1. By the end of the lesson… The history of the church is like a tree because… By the end of the lesson you will be able to form your own explanation to this statement:

2. The Christian Church Learning Objective: To understand how the Christian church formed and spread. To explore how the Christian church started and grew. To evaluate who was the most influential figure in the history of the church. To investigate one Christian denomination.

3. Challenge Each table is going to be given a card sort which shows some of the key events in the history of the Christian Church. You need to arrange the cards in chronological order. Which group can be the most accurate?

4. Were you right?

7. Who was the most influential? As you can see from the timeline there were a number of key figures that contributed to the Christian Church as we know it today. But who do you think had the most influential impact? You are going to create a bar graph that shows how influential you think each person was. 10 = very influential 1 = not influential Remember to transfer your Maths and Science skills in creating graphs!

8. 10 5 0 St Peter St Paul Constantine Martin Luther Henry VIII Charles Darwin

9. Be Creative! The history of the church is like a tree because…

10. Be Creative! In your book you are going to illustrate the history of the church using the diagram of a tree. What key events should go where?

11. Be Creative! The roots are the teachings of Jesus and key events in his life such as the crucifixion, resurrection and ascension. The trunk is the core Christian beliefs held in the Nicene Creed. The branches show how different churches branched off from the Roman Catholic Church, e.g. Protestant and Church of England but they still hold the same core beliefs. The trunk is also the Roman Catholic Church set up by St Peter.

12. Investigate Today there are believed to be between 30,000 – 40,000 denominations of Christianity. For your homework you need to find out about one denomination from the following list: Methodist Baptist Pentecostal or Gospel Orthodox Quakers Keyword: Denomination A recognised branch of the Christian Church. Be ready to share your findings with the class at the beginning of the lesson in two lessons time.