What do you think?
Rate this book
Trial and Triumph: Stories from Church History
"Thus says the LORD: Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; then you will find rest for your souls" (Jer. 6:16).
Christianity is a faith in love with history. God took on human flesh and dwelt among us. The Spirit carried that divine work over the centuries, providing courage and maturity even amid our imperfections.
Christians find their true family line not through tribes and ethnic blood but in the bond of faithfulness and shed blood that has united our family for millennia. We too often view Church history as the story of obscure aliens instead of the lives of brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers.
In this collection of forty-six brief biographies for children, Hannula sketches the stirring trials and triumphs of many famous and some lesser known figures in our family of faith—including Augustine, Charlemagne, Luther, Bunyan, and C.S. Lewis. Through them we can begin to enjoy the old paths and find rest for our souls.
Christianity is a faith in love with history. God took on human flesh and dwelt among us. The Spirit carried that divine work over the centuries, providing courage and maturity even amid our imperfections.
Christians find their true family line not through tribes and ethnic blood but in the bond of faithfulness and shed blood that has united our family for millennia. We too often view Church history as the story of obscure aliens instead of the lives of brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers.
In this collection of forty-six brief biographies for children, Hannula sketches the stirring trials and triumphs of many famous and some lesser known figures in our family of faith—including Augustine, Charlemagne, Luther, Bunyan, and C.S. Lewis. Through them we can begin to enjoy the old paths and find rest for our souls.
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
814 people are currently reading
1114 people want to read
About the author
Richard M. Hannula
7books17followersMr. Richard Hannula received a B.A. in history from the University of Southern California and was selected for membership in the Phi Beta Kappa National Honor Society. Mr. Hannula holds a master's in education from the University of Washington.
He is the author of Our Northwest Heritage: A History of the Pacific Northwest from a Christian Perspective and Trial and Triumph: Stories from Church History.
He serves as principal of Covenant High School (in Tacoma, WA) and also teaches history, math, and speech. Richard Hannula, his wife, and their five children reside in University Place, Washington.
He is the author of Our Northwest Heritage: A History of the Pacific Northwest from a Christian Perspective and Trial and Triumph: Stories from Church History.
He serves as principal of Covenant High School (in Tacoma, WA) and also teaches history, math, and speech. Richard Hannula, his wife, and their five children reside in University Place, Washington.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 102 reviews
July 19, 2024
Thanks Cannon Press, for providing such a great textbook to teach my students about bias in history books. We compared chapter eight (Pope Gregory I takes the gospel to the Anglo-Saxons) to chapter 38 (John Paton takes the gospel to the Tanna people of the South Pacific Islands).
The Anglo-Saxons are described as "fair-skinned, and light-haired with handsome features", bright-faced", with "graceful features", and "angelic faces". The Tannese do not fare so well. They are described as "aggressive, war loving", in a "dark cloud", and "the greatest thrill of their life was killing and eating enemies".
We used a highlighter to compare the adjectives and adverbs, which helped us get a pretty clear sense of the author's bias.
The book, despite being about "church history" only features Christians who are white and from the US or Europe, with the exception on of one chapter about "Chinese Christians" during the boxer rebellion. It's the only chapter that doesn't have a specific name in the chapter title.
Worth a read if you want brief, one dimensional stories of well-known and popular people in church history. Beware strong pro-western bias.
The Anglo-Saxons are described as "fair-skinned, and light-haired with handsome features", bright-faced", with "graceful features", and "angelic faces". The Tannese do not fare so well. They are described as "aggressive, war loving", in a "dark cloud", and "the greatest thrill of their life was killing and eating enemies".
We used a highlighter to compare the adjectives and adverbs, which helped us get a pretty clear sense of the author's bias.
The book, despite being about "church history" only features Christians who are white and from the US or Europe, with the exception on of one chapter about "Chinese Christians" during the boxer rebellion. It's the only chapter that doesn't have a specific name in the chapter title.
Worth a read if you want brief, one dimensional stories of well-known and popular people in church history. Beware strong pro-western bias.
April 27, 2024
Grayson and I finished this today. We have been reading it for five years. He couldn’t wait to read the C. S. Lewis chapter so we just went ahead and finished it early. He was connecting and beyond excited about all of Lewis� early life with what he later put into Narnia. It actually chocked me up a bit to see him so excited.
