Tim Challies - Epic: An Around-the-World Journey through Christian History

It began with a breakfast.

I had received an email message from a stranger who mentioned he was passing through town and would like to meet me for breakfast. He said he would like to speak with me about money matters, which struck me as a little suspicious and made me more than a little uncomfortable. But hey, free breakfast. I accepted his invitation.

Over bacon and eggs, he shared with me that he represented a group of Christian businessmen who had enjoyed some of my writing and work. They wanted to know if they could help support something new that I was interested in doing.

If you could take on any project, and money was no object, what would you want to do?

I knew exactly what Id do. Just the evening before, I had completed a proposal that had taken me several months to put together, a project so ambitious that I was sure it could never be more than a dream. For the past few years, I had felt a deep longing to explore the roots of my Christian faith. I had wanted to experience the places where significant events in the history of Christianity had occurred, to see and hear and touch the objects that continued to serve as reminders of these pivotal moments and key characters. I had questions to ask. Where did Christianity come from? How did a small movement made up of Jewish men and women grow so fast and spread throughout the entire known world? Who were the people behind this movement? What were the crucial moments that defined it? And how do I, as a twenty-first-century follower of Christ, fit into this epic story?

I love to read history, and I had devoured more books than I could count, looking for answers to my questions. But for this project I wanted to do more than read. I wanted to go. I wanted to explore. I wanted to experience it myself. To see where these people had lived. To experience what it was like to stand where they had stood. Since many of these events happened long ago and the people involved were long dead, I knew that I would need to focus on the objects that remainedthose key artifacts that had been preserved. I wanted to listen to the objects to hear what I could learn from them, trusting that if I listened well, each one would tell me a different story. My hope was that by listening to the small stories told by these remnants of Christian history, I would begin to understand the larger story and its epic unfolding.

I wanted to experience the history of Christianity.

The first step had been choosing the events and characters that were of significance and interest. After endless hours of research, I had drawn up a list of key cities and countries where I could find the objects that would tell me this story. Some choices were simple. I knew Id need to visit Jerusalem, the city where it all began. Id travel to Rome, the hub of the Christian church for centuries. As a Protestant Christian, Id have to spend time in Germany where the Reformation began, and travel to England where the great modern missionary movement was founded. And if I wanted a truly global history of Christianity, Id need to head east to India and China where today countless millions of people confess the name of Jesus Christ. Id need to go south to Africa and South America where the Christian faith has put down deep roots over the past two centuries. I researched different churches and libraries I could visit, looking for museums that might contain some of the precious artifacts I wanted to see. I mapped out an itinerary spanning twenty-five countries and covering every continent. Everything was ready, but it was all just a dream. I knew I could never afford such a journey.

Stephen McCaskell, who traveled the world with me

But now, here I was the very next day, sitting at breakfast across the table from someone who had just asked me to tell him my dream. I didnt hesitate.

Id travel the world to search for historical objects that tell the story of Christianity.

And with that, my journey began. A few days later, the money was in the bank and I was frantically arranging interviews with experts and scholars, scheduling tours of museums great and small, and booking long-haul flights to distant lands. Over the course of a very memorable year, I journeyed north and south, east and west. I traveled to Israel to see where Christianity began, to England to find the earliest fragment of the New Testament, to Scotland to trace the roots of a great missionary movement, to Zambia to learn how the gospel spread to the heart of Africa, to India to learn about the lasting work of a remarkable woman, and to my own hometown to find unexpected links to the past. I spent time with Christians in almost every country I visited, and I attended worship services on every continent. And just as I had hoped, I found exactly the kind of objects I had wanted to see. I discovered links to the past, historical artifacts I could see and study and sometimes even touch and hold, each telling me a different chapter of a much greater story.