MANNAFEST

Church History

The Great Cloud of Witnesses

“Therefore let us also, seeing we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.”

Hebrews 11 names the witnesses who ran before the cross — the Hall of Faith. The line did not stop there. This wing walks the two thousand years since: the martyrs, the creeds, the kept light, the open Bible, the awakenings, the revivals — the same race, the same cloud.

Walk the line

  1. 1The Apostolic AgeThis is the church's first breath. The men and women who had walked with Jesus took His message out of Jerusalem, and within one lifetime it reached the capital of the world.to AD 100
  2. 2The Martyrs' ChurchFor two hundred years, being a Christian could cost you your life. This is the era when the church had no buildings, no power, and no protection — and grew anyway.AD 100–313
  3. 3The Fathers & the CreedsThe persecution stopped and the arguments started. In these three centuries the church put into careful words who Jesus is — and recognized which books were Scripture.AD 313–600
  4. 4The Long MiddleNine hundred years, and the usual summary is "the dark ages." It is not that simple. The institution grew corrupt in places — and at the same time monks copied Scripture by hand, missionaries walked into pagan Europe, and God kept a lamp burning.AD 600–1500
  5. 5The ReformationOne monk's conscience, one printing press, and one open Bible. In a single century Scripture went from a chained Latin book to something a farmhand could read in his own language.1500–1600
  6. 6The Puritans & PietistsThe Reformation had opened the Bible. Now came the harder question: has it opened you? This is the century of the examined heart, the family altar, and the prayer meeting that would not quit.1600–1730
  7. 7The Great AwakeningsGod poured out His Spirit on two nations at once. Whole towns stopped talking about anything else, and the preaching moved out of the buildings and into the fields.1730–1800
  8. 8The Missionary CenturyAwakened people looked at a map and could not stay home. In a hundred and twenty years the gospel was carried, at enormous cost, to India, China, Africa, and the islands.1790–1910
  9. 9The Revival StreamsAt the opening of the twentieth century God moved again — in Welsh mining villages, in a shabby Los Angeles building, in Korea and India — and the church rediscovered the power of Pentecost.1900–1950
  10. 10The Church Under Fire & Into All the WorldThe twentieth century killed more Christians for their faith than any century before it — and the church grew faster than in any century before it. Both things are true.1930–today

The Hall of Faith

Hebrews 11 — the witnesses who ran before: Abel to the unnamed martyrs. The door into this wing.

The Voices

The teachers and commentators this site quotes — many of them witnesses in these very eras, from the fathers to the revivalists.