This is just a wonderful resource for parents to teach your kids about church history and it made me pray differently about the church in the past, by spontaneously praying for those that have gone before and the church of the world, and I cried more times than I could count through the last five years reading about those that took a big stand with their love for Christ. Grayson and Rhett have asked at times to not read anymore and would cry too but have learned this is apart of our spiritual heritage. They still at times get very outraged and defensive of these “friends� we have met along the way. Just a fabulously written book.
Would recommend it to any Christian to read. It’s important history. It has also grown my TBR list quite a bit.
This is just a wonderful resource for parents to teach your kids about church history and it made me pray differently about the church in the past, by spontaneously praying for those that have gone before and the church of the world, and I cried more times than I could count through the last five years reading about those that took a big stand with their love for Christ. Grayson and Rhett have asked at times to not read anymore and would cry too but have learned this is apart of our spiritual heritage. They still at times get very outraged and defensive of these “friends� we have met along the way. Just a fabulously written book.
Would recommend it to any Christian to read. It’s important history. It has also grown my TBR list quite a bit.
October 19, 2018
In one volume, Hannula provides 46 biographies, arranged in chronological order and separated out by time period sections, that average 6 pages in length. As is typical of an overview work, some of the writing is better than others. However, this book is great for young students with short attention spans and high energy (yes, I mean boys!), for Dad's who want a glimpse into what you are doing in homeschool, and even for families to read aloud and discuss. A gem that we will be returning to often.
----
Also, if you are looking for church history resources generally, I thought you'd be interested in the following summary...
For younger readers, and to engage the student visually, I cannot recommend Simonetta Carr's series "Christian Biographies for Young Readers" highly enough. These coffee book feel long picture book form biographies combine outstanding visual layout with simple, straightforward text that has engaged students in our home from elementary all the way to grandpa! A summary of lives lived in honor to the Savior that your family will want to return to time and again. But, as individuals are the subject of each book and the series is still growing, coverage of the topic is limited.
Enter Trial and Trumph by Richard Hannula. In one volume, Hannula provides 46 biographies that average 6 pages in length.
For a completely different medium, I cannot recommend the Torchlighter DVDs enough. Each one contains an animated feature, documentary and worksheets!
----
Also, if you are looking for church history resources generally, I thought you'd be interested in the following summary...
For younger readers, and to engage the student visually, I cannot recommend Simonetta Carr's series "Christian Biographies for Young Readers" highly enough. These coffee book feel long picture book form biographies combine outstanding visual layout with simple, straightforward text that has engaged students in our home from elementary all the way to grandpa! A summary of lives lived in honor to the Savior that your family will want to return to time and again. But, as individuals are the subject of each book and the series is still growing, coverage of the topic is limited.
Enter Trial and Trumph by Richard Hannula. In one volume, Hannula provides 46 biographies that average 6 pages in length.
For a completely different medium, I cannot recommend the Torchlighter DVDs enough. Each one contains an animated feature, documentary and worksheets!
November 5, 2024
We read this over three years in our homeschool Bible time for church history--scheduled with MFW. I have not yet seen a better collection of short biographies of church heroes, covering such a range of well-known as well as little-known Christian heroes as this one. We did try to read aloud the set by the Withrows, which had been recommended by Tapestry of Grace (we have books 2-5 Monks and Mystics, etc.), but we didn't get far. I still feel I need to give it another shot, but it was actually boring to us though written in a story format. This book by Hannula published by Canon Press, which is connected to Doug Wilson (Reformed), is alive. The writing style is vivid. Be careful with young children though: there was a section in the Waldensians, and a few other stories, that were simply heartbreaking, especially for little ones. I was moved to tears several times in this book, and it motivated me to research on Elizabeth of Hungary more. I'd never heard of her. I'm glad he included Machen, Kuyper, and C.S. Lewis and such moderns in there as well.
December 18, 2020
I give it 3 1/2 stars. This book has been a great blessing to me to help my perspective in this trying pandemic time. Reading about other believers and their great trials has helped me see how small my struggles are and how protected the church is in this time (ie we are not being persecuted in the west). Not only that, but it challenged me in my faith in a good way--would I/could I stand up for my Jesus like my forerunners?
