Core Learning Series Two

Our Family Story: Jesus’ Church in History

Walk with the Church through its long and complex story—and discern what faithfulness looks like in our own time.

Explore the series 8 sessions Series One completion required

The Story

The Church’s story is long, complex, and still unfolding. This series listens carefully to how ordinary Christians sought faithfulness across centuries of uncertainty, disagreement, courage, and failure.

A branching tree representing the history of the Church

Walking with the Church through time

Our Family Story: Jesus’ Church in History is an 8-session journey through the Church’s history. Together, participants explore how Christians lived through persecution and influence, division and reform, loss and renewal.

As those patterns come into view, we begin to recognize how God has remained at work—and how our own moment fits within a much larger story.

This work does not begin from scratch. Series Two builds on the slow engagement, attention to context, and trust in God’s work across time formed in Series One.

The Journey

Eight sessions move through pivotal seasons in the Church’s life—not to memorize a timeline, but to learn from the faithfulness and failures of those who came before us.

Eight sessions. One continuing story.

The series follows a clear historical arc while making room for honest conversation, careful reflection, and discernment about Christian faithfulness today.

A hopeful family tree illustrating the Church’s shared journey through history

  1. Faith Under Pressure

    How early Christians lived faithfully when following Jesus carried real risk.

  2. Power and Its Consequences

    What changed when Christianity gained influence, and how that shaped the Church.

  3. Division, Reform, and Renewal

    How the Church fractured, reformed, and sought faithfulness across centuries.

  4. Faith in a Changing World

    How believers responded to cultural, scientific, and social shifts.

  5. A Global and Living Church

    How Christianity has been lived across cultures and contexts, and how the Church’s story continues today.

Why It Matters

Church history helps us see our present moment with greater humility, clarity, and hope. We inherit both the wisdom and the unfinished work of the Christians who came before us.

A shared foundation

Rather than offering a simplified story, this series stays with the Church as it has actually lived—marked by faithfulness and failure, courage and compromise. God’s faithfulness has never depended on the Church getting everything right.

Remember honestlyHold courage and compromise together without flattening the story.
Recognize the patternsSee how pressure, power, division, and renewal continue to shape the Church.
Discern faithfulness nowLocate our own moment within the larger story and respond with humility and hope.

Continue

Series Two is the next step in the Core Learning journey. Access follows completion of Reading the Bible Again for the First Time.

Continue the Journey

If you have completed Series One, let us know you are ready for Church History. We will follow up and help you connect with a group continuing the journey.

Series One is the prerequisite The form below confirms where you are in that first learning journey before Series Two access is provided.
Learning Series:Church History (#15)

First time here?

Begin with Reading the Bible Again for the First Time. After completing that series, come back here to continue into Church History.

Start with Series One

What Awaits You in These Sessions:

In a world full of fragmented interpretations and surface-level engagement with Scripture, it’s easy to miss the depth and unity of God’s Word. This series offers a fresh way of reading the Bible — not as disconnected stories, but as a single narrative of God’s love and mission.

The Bible as Covenant Story:

From creation to covenant, from prophets to poetry, from Jesus to the early church, the Bible unfolds as the story of God drawing His children home. It’s a relationship — a missional partnership between God and His people — brought to fullness in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.

God’s Mission Through His People:

At every turn, this journey shows how God calls His people to reflect His love, to live in covenant faithfulness, and to form communities that shine with His grace in the world.

A Dynamic, Expansive Vision:

Across both the Old and New Testaments, we see a God who moves toward His world with redeeming love. This same God invites you to take your place in His ongoing story — joining a people called to bring the gospel into every corner of human experience.

CLC sessions