“Grieving and lamenting, pining for the days of visitation, and crying out for spiritual revitalization
is the everyday position of the remnant.
The plaintive cry goes up, “Will You not revive us again, that Your people may rejoice in You?” (Ps 85:6) …
These are our people. These were our churches.
Kevin Swanson, Epoch
Following the stream of godly men and women that flow through history,
from Paul’s missionary journeys in Asia
to Lydia on the continent of Europe
to the Reformers
and ultimately to the Pilgrims who landed here in America…
we can’t help but praise God that they spread the Gospel that we have the privilege to know. They preached of the one true God who ordered all things so we would hear and believe in the Lord Jesus in our time and place here in America.
For many years, I attended evangelical churches in the Northeast that never mentioned the importance of church history, never uttered the names of the mighty men and women of God that had gone before us. Calvin, Spurgeon, Edwards…all were unknown to me. My first introduction to the Christians of the past was a biography of Martin Lloyd-Jones that someone offered me.
I was hooked.
As Nate Pickowicz has written, “There is a measure of comfort, joy, and inspiration that comes from beholding the hand of God in the lives of His flawed, yet faithful servants.”
I then got my hands on David Brainerd’s journal and realized that he ministered right in my backyard. Tennant’s Log College and Princeton University are nearby as well. I began to visit these places and found many, many tangible remnants of the past still remain, all over the East Coast. A reminder of what God has done right here in the US and is sovereignly powerful to do again.
For others that may have interest, I share what I have found. I link to many great resources, biographies, maps, and the writings of others that I highly recommend to gain familiarity before you visit. I will also link to audio lessons when available, great for the car between sites.
May it spur interest in God’s history, add interest to a road trip or a homeschool lesson, and much prayer for His church today. Let’s learn what tales the old hearthstones may tell us.
Joyfully,
Laura
I’d love to hear from you.
What have you found? Do you have a question?
Would you like a link to the map of locations? Let me know!
The travelers who shall pass by the many storied ways, through the lands of the Puritan occupations in the ancient days of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, may now read on tablets set by roadsides or in city streets the tales which the ocean shores, the hills, the fields, the churches, the garrison houses and the old hearthstones, have to tell of the heroism, of the romance and of the tragedies, and of the unfaltering faith, of the ancestors of our Commonwealth.
source
Beside Old Hearthstones - An American Evangelical Church History Tour 