But I was dearly sad over the lack of heroines in the book. There are very few and often, their stories were cut much shorter than the men. Sadly, I wouldn't recommend this book. As a mother to three daughters, I would have liked to hear more about how Sarah Edwards loved her husband through his trials, or about any other women missionaries, so that I could in turn read it aloud to my girls and inspire them to stand firm in Christ. I would ask for a reprint with a woman's edit.
But I was dearly sad over the lack of heroines in the book. There are very few and often, their stories were cut much shorter than the men. Sadly, I wouldn't recommend this book. As a mother to three daughters, I would have liked to hear more about how Sarah Edwards loved her husband through his trials, or about any other women missionaries, so that I could in turn read it aloud to my girls and inspire them to stand firm in Christ. I would ask for a reprint with a woman's edit.
April 7, 2021
Reading for CC2. Not reading the book from cover to cover but rather reading the chapters that correlate to the history sentence for that week. Already read about Charlemagne and loved that chapter!!! Looking forward to reading this book each week as part of our curriculum..krb 9/7/16
Read about the Reformation for CC2 wk7..krb 10/31/16
No more readings in this book follow CC for this year. Setting this gem aside for now to catch up on other books we are reading. Definitely coming back to this, it is a great book..krb 1/23/17
Read about the Reformation for CC2 wk7..krb 10/31/16
No more readings in this book follow CC for this year. Setting this gem aside for now to catch up on other books we are reading. Definitely coming back to this, it is a great book..krb 1/23/17
April 30, 2025
We have been reading this book for three years as a part of our morning basket, following our devotionals. I definitely appreciate hearing more about some prominent figures in Christian history and learning about new ones, there is definitely a biased lean in this text. If you can be open to discussion about unequal representation of women and people of color in Christian history, and if you can be ready to have discussion about the power of words (how some are described vs. others), then this is a good starter church history book. I wouldn't recommend this to someone new to their faith or who is not discerning of the influence/perspective it is written in.
February 10, 2024
This has been a rich and inspiring Lord's Day family read aloud. The narratives are well-crafted and Christ-centered.
January 28, 2023
Really well done short biographies on important figures in church history. He discusses the good and the bad from these figures and puts them in their historical context. We skipped over a few of the graphic portions about some of the persecution and torture with the age of our kids, so would definitely recommend reading out loud and would preview some chapters.
April 17, 2023
A collection of short biographies of church fathers and heroes of the faith, Trial and Triumph has been part of our Morning Time since September. As we've slowly worked our way through each biography, the girls have gotten a broader picture of the history of the church. The book has inspired many great discussions. It's not an easy read by any means (many of the people featured were martyred), but absolutely a worthwhile one.
August 9, 2024
My husband read these chapters to us at lunches for what has probably been over a year now. I appreciated gaining further knowledge and more anecdotes about heroes of the faith and helping my kids gain familiarity with some of our great cloud of witnesses. There was a slant toward resistance and persecution, with a definite tendency toward Christians from history who mirror (or inform) Canon Press's beliefs about how Christians should interact with politics. The prose style was uninspiring; many of the stories were.
September 29, 2016
I wanted to find a book that would introduce martyrdom to my 10 year old daughter. It was a real eye opener for her. For the first time she heard how Christians have suffered for their faith. This launched us into many rich discussions about our love for Christ and what we can do today to serve Him. An excellent book.
March 27, 2025
Hannula's approachable tone and short chapters make this a very accessible introduction to many important martyrs and figures from Christian Church history. I appreciate his inclusion of both Roman Catholic and Protestant heroes of the faith, even though it's clear he writes from a Protestant perspective.
My main critique would be the glaring omission of stories of female martyrs and missionaries. By my count, only 9 out of 46 chapters/stories center on women; 2 of these women's stories are lumped into 1 chapter, and 1 of these women (Monica) is lumped into a chapter with her son, St. Augustine of Hippo. This lack of representation of faithful women from Church history is both disappointing and unsurprising, given the Church's long history of platforming and promoting men (especially white ones) while ignoring, silencing, and marginalizing women in the name of patriarchy. I'd love to see a book like this written with a balanced emphasis on men and women heroes of our faith.
