By Dayton Hartman - Posted at The Center for Baptist Renewal:
Why should we care about “church history?”
For me, the answer came early in my ministry. As I entered my second year in ministry, I was inundated with inquiries that required me to look to the past. Members of my church were asking questions like, “Did Constantine invent the Trinity and the deity of Christ?” and “What really happened at the Council of Nicaea?” At the time, I didn’t really care about the answers to these questions. I was suffering from a horrible case of what C. S. Lewis called “chronological snobbery,” a tendency to elevate contemporary ideas over ones from the musty, dusty past.
Nevertheless, I had questions to answer. And finding the answers launched me into multi-year journey through church history that eventually changed my view of the creeds, preaching, discipleship, pastoral care, and cultural engagement. I am a different and, I believe, better pastor because of my study of church history. Now, more than a decade since my first foray into the subject, I am a church planter. I also teach church history and historical theology to seminary students.
I’ve learned that there are dangers inherent in ignoring the past, as well as many benefits to knowing what has come before us. These benefits have convinced me that pastoral ministry is most effective when carried out in light of lessons from our history. Here are just a few beneficial reasons why pastors should seriously engage with the history. ...
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