Barry's love for the history of the Restoration Movement began while studying under Dr. Earl West at Harding Graduate School of Religion. Being a full-time minister, He found it difficult to travel to distant libraries to satisfy his research curiosity.  When he discovered searchable .pdf files and how to scan documents, he began to scan Restoration journals as he could find them for use in his personal study for sermons and Bible classes.  His first major project was digitally preserving the entire Firm Foundation (1884-2010). During his travels, Barry discovered that much of the FF was only preserved in microfilm, which was inaccessible and expensive to personally visit libraries where it was housed.  He did, however, spend the time and expenses necessary to preserve the material and received permission from the owner of the copyright to publish the Firm Foundation in .pdf.  During this process, Barry found that our oldest journals and even the microfilm copies of them are degrading and at risk of being lost to posterity. He made it his goal to preserve all he possibly could. 

​

Since then, this digital library has grown by terabytes of high resolution scans of primary source material from the Restoration Movement all around the world. It is calling out to be accessed by all students of the Restoration Movement.

​

Barry's son John fell in love with the characters and convictions of the Restoration Movement while at Freed-Hardeman University. After moving to New Zealand to do mission work, John was likely the first to make full use of the digital library in his research and writing of Restoration Movement history. Using the available materials, John is writing his doctoral thesis on the Associated Churches of Christ in New Zealand and has contributed significantly to the library with terabytes of material from the British, Australian, and New Zealand Restoration Movements.

 

We use Dropbox to maintain this library and it is a marvelous resource.  Not only does it prevent digital degradation, it also provides a platform for sharing files with others. We have worked with the libraries of Freed-Hardeman, Harding School of Theology, Lubbock Christian, Lipscomb, Abilene Christian, Annesbrook Leadership College, and others to preserve this history.

​

While others emphasise a monastic model of keeping the physical documents preserved and protected in libraries hundreds of miles away from where you are, we believe in the teachings of the Restoration Movement and want them to be accessible to anyone willing to study them.

​

It is our prayer that you find valuable use for these files and continue to make them available to the students of the Restoration Movement.

​