My main critique would be the glaring omission of stories of female martyrs and missionaries. By my count, only 9 out of 46 chapters/stories center on women; 2 of these women's stories are lumped into 1 chapter, and 1 of these women (Monica) is lumped into a chapter with her son, St. Augustine of Hippo. This lack of representation of faithful women from Church history is both disappointing and unsurprising, given the Church's long history of platforming and promoting men (especially white ones) while ignoring, silencing, and marginalizing women in the name of patriarchy. I'd love to see a book like this written with a balanced emphasis on men and women heroes of our faith.
January 24, 2024
This book contains many inspiring and sobering tales of heroes of the faith. I wish I had known many of these earlier in life and am grateful to be able to present them to my children. It gives a wonderful picture of faithfulness and dedication to our Lord no matter what the circumstances as well as introduces much of Church History.
December 16, 2022
Hard to know if his stories are historically accurate or not. It was entertaining, though. I don't recommend books from this publisher, Canon Press. As much as this rips my heart out of my chest to say this, it's connected with a heretical movement.
May 28, 2017
What a great book. We learned lots. Was the backbone of our morning time this school year.
February 9, 2022
AO book. This is the kind of material that our Christian children need to read. This helps them see that following Christ can be costly but worth the price. The heroes in this book give me hope for the future.
May 10, 2024
Took us longer than I want to admit, but we finished! Such a good account of church history and what a faith builder!!!!!❤️
May 18, 2024
This is an excellent collection of short Christian biographies. It is packed full of memorable, inspiring quotes.
September 18, 2024
A fabulous resource for getting a high level view of Church History. Some of the content is hard to read because history isn't tame. It includes bite size chapters in chronological order of many prominent people some that I am interested in learning more about.
August 27, 2022
A really good overview of some martyrs of our Christian faith.
February 13, 2015
I have enjoyed reading the many snippets of lives of Christians past who gave their lives, even unto death in many cases, in this well written book about church history. This is geared toward children so they may have an introduction to church history from a young age. While there are scenes depicting the way martyrs died, and were tortured, it is not too graphic, and certainly no more than scripture depicts.
The stories are short enough for one per sitting even for a young child. Descriptive enough for older children to enjoy, yet simple enough for younger ones to grasp what's going on.
The sections are broken up as follows: Early Church, Middle Ages, Reformation, Post-Reformation, Modern Missions, and Recent Times.
There were many I was familiar with, and new names and histories I was not acquainted with. This is such an excellent resource. I have used it the last few months to accompany morning bible reading with my son. I borrowed this from our church library but will purchase my own copy to continue to read to all our children as the Lord blesses us. I believe this is a must have for every Christian family to see God's work in history and the faithful men and women He has raised up in various times past.
The stories are short enough for one per sitting even for a young child. Descriptive enough for older children to enjoy, yet simple enough for younger ones to grasp what's going on.
The sections are broken up as follows: Early Church, Middle Ages, Reformation, Post-Reformation, Modern Missions, and Recent Times.
There were many I was familiar with, and new names and histories I was not acquainted with. This is such an excellent resource. I have used it the last few months to accompany morning bible reading with my son. I borrowed this from our church library but will purchase my own copy to continue to read to all our children as the Lord blesses us. I believe this is a must have for every Christian family to see God's work in history and the faithful men and women He has raised up in various times past.
October 31, 2017
Read Aloud to kids for church history:
Ellie (age 6): I liked it
Connor (age 7): It was not as good as some books, but it was better than Richard III
Emalee (age 10): It was okay. I recommend it to those facing troubled times
Bennett (age 12): It was okay. 😊. My favorite story was the C.S Lewis one, especially where they dug the hole.
My review: This book is a treasure trove of short biographies of Christians. I think we don’t learn as much church history as we should, and this is a good way to begin rectifying that. This book does have a strong anti-catholic bias, so if you are a Catholic, you’ll want to skip this one
Ellie (age 6): I liked it
Connor (age 7): It was not as good as some books, but it was better than Richard III
Emalee (age 10): It was okay. I recommend it to those facing troubled times
Bennett (age 12): It was okay. 😊. My favorite story was the C.S Lewis one, especially where they dug the hole.
My review: This book is a treasure trove of short biographies of Christians. I think we don’t learn as much church history as we should, and this is a good way to begin rectifying that. This book does have a strong anti-catholic bias, so if you are a Catholic, you’ll want to skip this one
February 18, 2011
A good introduction to some major and minor characters throughout church history. Excellent for read aloud to children.
December 2, 2019
I'll never get tired of stories of God's faithfulness to His saints and their faithfulness to Him.
