1.1 – Introduction & How to Take Notes (16 min video)

Transcript

_{The following transcript was automatically generated and may contain errors in spelling and/or grammar. It is provided for assistance in note-taking and review.}

– Hi, I’m Dave Raymond and welcome to Christendom. This lecture series is one I’m very eager to teach you simply because we’re going to see the richness of this history. Now this first lecture, this lesson one, this is always the same lecture. It’s the orientation. and I give the same lecture for all these video series that I give to all of my students that I teach in person. It’s a lecture that never really changes because it’s a lecture that explains why we are as well as why we learn. And the reasons for those things, the answers to those things, they themselves do not change, so therefore the lecture doesn’t change. Now to give us a starting point, I thought it might actually be helpful to kind of talk through what it is that I love about history, which is really when I began to love history.

So it’s a little bit biographical or autobiographical here at the start. Naturally for me, the love of history, it didn’t begin with any kind of facts or dates or just the names of people and events. In fact, I don’t think anybody loves just that aspect of history. For me, it really began with stories. I was named, for example, after the Old Testament character of David. And so therefore, as a young child, I gravitated towards those stories, stories that were first told to me, and then stories that I would freely read.

Often during the sermon, when I was probably supposed to be listening, but as a nine-year-old, I preferred to read the stories, meaning they just captivated my attention.

But things began to change as I entered elementary school, And it wasn’t really history, it wasn’t really a story anymore, it simply became social studies. You might have encountered this, where you simply have a textbook that seems to focus simply upon major facts. Yes, you get the key people, you get the main events, but you don’t really get an evaluation of those things, and you certainly don’t get story. However, I wasn’t completely separated from story during this time. And really the person responsible for that, for keeping story going was my mom. Because as far as I can remember, she took me to every museum, every park, every historical site within a couple hours of our house.

So I saw things like Lincoln’s General Store. I saw the remnants of Confederate chains that had been stretched across the Mississippi an attempt to stop the Union fleets. I saw things such as the monolithic scope of Cahokia Mounds with paintings that envisioned, imagined what it once looked like. So there was that kind of story. There was that kind of imagination and discovery that fascinated me. There was also sometimes the accidental discovery. I still remember my brother and I, for example, going to the golf course behind our house, which we often explored, and one day walking up one particular hill into the woods and discovering an old cemetery.

And we actually had to pull back the vines of ivy and began reading the names. And suddenly it occurred to me, despite the fact I was probably only eight or nine, it occurred to me that yes, there have been people who had lived here once, who had homes probably on that same golf course, who lived their lives here, who loved here, who did, well, who knows what here.

But the point being, it captivated my imagination and wondering about these people of the past. And of course, even in school, there were sometime these moments of light. I can remember in fourth grade, when we had the chance to study the Middle Ages, which was astonishing because every single year was always devoted to American history.

we never had a chance to study anything different. That wasn’t seen as valuable, I suppose. But I still remember being given a little quiz just to find out what information we actually knew. And that quiz made me realize how little I actually knew about the period of history that we’re gonna be studying this year. I still remember seeing the name Charlemagne, having no idea how to pronounce it, but seeing it on the test and just being captivated by the name itself and wondering who is this or what is this?

But then of course there were shining lights. I still remember my sixth grade history teacher. She would walk us through that rather boring textbook, which was her job, but then when it was finished, we would sit and she would read.

She had this collection of stories from American history. I still remember one of the stories well about a New York sheriff who also had to serve as the executioner. actually had the nickname, the Buffalo Hangman. I remember the story dealing with his struggle, his wrestling in his own conscience of having to execute the people that he had arrested, having to take a life.

And then what was amazing about the story, like all the stories in that book, was that at the end, he revealed something amazing, that fact, for example, that this particular character was Grover Cleveland.

It was the fact of that, those kinds of stories that had rather amazing turns, just an information in that case, that hooked me. As I entered middle school, history once again became all about the facts. I still remember test questions that would ask about the exports of Jamaica. Was it rum, molasses, and slaves? Or was it molasses, sugar, and rum? Or was it, it was like several different answers like that. I mean, it was the kind of thing that could easily put one to sleep. And it really, this didn’t surprise me, and it doesn’t surprise me to this day, that so many students struggle with a love of history when history simply seems to be about facts that don’t really have any relationship to our lives. Thankfully for me, that changed in high school. Once again, I had a fantastic teacher. And as he taught me the study that we’re gonna look at, As he talked through the history of Christendom with all of its characters, with all the things that those people wrestled with and dealt with, with all of the great events, it suddenly connected the church of the book of Acts, something that I had read, something that I was amazed to see the work of God in.

It suddenly connected the church then to the church of today. I had been told, look, God has worked in the New Testament. He’s working today, but there was no connecting point between those two things. It was the study of Christendom that showed me that there is a connecting point, that showed me there’s one long unbroken story of God’s faithfulness. From the very beginning of creation, of course, but in terms of Christendom, from the very early days of the church, right through the present day, and all the way until the end of the world.

