and the east and the west. They’re going to move, they’re going to change universities to come to these command posts. They’re going to change jobs. I’m going to bring the 18, 19, 20, 21 year olds, and they’re going to mentor the generation under them. And then the high-schoolers are going to mentor the generations under them. And I would say, these youth are going to put the adults to shame. Because they’re going to be full of holy passion, a fiery passion for the Lord. So the Lord says, get ready for I have said many things over the church, and I have made many promises. With some of you, hope deferred has made the heart grow sick. But I have found the way for the church and for this youth, says the Lord. And the Lord says, there is going to be a day when there are as many youth as adults in these command post churches, for I am going to move-I would not pass you by. And the Lord says I’m going to put the gift of evangelism in the youth of these churches. I’m going to cause them to bring souls and souls and souls. They’re going to invade the high school campuses. They’re going to invade the universities of their cities.” (Source)

Rick Joyner: “One of the most extraordinary characteristics of the harvest will be the youthfulness of the laborers. Teenagers will be the backbone of the revival, and preteens will be some of its greatest evangelists. Young children will cast out demons, heal the sick, raise the dead, and divert raging floods with a word. Some will actually take dominion over entire hospitals and mental institutions, healing every patient in them by laying hands on the buildings. During the harvest the world will understand that “…the children whom the Lord has given me are for signs and wonders…”
(Isaiah 8:18)”

That verse, Isaiah 8:18 is one of mine and Liela’s life verses as we raise our children. Releasing destiny over our children to change the world.

In my book Josiah Generation Revival I discuss the significance of the prophetic voices and this revival.

“The man of God in 1 Kings 13 spoke the words of God about a child who would bring revival. A world changing revival. A revival that destroyed idol worship, a revival that brought the people of Israel into right relationship with God. If we want to see revival, not the kind of revival we put on our church signs, but the kind of revival that changes communities, we must begin to speak the words of God about our children! That is where it started with Josiah and that is where we must start if we are going to see revival.” I believe we are seeing the tip of the coming outpouring but we are not there yet. We need to continue to contend together for for revival to be released in this generation.

Would you join me in dedicating the month of August, and specifically August 17th, the anniversary of this Moravian outpouring of Holy Spirit onto the children, and the birthday of the modern missions movement to pray for our children, youth and young adults and revival? Would you pray for another move like the one birthed that day in history in Herrnhut Germany. That’s what I want for my birthday present, I long to see God move through our children. Through my own children and through yours.