Jeff McRitchie

Write Your Church History Book

Compiling a history of your church into a book can be a great way to raise funds, as well as being a fun and challenging project. Here are a few tips to get stated.

The Introduction/Acknowledgments

Here is where you mention the leaders of your church and thank all of the people who helped you put the book together. This would also be a great place to state to your audience the reasons you have put your church history book together. Did a relative of yours start the church? Has your family been members for a long time? Tidbits like that will help you introduce yourself as the author or curator of the church's history, as well as providing you readers some context. It doesn't have to be very long, and in some cases the shorter the better - a page, maybe two should suffice.

Even though this is a church history, you may want to avoid going overboard on the religious talk. Emphasize the history aspect rather than focusing on your faith.

Gathering Material

Your church should have archived stores of photographs somewhere that you can start to go through in order to pick the best for your book. If you are not finding what you need, there may be some in the historical archives of your city or county, as well as any newspaper accounts of such events as the building and dedication of your current church building, a well as any other places it has been located over the years.

For this part, see if you can conduct interviews with some of the oldest members of your congregation in order to get what is called an oral history. Compile a list of question that you want to ask them, such as when and how they became members, memories of their most favorite pastors and events (least favorite too, as humor will be a great addition to your book).

Gather any pieces of history you can find and place them in chronological order on a long table and start to work from there. With these scraps and odds and ends, you will create your church history.

The Writing

While you will want to include what you can about former pastors and officers, you won't want to settle for simply making a list. You could use each pastor as a chapter heading, and list the other officers from there. Include major events that happened during your oral and written histories. The key is to make your narrative enjoyable to read, not just a dry account of who was running the church and when.

Look to the future as well. If your church has, for instance, plans for a building expansion or a new vein of charity work, make sure to include that at the end of your book.

Binding/Publishing

Depending on the size of your church, you may of may not have a paper binding machine or two on hand. Thermal binding machines (the kind that create hard cover and softcover books) are surprisingly inexpensive and easy to use, and if your book is a fundraiser, you can save money over the cost of a printer by doing it yourself.

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