” In other words, it really was living out what Jesus tells his disciples in John 16, when he says, “In the world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world.” We’re gonna see that as we study Christendom, as we study the history of Christianity, we’re gonna see a lot of fallen people. We’re gonna see that the church has tried numerous times to destroy itself from its own stupidity. That’s the nature of being fallen humans. But we’re also going to see the remarkable ability, the remarkable faithfulness of God to basically pull us out of our own bad decisions. And that’s going to be the story of this year, one that I hope you truly enjoy. Now, in order for you to take this class, you’re gonna have to take notes. And so I wanna take a few moments right now to teach you how to take notes. And it’s kind of funny, but I’m gonna have you actually take notes on taking notes. So let’s start out with, I’ll just give you a few pointers or tips that you can write down. Number one, whenever you’re taking notes, you want to record the main idea. Record the point. You always want to be asking yourself the question, why does this matter? I’m going to give you a lot of information. There will be a lot of names. There will be a lot of dates, a lot of events and so forth. That’s just kind of how history works. But you don’t necessarily need to write down absolutely everything. You certainly don’t need to write down every word I say. You want to be asking yourself constantly, what really matters? What is the point here? What is really the takeaway here? that’s what you want to get down. And yes, get down the key events and the key people and so forth, but constantly asking yourself the question, what is the point? Secondly, as you are actually writing notes, I find it very helpful for you to make an outline and then to flesh it out. In other words, you don’t want your notes to look like one massive block of text. You want them to look more like a stair-stepped shape. So you might have a main point. If we’re talking about, say, the Council of Nicaea, you might write that up there on top and put a Roman numeral by it. Maybe it’s Roman numeral two in whatever topics we’re talking about. And then after that, maybe indent and talk about, okay, here’s the idea that you’re wrestling with. They were dealing with the heresy of Arianism. And then underneath that, you would write what Arianism was. And then maybe you would go back closer towards the margin and you would write a new point. Maybe you’ll call that letter B and you’ll talk about how the council was called. And then maybe you’ll skip a line and write letter C and you’ll talk about who actually talked at the council and what they said. In other words, you can decide what form you want that to look like, but you wanna use spacing, you wanna indent on occasion, you wanna use things like Roman numerals or letters or numbers to help you actually separate those points.

I even have some students who like to go and get various pen collections, especially gel pens, and they will actually use different colors for different points.

Maybe that’s you, maybe it’s not, it’s fine. The point is, there’s all kinds of things you can do to make your notes more accessible, or in that case, more exciting. Thirdly, you want to look for my emphasis and follow my pace. There will be times where I will slow down and I’ll more carefully explain something. I will warn you, I do kind of go quickly. Throughout this series, there’s a lot to actually cover, but look for the things that I emphasize. Look for the things that I repeat. Those are going to be the things that are important. Fourth, this is a history class, so you need to record the key people, the key events, the key dates, places, and ideas. Again, this is a rich period of history, and you need to know the basics, the grammar, if you will, of history in order to be able to converse or even just think upon these things.

Fifth, you need to record stories, but only record the list of details. In other words, don’t try to write down absolutely everything about the story. So for example, if I were to tell you the story of Canute, I’d want you to write down key details in your notes so that you could retell the story later. So let’s practice that right now. Let me tell you the story, or one of the stories of Canute. So Canute was a Danish king who ruled over England. And his advisors thought very highly of him and really thought that their role was to praise him and to basically say he could do anything he wanted.

Well, the story goes that Canute wanted to know if he was truly in charge of all things, His advisors, thinking he wanted a yes answer, said, “Well, of course you’re in charge of all things.” So he said, “Fine, let’s prove it.” So he had his advisors bring his throne to the beach. And he sat down on the throne on the beach, and then he commanded the waves, the tidal waves coming in, he commanded them to come no further, to not touch his throne.

His advisors probably started getting nervous at this point. And then they just kind of wait. And sure enough, the tide comes in as the tide always does. And sure enough, it touched his throne. Suddenly he rebuked the advisors, telling them that only Christ has the authority over the waves or over things of that magnitude. He then reportedly took his crown and put it upon a statue of Christ to remind his advisors of that lesson. Now if you were writing down that story, you don’t need to write down absolutely everything, but hopefully you have mentioned who Knute was, Danish king, ruled England, something like that, and you can abbreviate words.

You can write England as E-N-G, for example. Hopefully you mentioned that his advisors thought he could rule anything. They basically were trying to flatter him. Hopefully you wrote about the whole throne incident. He’s on the beach, commands the waves to stop. And then hopefully you noted that he rebukes his advisors, wind the waves, lap against his throne, and then puts his crown upon a statue of Christ.

Those basic details are helpful just so long as you have it in your notes so that you could retell the story. You’ll also see, here’s another tip, you’ll also see that I will give you quotes. Sometimes the quotes are short, in which case you could probably write down the whole thing. Sometimes the quotes are not short, they’re decidedly long. In that case, just try to write down who said it and then write down the main points. I typically will explain to you the meaning of a quote after I read it. Sometimes even in the midst of reading it, I will explain it to you. Also, another tip, you should prepare to write most of the time. You have the luxury of this being video. You can pause this. My students in live classes probably wish they had that ability. Anyway, you need to take the time, however, to write down what you know to be important. And yes, you’re gonna be working these muscles of your hand quite a bit as you record things. Finally, my last tip for you, review your notes prior to exams. In fact, I usually recommend that students take 10 or 15 minutes on school days to review their notes, to better remember what really matters, and also as preparation for the exams.

Keep in mind, the goal of taking this class is not to pass the exam, something we’ll talk about in the next lecture. The goal of this class is so that you can see the rich history of the church throughout time, a rich history that continues and will continue, not just until Christ returns, but forevermore.

I certainly hope that you enjoy this series.