What an eighteenth-century missionary movement might teach us about the way we send, support and sustain missionaries today.
I’m a missionary kid, a so-called “third-culture kid” through and through! So I come to this subject with a mixture of gratitude, affection, but also some deep questions. My parents didn’t necessarily fit a typical modern mission model in every respect. However, the mission world I grew up in was still heavily shaped by that approach: the relationships between missionaries and supporters, the practical demands of overseas service, and the structures that make long-term work possible. I saw the real challenges my parents faced, but I also saw God work powerfully through them and touch people’s lives. Now I’m interested in what we can learn from the past—not to romanticise it, but to ask how we might serve more faithfully today.
A BIG VISION
The Moravian missionary movement is one of those stories that deserves to be better known – indeed I didn’t come across it until very recently! The Moravian Church, or Unitas Fratrum, grew out of a Christian tradition associated with Jan Hus, the Czech reformer executed in 1415. In the 1720s, Moravian Christian refugees fleeing ongoing persecution found a home at Herrnhut, an estate in Saxony belonging to Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf.
The community was far from perfect and experienced serious internal tensions. But on 13 August 1727, a period of spiritual renewal helped bring its divided members together in a fresh commitment to Christ and to one another. Prayer became central to their shared life, and in September that same year, they began a continuous prayer watch that would continue for more than a century.
In 1732, two Moravian missionaries, Leonard Dober and David Nitschmann, left for the Danish Caribbean island of St Thomas, where enslaved Africans worked on plantations. Their departure captured something genuinely healthy at the heart of Moravian mission: a shared calling, a willingness to sacrifice, and a readiness to cross social and cultural boundaries to serve Christ. This approach was far from perfect and had real limitations and shortfalls, but it reflected a deeply compelling vision of mission rooted in faith, community and costly commitment. Over the following decades, Moravian missionaries travelled to places including Greenland, Suriname, South Africa and North America.
What strikes me isn’t simply how many places they reached. Mission seems to have become part of the identity of the whole community. It wasn’t just something a few specially trained people did while everyone else got on with church life. The community prayed, gave, organised itself and participated in sending people out.
That raises a question for us. In trying to make mission sustainable and professional, have we sometimes separated it from the ordinary life of the church? We have developed systems to send missionaries, support them and report on their work. But have we sometimes outsourced the calling itself?
WHAT MADE MORAVIAN MISSION DISTINCTIVE?
Prayer was part of the community’s life
The continuous prayer watch that began in Herrnhut in 1727 was more than a temporary season of spiritual enthusiasm. It became a sustained expression of the community’s life with God, with people taking turns to maintain prayer day and night. Prayer was not simply something they did before getting on with the work; it was part of the life from which their mission grew.
Mission was a shared calling
Those who left Herrnhut did not go as isolated individuals pursuing a personal vision. They belonged to a wider community that prayed, gave, worked and shared responsibility for the mission. The people who stayed behind were not merely spectators or supporters; they were participants in a common calling. The sending and the going belonged together.
They were prepared to sacrifice
Early Moravian missionaries were willing to leave familiar surroundings, cross cultural boundaries and accept considerable personal hardship in order to serve others. Their commitment was shaped by a conviction that following Christ could involve real personal cost. This should not be romanticised: their experiences were complex, and their approach had limitations and shortcomings. Yet their readiness to put their faith into action, even when it demanded much of them, was a striking feature of their mission.
Ordinary people could participate
Moravian mission was not confined to ordained ministers or highly educated theologians. Artisans, tradespeople and others brought their practical skills and everyday working lives into the task. They saw mission as something in which people with different gifts could participate, rather than the preserve of a religious elite. Their approach brought together faith, work, community and witness in a way that gave a wide range of people a meaningful part to play.
HOW DO WE DO MISSION TODAY?
In basic terms, a common Western mission model works something like this: someone senses a calling to serve overseas, joins a mission agency, receives training, raises support from churches and individuals, and moves to another country to work with a local church, organisation or community. They keep in touch with supporters and periodically return to their passport country for home assignment or home leave. This model has much to appreciate. Agencies provide practical support with visas, finances, insurance, safeguarding, pastoral care and accountability. Missionaries are human beings, not spiritual superheroes; they have families, relationships and financial commitments, and can experience exhaustion, loneliness and cultural adjustment. The relationship between missionaries and their supporters can also be beautiful, with people praying, giving sacrificially and investing in work they may never see first-hand.
However, financial support can shape expectations, often without anyone intending it. Supporter-dependent missionaries often need to explain their work and demonstrate its impact, meaning that encouraging stories and visible activities can receive more attention than slower, less photogenic work such as building relationships and developing local leadership. Difficult seasons, failed projects and uncomfortable conversations about power can be harder to communicate. This does not mean missionaries routinely mislead supporters, but that systems can create incentives even when nobody intends them to. Home leave presents a similar tension. It is essential for rest, reconnecting with loved ones and receiving care, yet can become filled with church visits, supporter meetings, presentations and fundraising, leaving little time to recover.
I have vivid memories of being lined up at the front of countless church congregations to be prayed for as a missionary kid. Often, half the people praying for us were complete strangers to me, earnestly asking God to bless our family and my parents’ work. Meanwhile, I was probably wondering what we were having for lunch! Yet I do not want to dismiss the very real struggles missionary children navigate around belonging, friendships and identity while being part of a story they did not choose. These are things I have continued to process well into adulthood.
SO WHAT WOULD A MORAVIAN MISSIONARY MAKE OF ALL THIS?
