This is the initial post of a new ATC blog thread that will focus on Church History.  Due to seminary and ministry commitments, the original posts will be entered over a few weeks, with much slower activity during seminary semesters, which tend to be two months in length.

Church history is a very important topic, although many faithful Christians are not well informed and/or well studied on the events that cover the approximate 2000 years since Jesus' death on the cross and resurrection.  These two millennia are full of lessons that are vital to the church.  Many are miraculous – positive sources of wonder.  Others, well, there are some we can never be proud of.  They hold for us not only the story of the growth and progress of the Christian church, but also rich insights into problems that were encountered in the journey.  If we can understand those, perhaps we can prevent similar barriers to the progress of Christ's mission for the church as it continues via our ministries today.

We will start at the beginning, with Christ's great commission message to his disciples – the Apostles.  We will trace from that new church of the first century and the "age of the apostles," through the centuries between then and now.  Several valuable resources will be consulted along the way.  Principle among these are:
 

Grudem, Wayne A. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine. Leicester, England: Inter-Varsity Press, 1994.
 

Olson, Roger E.  The Mosaic of Christian Belief: Twenty Centuries of Unity and Diversity.  Downers Grove, Ill: Inter-Varsity Press, 2002.
 

Olson, Roger E.  The Story of Christian Theology.  Downers Grove, Ill: Inter-Varsity Press, 1999.
 

Shelley, Bruce L. Church History in Plain Language.  Dallas, TX: Word Pub, 1995

Other sources will be cited as we proceed.  This will no doubt be a lengthy series; after all, we are talking about 2000 + years of history.  Emphasis will be on trying to highlight the stories contained in history, along with how we might learn and benefit from those stories as we work in our ministries and churches today.  In this blog we will not explore every theological issue to the greatest depth, but we will strive to report historical facts, including Scripture, so that we can each see a picture of what happened.  Hopefully that will enable our learning and understanding of how and why we are where we are with the church today.

I hope you enjoy this process,

Larry