Obviously I am a big believer in sharing information about the history of Christianity. That is why I blog and podcast on this subject. I am assuming that people who come to this site are interested in learning more about church history.
I would like to share five things that you can do to grow as a student of church history. None of these will make you an expert in every area of church history. Even a PhD would not do that. But these are some steps that you can take to grow. Do one, some, or all of them. It’s all up to you.
- Read an introduction to church history. The advantage of this is that it gives you the big picture of how the church has changed from the first to the twenty-first century. Such introductions must skip over many important details but they are extremely helpful.
- Read a biography of an important figure from church history. It could be someone from any period in church history, even in recent history. History and biography are overlapping but distinct genres. reading biographies fills in some of the gaps from reading other sources.
- Learn about your own faith tradition. Many people have little knowledge about the history of the denomination or tradition that they worship in weekly. Even if you belong to a non-denominational church, there is still a history to learn. You might have to focus on learning about the origins of evangelicalism in general, but it is still worth studying.
- Pick a historical period since the start of the Christian Church and learn about what was happening outside of the church at that time. What were the major world events? What were the cultural shifts that might have influenced the church?
- Take some time to reflect on what is happening in the Christian Church today. We are in the midst of history right now. This is a time of rapid change in many areas. How does what we see today correspond with what we have seen in the past. And how does this inform how we see the future?