We can’t know exactly what an eighteenth-century Moravian missionary would think of a modern Western agency, and it would be unfair to assume they all thought alike. But we can use the movement’s priorities to ask ourselves some questions.
They might admire the training, communication, care and practical support available today. They might also wonder why so much mission is organised around the individual missionary. Have we built a system in which one person carries the calling, maintains donor relationships and bears the emotional burden of keeping everything going, when mission should be a shared responsibility of the church?
They might ask whether our communication serves the mission, or whether the mission is sometimes shaped by the need to communicate. Are we sharing stories to help people pray and participate, or choosing stories mainly because they reassure supporters? They might ask what we are prepared to sacrifice—not just as missionaries, but as sending churches and agencies too. Are we willing to relinquish control, share power and let local leaders set the direction, even when that makes our own role less visible?
This comparison also needs a serious historical caution. Moravian mission took place within colonial societies and unequal social conditions. Their work among enslaved Africans in the Caribbean offered Christian community and a message of dignity and hope, but existed within the brutal system of slavery. Sincere commitment did not automatically mean that missionaries fully understood or challenged the power structures around them. We shouldn’t treat the Moravians as a golden age when everything was done right. Their example is valuable, but it too must be examined honestly. Remember that was the case in NT times as well. Modern day critics often point out the Apostle Paul never challenged slavery as an institutional practice in the Roman empire.
THE COMPARISON ISN’T AS SIMPLE AS IT FIRST APPEARS
It would be too easy to conclude that the Moravians had a better approach and modern agencies have become too comfortable or professional. They lived in a different world, without modern medicine, safeguarding standards or contemporary understandings of mental health and family life. We shouldn’t assume that enduring more suffering made someone more faithful.
Equally, we shouldn’t overlook the good modern agencies do. Many provide excellent care, training and accountability, and work hard to challenge paternalism, develop local leadership and build more equal partnerships. Financial transparency, safeguarding and reliable support matter. Structures are not necessarily the problem; the question is what they are designed to achieve and whether they remain open to challenge.
A system that helps missionaries stay healthy, connected and accountable is a good thing. A system that makes the missionary indispensable, rewards donor-friendly stories or keeps decision-making with those who control the funding needs to be questioned. Both can exist within the same organisation. The answer isn’t to recreate eighteenth-century Moravian mission, but to learn from it without pretending its example was flawless.
WHAT MIGHT WE NEED TO RECOVER?
The comparison isn’t a call to make mission harder or to return to a time when families had fewer resources and people were left to cope alone. I want missionaries to be cared for, families to flourish, finances to be transparent and local partners to be respected. But I also want us to recover something of the Moravian sense that mission is a calling that shapes the whole community of faith.
Recover prayer as a genuine foundation
Not just prayer letters and meetings, but a willingness to let prayer shape decisions, priorities and our understanding of success. Mission is not ultimately sustained by organisational capacity.
Make mission a shared calling again
Sending churches should do more than provide money and receive updates. Healthy ones participate through prayer, relationships, learning and shared sacrifice, rather than leaving the missionary to carry the burden alone. The attitude of senior church leadership is perhaps the single greatest factor in determining whether mission becomes a genuine whole-church calling. Where leaders embrace mission as part of the church’s identity, it can shape the life of the whole congregation. Where their encouragement is absent, mission may become the work of a few committed individuals pressing on with little or no support. Recovering mission as a shared calling requires leaders not only to encourage individuals, but to enable the whole church to participate.
Make local leadership central in practice
All those serving in mission should examine who sets the agenda, controls resources and decides what success looks like. Outsiders should be willing to follow the lead of local leadership, even when that changes the role we imagined for ourselves.
Self-Sustaining
The Moravian artisan approach, like Paul’s tentmaking, enabled missionaries to support themselves through their craft while creating opportunities to share the gospel. By contrast, modern Business as Mission can risk becoming all-consuming to the point where there’s no time to share the gospel. Neither approach is perfect, but the challenge remains to balance financial sustainability with the priority of Christian witness.
Tell honest stories
Supporters need to hear about complexity, setbacks and the realities of cross-cultural work, not only encouraging outcomes. We all need to celebrate local leaders and make it safe for missionaries to speak honestly about struggles and “failure”.
Take sacrifice seriously, but share it fairly
Missionary families should not be expected to absorb every cost while the sending system remains untouched. Sometimes the sacrifice required is financial; sometimes it means changing expectations, relinquishing control or allowing local partners to lead differently.
THE KIND OF MISSION-FOCUSED CHURCH WE NEED TO BE
I started by asking what a Moravian missionary might think of a modern Western mission agency. I suspect they would find much to admire in the care, resources and opportunities available today. But I hope they would also challenge us to look beyond whether our systems work and ask what kind of people and churches those systems are forming.
My parents’ experience taught me that the modern model carries real challenges, and that God can work powerfully through people serving within it. I hold both truths together. If we care about mission, we should care enough to examine the structures through which we practise it, but also the attitudes of the leaders who shape the life of the church. Their vision and encouragement can be decisive in determining whether mission becomes a shared calling embraced by the whole congregation or remains the responsibility of a committed few. Mission belongs to the whole church; it calls for prayer, sacrifice, community, humility and a willingness to listen, share power and be changed.
Perhaps the challenge isn’t simply to send more missionaries, raise more money or build better agencies. Perhaps it is to become the kind of church, led and shaped by a shared commitment to mission, that is willing to give itself away.
