The son of Michael Kirch,[2] a shoemaker in Guben, initially he worked as a schoolmaster in Langgrün and Neundorf near Lobenstein.

He introduced three new constellations, the "Globus cruciger" ("Reichsapfel"), the "Electoral Sword" ("Kurfürstliches Schwert") and the Sceptre of Brandenburg, which however were not recognized and adopted by the International Astronomical Union (IAU).

[4] For a long period, he was unable to find employment, so he had to earn his living through the publication of Almanacs/ Calendars.

As examples could be cited Christian-, Jewish- und Turkish-Almanac, the Gipsy-Almanac the Sibylla Ptolemaein, a Gipsywoman from Alexandria in Egypten, the Astronomischen Wunder-Kalender, the Wahrhaftigen Himmels-Boten, the Gespenster- und Haushaltungs-Kalender by Johann Friedrich von Rosenfeld / Der Astronomiae Ergebener and from 1700 the various Academy Almanacs as "Astronomer Royal" in Berlin.

It is only recently that the importance of the Kirch's Almanacs has been recognized for the distribution of ideas of the Enlightenment and Pietism to the wider population.

Further aspects are the transmission of new ideas to ordinary people in conjunction with a growing distancing from astrological superstition and criticisms of orthodox beliefs.

The planned society should also serve to coordinate the observing of astronomical events such as eclipses and transits of planets.

Then in 1700 he was appointed the first astronomer of the Royal Society of Sciences ("Kurfürstlich-Brandenburgische Societät der Wissenschaften") in Berlin on 10 May by Prince-elector Friedrich III.

When Prussia incorporated the new province of Silesia in the 1740s, a further almanac was needed to be drawn up for the Catholics, and for that issue the academy employed his daughter Christine Kirch (1696–1782).

Kirch also published his calendar, Philosophical Transactions, an Acta Eruditorum and Miscellanea Berolinensia.