Just today I was talking with a friend about a memorable trip in 2017 when I visited Reformation sites in Germany and Switzerland. I hope it’s sooner rather than later when we can resume such faith-building trips.

Since we can’t travel right now, we’ll need to live vicariously through Tim Challies, who visited 25 different countries in one memorable year. And I think he may have even eaten McDonald’s in every one. He attended worship services on every continent. He searched high and low for the artifacts that would help him tell the story of 2,000 years of Christian history. And he brings us along that journey in his new book, Epic: An Around-the-World Journey through Christian History.

I loved following along on social media as he traveled north and south, east and west. I admire his zeal to introduce us to long-lost heroes of the faith, and even to warn us against some wrong turns in the journey. This book matches what we’re doing with Gospelbound, searching for firm faith in an anxious age. Because he looks back on God’s faithfulness even as he looks forward to what God might yet do before Jesus returns.

So, when you can travel again, where will you go? I think Challies helped give me my answer. He told me:

“One thing you see as Christian history unfolds is the center of Christianity shifts over time. So it was North Africa, it was Rome, it was Jerusalem, it was for a long time Germany, and then Central Europe, and then the UK. More recently, I’d say it shifted towards America, but the UK is good because it’s not that long ago. They take history very, very seriously. During the time of the British Empire, they were mad historians, and so they collected lots of things and filed them away in museums.”

Sounds like a plan.