Dr. Matthew Stephen put together a very nice congregational history for Western Hills Church of Christ in Temple, Texas.  To complement the book, he built this website to showcase photographs and to host the book in PDF form.  It is a well-done history published in an accessible form, freely available to any who are interested.

Cover page, A History of Western Hills Church of Christ, by Matthew Stephen

One of the pitfalls of writing congregational history is the conundrum of printing the fruits of research.  Often the print run needs to be small because the interest is localized; however, small print runs can be expensive and even if monetized, or subsidized the congregation, the costs can still be prohibitive.  Publishing online is the perfect solution.

I predict Matt will have a global readership.  Those who are interested in the subject matter or location will certainly be interested, but any who are engaged in congregational history will find his work a worthy model.  I like to browse congregational histories because, on the technical side, each one has some kind of approach or feature I find useful.  On the historical side, it is fascinating to see how principles and practice intersect on the ground in a local context.  Congregational history is a critical discipline…I’m a big fan (and wrote some about it here and Erma Jean Loveland wrote a helpful guide which we published here).

Congratulations to Dr. Stephen and Western Hills Church for saving the paper and telling their story!