Happy Trick-or-Treat! Don’t forget that we will be out in front of FPCH on the corner with goodie bags for the kids if you want to come and help or will be in the area. 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. Happy Spooking!
This weekend we are getting to celebrate a couple of major holidays on their actual day. For both Halloween and Reformation Sunday should officially be marked on October 31st. Thanks to classic movies most of us know at least the popular myths surrounding All Hallows Eve. However, the history of the “high holy day” of the Protestant Church Year – that’s extremely tongue-in-cheek since the reformers were very against high holy days – is far more elusive.
On October 31st, 1517, Martin Luther mailed his ninety-five theses into the Holy Roman Catholic Church. Although legend holds that he nailed them to the door of Wittenberg Cathedral, Luther’s actions that day were one of the major watershed moments that fueled the revolution that changed the Christian world as we know it. He was not the first, but he was certainly not the last.
A generation later, a frenchman on the run from King Francis I was given leave to transform the city of Geneva into a new way of life. Ensuring that Communion was available four Sundays out of every month at the four different churches and creating an early form of apprenticeship-welfare program so that all members of the city would find flourishing, John Calvin then spent decades perfecting his theological treatise, The Institutes.
And in the generations upon generations since, we continue to reform the church. One of the key phrases we have inherited from our forebears is ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda, which means “the church Reformed, always reforming.” Christ is not done yet. God’s work among us is not finished. The Reformation that began five hundred years ago is still alive and well when we live into it and feel God’s Spirit breathe new life into us.
So come one, come all to worship this Sunday as we celebrate God’s life alive among us. Not only throughout history, but here and now. And even remembering that its all just a bunch of hocus pocus 😉
Blessings, Pastor Janie
First Welcoming All 