In Moravian Soundscapes, Sarah Eyerly contends that the study of sound is integral to understanding the interactions between German Moravian missionaries and Native communities in early Pennsylvania. In the mid-18th century, when the frontier between settler and Native communities was a shifting spatial and cultural borderland, sound mattered. People listened carefully to each other and the world around them. In Moravian communities, cultures of hearing and listening encompassed and also superseded musical traditions such as song and hymnody. Complex biophonic, geophonic, and anthrophonic acoustic environments—or soundscapes—characterized daily life in Moravian settlements such as Bethlehem, Nain, Gnadenhütten, and Friedenshütten. Through detailed analyses and historically informed recreations of Moravian communal, environmental, and religious soundscapes and their attendant hymn traditions, Moravian Soundscapes explores how sounds—musical and nonmusical, human and nonhuman—shaped the Moravians' religious culture. Combined with access to an interactive website that immerses the reader in mid-18th century Pennsylvania, and framed with an autobiographical narrative, Moravian Soundscapes recovers the roles of sound and music in Moravian communities and provides a road map for similar studies of other places and religious traditions in the future.

This is an original reprinting of the official Moravian missions history with new maps detailing their numerous missionary journeys. This printing is the first of three volumes, and covers the initial years of Moravian missions. Get beyond the myth and pulpit folklore about the Moravians and see what God really did in using this group of believers to bring the Gospel to unreached people groups around the world in the 17th and 18th centuries. This band of refugees, displaced by Catholic persecutions in their own land, found safety with the benevolent Count Zinzendorf in Herrnhut, Germany. After the group experienced a true Holy Spirit revival, Count Zinzendorf found in them a zealous band of dedicated missionaries that carried the Gospel across the world while those back home maintained an unbroken, 24/7 prayer meeting for a hundred years. Just as remarkable is that the Moravians went out with no steady financial support. They were 'tentmakers' in most places they went to enable the rapid spread of workers without reliance on a large home financial support network. The Moravians are among the most significant, and least known, influencers of the modern missions movement that began in the 1700s and continues to today. John Wesley, founder of the Methodist church, witnessed the Moravians during his fateful voyage across the Atlantic, later attributing Moravian influence to his own conversion. William Carey, considered the father of modern missions and a pioneer in bringing the Gospel to India, attributed his initial impetus for missions after reading about the activity of the Moravians. How did God use a band of largely uneducated craftsman and farmers to reach the world? You should read this definitive history of the Moravians to find out!

Today the problem of the relation of the Christian Church to the world stands front and center on the stage of world mission. As never before, the call goes out to the Church to help people all over the world lead a truly human life as the children of God. The Church's ministry in the world must therefore include ministry to human economic needs. In this nationalistic age, moreover, each new church must find its own particular economic structure, not adopt one that is dictated by the tradition of other countries. Western mission leaders and laity who demand that churches in the Third World follow the Western Churches' collection-plate economy may be unaware of the rich diversity of practice in their own history represented by such missionary pioneers as the Moravians and the Basel Mission Trading Company. Danker's informative book is a study of those two groups, concentrating particularly on the economic structures they created to support their mission work. The author hopes that it will Òhelp free Christians on mission frontiers on all six continents to find the forms that will carry out the tentmaking mission of the Church in the marketplace today.Ó Profit for the Lord will appeal to those interested in church history and government as well as those involved in missions.

In 1801 the Moravians, a Pietist German-speaking group from Central Europe, founded the Springplace Mission at a site in present-day northwestern Georgia. The Moravians remained among the Cherokees for more than thirty years, longer than any other Christian group. John and Anna Rosina Gambold served at the mission from 1805 until Anna's death in 1821. Anna, the principal author of the diaries, chronicles the intimate details of Cherokee daily life for seventeen years. Anna describes mission life and what she heard and saw at Springplace: food preparation and consumption, transactions pertaining to land, Cherokee body ornaments, conjuring, Cherokee law and punishment, Green Corn ceremonies, ball play, and matriarchal and marriage traditions. She similarly recounts stories she heard about rainmaking, the origins of the Cherokee people, and how she herself conversed with curious Cherokees about Christian images and fixtures. She also recalls earthquakes, conversions, notable visitors, annuity distributions, and illnesses. This abridged edition offers selected excerpts from the definitive edition of the Springplace diary, enabling significant themes and events of Cherokee culture and history to emerge. Anna's carefully recorded observations reveal the Cherokees' worldview and allow readers a glimpse into a time of change and upheaval for the tribe.