Can we please find a way to get Daniel Newman to read more Canon Press books?
Can we please find a way to get Daniel Newman to read more Canon Press books?
October 15, 2022
Used for family worship. Inspiring and understandable for all.
May 2, 2023
I have used this book several years ago in homeschool, as well as for 2 middle school church history classes I have taught. It gives quick snapshots of the lives of several people throughout church history, how some of them came to believe in Jesus Christ, and how they had an impact on Christendom.
What I like about it is that it features both men and women from various different backgrounds, of different ages, with different types of influences, showing that God can use anyone, and sometimes in surprising ways. Some names are very well-known, others I had never heard about previously. While none of the people featured were perfect in all they did or how they lived out their faith in Christ (NO ONE IS!), and some of those flaws were not mentioned, one can learn from and be inspired by their stories.
I also like that each chapter is only about 5 pages long, which makes it manageable for younger readers, and keeps the focus on the highlights of why the person is featured.
I would highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to learn more about church history. It is a good one to use for upper elementary through high school, but I would suggest reading it alongside younger or sensitive children, and discuss it with them, as there are many situations described that are sad and potentially scary as they include descriptions of people being tortured or killed for their faith (not very graphic).
What I like about it is that it features both men and women from various different backgrounds, of different ages, with different types of influences, showing that God can use anyone, and sometimes in surprising ways. Some names are very well-known, others I had never heard about previously. While none of the people featured were perfect in all they did or how they lived out their faith in Christ (NO ONE IS!), and some of those flaws were not mentioned, one can learn from and be inspired by their stories.
I also like that each chapter is only about 5 pages long, which makes it manageable for younger readers, and keeps the focus on the highlights of why the person is featured.
I would highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to learn more about church history. It is a good one to use for upper elementary through high school, but I would suggest reading it alongside younger or sensitive children, and discuss it with them, as there are many situations described that are sad and potentially scary as they include descriptions of people being tortured or killed for their faith (not very graphic).
October 21, 2024
I read this to see if I wanted to incorporate it into my kids' homeschool. I definitely do. It has 46 short biographies of Christian Heroes (Protestant focus) and it does a great job of making it accessible for children.
I love that it is broken up by time period.
I definitely recommend pre reading before your children. There were a couple of biographies I opted to tab to skip for my kids as well as a couple of paragraphs in some bios. They were more explicit in how the people were tortured for their faith than I want a 6 year old hearing about. I plan to use this for grades 1-5 so later on I'm ok with it for a 5th grader, but I did mark where I should be aware.
If you are LDS/Mormon, this is a great Christian history precursor to the Saints books to fill in gaps between Christ's death and Joseph Smith.
I love that it is broken up by time period.
I definitely recommend pre reading before your children. There were a couple of biographies I opted to tab to skip for my kids as well as a couple of paragraphs in some bios. They were more explicit in how the people were tortured for their faith than I want a 6 year old hearing about. I plan to use this for grades 1-5 so later on I'm ok with it for a 5th grader, but I did mark where I should be aware.
If you are LDS/Mormon, this is a great Christian history precursor to the Saints books to fill in gaps between Christ's death and Joseph Smith.
September 1, 2019
This book is aimed at a younger audience, and there are plenty of fascinating stories from the 46 short biographies from church history. However, the author has a penchant for picking the most sensational and best parts from each character, although there are some limited exceptions. The women tend to be "beautiful" or "fair," and the men often represent the greatest of masculine aspects. Some of the legendary stories or quotations from figures such as Luther or Constantine are presented as factual without caveat. The author states that the "stories were not written to exalt great Christian men and women," yet it is somewhat difficult to think otherwise after reading through. This isn't a condemnation of the book, just a calculated caution.
September 27, 2021
This book contains many brief bios on many figures from every age of church history to the present. Of the early figures, I really enjoyed the stories of Anselm, Elizabeth of Hungary, and Francis of Assisi. Each one of them I wished were longer and more in-depth, deserving a whole book of their own. This book is handy as an encyclopedia, providing a quick overview of various saints. It could have been even better as a series of books going in detail on each saint. If you want a brief synopsis of different saints, this is worth the read. If you are looking for in-depth information on one in particular there are many other resources that are much better.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 102 reviews
Can't find what you're looking for?
Get help and learn more about the design.