We need to teach our children about the history of the church. Teaching them about the past and how we got to where we are today gives them a foundation in their faith. It helps them see how serious truth is and the lengths we must go to in protecting it. It helps give shape to the creeds, confessions, and doctrines that are easily taken for granted. Like the passage in Hebrews 11, it helps them see that many have gone before them, fighting the good fight of faith.

I grew up in the church and was blessed to learn theology at a young age. But it wasn’t until I started attending a Christian school as a teen that I learned the stories behind that theology. It was in a class on Church History that I discovered the people and places that helped define the truths I took for granted such as the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, justification by faith, and how it is that I attend church on American soil.

A lot has happened since the day Jesus ascended into heaven and charged the disciples to spread the gospel to Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth. Many people have died in the cause of spreading the name and fame of Christ and his gospel. In our day and age, learning the history of the church from the time of the New Testament until now, is important. We live in an age where few know what they believe and why. Truth is often seen as relative and depends on what one feels like doing in the moment. In truth, we live in a time not all that different from that of the early church.

We need to teach our children about the history of the church. Teaching them about the past and how we got to where we are today gives them a foundation in their faith. It helps them see how serious truth is and the lengths we must go to in protecting it. It helps give shape to the creeds, confessions, and doctrines that are easily taken for granted. Like the passage in Hebrews 11, it helps them see that many have gone before them, fighting the good fight of faith.

There are many useful resources for teaching church history to children and different ways to implement those resources. If you are homeschooling, it is easy to incorporate a lesson on church history into your daily Bible lessons. Learning church history can also be something you do as a family during devotional time, during story time before bed, or something you study together during breaks from school.

Here are a few excellent resources to consider:

Picture Books
The Church History ABC’s: Augustine and 25 Other Heroes of the Faith by Steven J. Nichols and Ned Bustard. This book is an excellent resource for introducing young children to church history. For each letter of the alphabet, there is a hero of the faith including, Augustine, John Knox, John Newton, and Spurgeon. There is a summary of that hero and their contribution to church history. The illustrations are engaging and the summaries brief with one hero on each page.

The Barber Who Wanted to Pray by R.C. Sproul: This is a book based on the letter exchange between Martin Luther and his barber on the topic of prayer. While it is not specifically about church history, it’s an excellent book to use in conjunction with other books on Martin Luther.

Martin Luther: A Man Who Changed the Worldby Paul L. Maier: This picture book does a nice job summarizing the story of Martin Luther and how the Protestant Reformation started.

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