Church History

My friend Matthew Ezzell and I taught a Sunday school class on American Presbyterian History at Shiloh Presbyterian Church. Here was the overview we wrote for the course: This class provides an understanding of the historical foundations of modern presbyterianism in America. We cover the breadth of the streams contributing to the presbyterian churches and denominations of our country. In the course, we learn about the controversies and conflicts and also spread of the gospel and the propagation churches throughout the United States....

My great-grandfather Hershey Longenecker and his wife Minnie served as Southern Presbyterian missionaries to the Belgian Congo from 1917 to 1951. In retirement, he wrote a memoir of his life and ministry entitled Memories of Congo. Some time ago, my dad’s cousin digitized the book and gave me permission to host it at congo.ulsterworldly.com. I also created a Kindle edition available on Amazon.

I recently launched a new website: readmachen.com. The site started as a digitization of the bibliography of Machen’s works published in Pressing Towards the Mark (sadly out of print) by James Dennison and Grace Mullen. This bibliography is 25 pages long and lists nearly 400 books, articles, sermons, and letters from J. Gresham Machen published over the last 100 years. The online version allows you to see the data in ways the print version doesn’t; for example, you can view publications by year or source....

I created ulsterworldly.com, a blog about the history of Presbyterianism, mainly to organize my notes and study. Many of the entries relate to my own family, where Presbyterianism goes back to the 1560s in Scotland. My other primary area of interest is the history of my own denomination, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. My prayer is that others will find these resources encouraging and strengthening as well.