Simpson & Zinzendorf

If I were to say “Jesus Only” to most blue book wielding C&MA people here in Canada, the first words that would come to their mouths or should I say, the first name would be AB Simpson.  The founder of the Christian & Missionary Alliance.  He’s talked a lot about the idea of “Jesus Only” and even wrote a few hymns on it.  This week I’ve been doing some research for our current series at theadvance called “Awakening” which is all about prayer and my focus this week has been on the Moravian Church and this incredible prayer movement they maintained of 24-7 prayer for over 100 years.  As I was reading through the history of the church I came across a famous slogan from their modern era (circa 1727), “I have one passion; it is Jesus, Jesus only.”  Now like any good Official Worker with the C & MA my immediate thoughts went to our founder AB and I started to wonder how much the Moravian Church and their passion for unity, fellowship, freedom, passion and missions impacted AB.  Mike Linnen the missions coordinator for the ECD has started to think about this as well on his blog, and I’ll prod him a bit about following up on his original post but I haven’t been able to find a lot of information out there on the InterWeb.  So, this is a request to anyone out there who may know where to look or have further insight to share with me but if anyone knows where I can find information about AB and the influence of the Moravian church on early C&MA missiology and ecclesiology, for general interest alone I would love to find out more about it.  Feel free to send me an email or comment with some ideas on where to look.

thanks!

One Response to “Simpson & Zinzendorf”

1. Lorne says:

   December 1, 2009 at 7:05 pm

   Back in the ’70’s J.H. Hunter wrote a history of the C& MA called, if my memory is working, “Footprints.” Probably some info in that. I think the church library has a copy, if not I have it in a box somewhere – I don’t think it got unpacked after we moved.