How the Church Got Here · Chapter 1
How did a few friends of Jesus become a church of millions?
It started with a handful of people in Jerusalem who couldn't stop talking about an empty tomb. Two thousand years later, you're part of the same story. Today you'll walk the whole thing in ten minutes.
Start this chapterTwo thousand years
Around AD 30, Jesus' first followers began telling the good news in Jerusalem. The apostle Paul's letters, written in the 50s, are the oldest writings in the New Testament. The Gospel of Mark followed around AD 70.
Early Christians were often misunderstood. Some Romans thought they were strange, even dangerous, and at times they were persecuted. Then in 313 the emperor Constantine made Christianity legal, and in 325 church leaders met at Nicaea and wrote the first form of the Nicene Creed.
In 1054, the church in the East and the church in the West split apart. Today we call them the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. In 1517, a monk named Martin Luther asked hard questions about forgiveness. That started the Reformation.
In the 1600s, Lutherans began coming to North America. Swedish Lutherans settled along the Delaware River in 1638. Others came to what is now New York and the Virgin Islands. Over time, many Lutheran church groups formed. Three of them voted in 1987 to join together, and on January 1, 1988, they began as one church: the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, or ELCA.
Read it in your Bible
- Acts 2:42. The first Christians stay close to the apostles' teaching, to one another, to sharing bread, and to prayer.
Words to know
- Apostle. Someone sent out to share the good news, like the first leaders of the church. Apostle means “one who is sent.” Every Christian is sent out too.
- Constantine. The Roman emperor who made Christianity legal in 313. Christians could now worship and build churches in the open without fear of the law.
- Schism. The split in 1054 between the Eastern and Western churches. Schism means a split. Christians today still pray and work to heal divisions.
- Reformation. The movement that began in 1517 to reform the church. Luther wanted to fix the church he loved, not start a new one.
- ELCA. The church that began on January 1, 1988, when three Lutheran churches joined together. It's our church family today: thousands of congregations across the United States and the Caribbean.