Some good reminders today when trying to study actual church history..try to think of the church as a story, rather than a static object! Try to think of her as a daughter or person, is usually where I start in trying to help others have empathy and care for her journey.

Some people find church history boring. That’s usually because they aren’t studying her spiritual history, her actual living story. What the living part of you, the part which is true authentic and has always been becoming? I often start there. Seeing her more as a person, rather than a series of dates and mistakes. I try to do that with people, and the church. What is its true story, and how can i find that narrative line in each chapter of its life?! And draw it forwards…

When studying church history, it’s important to find the true church in the Church. To find the actual spirituality living stream of the church in each season, as her story is cumulative and has an underlying narrative just as each person’s does! Many people just dismiss the whole story because of the bad chapters, but the real story is always at least implied each season.

Look for the Church in church history. Remember my dream, where there was a river running through History, and at times it trickled, other times it gushed, but the river was always there. Try to study into True Church history. Ask where was God in this epoch of history—where is there spiritual Life! Where the Spirit is, there is freedom, and that is the place God was growing in that epoch of church history.

You can find the true spiritual history of the church by looking where you see the Fruits of the Spirit! Enter there. See what God’s real conversation was, not just how the arguments were being framed.

Spiritual reform movement are helpful windows in seeing her true spirituality. Usually they come after crisis in authority, which is what we have now!

Other take aways….Often, when reform is needed, people turn to some form of monasticism or mysticism to “find God” again! In times of outer corruptions, people turn to inner purity, and practices which put them in deeper tangible communion with God. So you see worship and prayer movements, and simplicity, feeding the poor, study and meditation etc (Benedictines, later Thomas a Kempis etc). So I’ve been following the more mystical ones, and those who are just serving the poor, during this turbulent recent decade; they tend to speak from a more eternal space, and help contextualize things! In Ezra’s time, you needed the levites to even interpret the text!

There are always spiritual options to meet God in each era, since He didn’t go anywhere in any moment of history. You just have to find Him beneath the hype of that day’s arguments. Finding the true church’s voice in our times, is essential, but can require a bit of a hunt. It’s easier to hear the louder less in tuned voices. “Listen to the symphony to hear the daily melody.” as one monk put it!

I see God for instance in the medieval times, the true spiritual stream running and working through education, missions movements, charity etc. Many just look at the corruptions of the church in that era, but lots more was happenings spiritually! God was still in conversation and communion with His People, as He always is. Find the true stream, not just the banks, as one spiritual historian put it! Even today, it is easier to find the faults than the places where the true church is moving, and manifesting the fruits of His Spirit!

Monasticism and mysticism are historically, recurring responses in times of spiritual reform. And they are once again in our time of crisis in the church, and with authority in general. Interesting! Historically, the great mystics and monastic movements occur at spiritually dry or abusive moments in church history! People draw deeper into a purer spirituality! Makes sense.

Just looking at patterns in true church history today. Fun study! Let’s not throw out the baby with the bath water. Or as my Jewish friends say, keep looking in the river, you never know when you will discover Moses floating there!