by Lilly Lewin
This is a week on the calendar is all about remembering.
Reformation Day on October 31st. This year marks 500 years since Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on the Door at Wittenberg
All Saints Day on November 1st. We are invited to remember the saints of the church and those who have died in the past year and years gone by.
Day of the Dead November 2nd (November 1-3 depending upon where you live) Celebrating and remembering those who have died, both family and friends.
What things help you remember?
Writing down a list.
Making notes in your phone. Maybe even setting an alarm on the phone or texting yourself so you won’t forget.
I need touchable, tangible reminders, like candles and cardinals and days on the calendar. I need smooth stones like in Joshua 4 to remind me that God has, and is doing big things in my life. Jesus uses all of these things to help me remember his love and care for me.
As I am writing this post, a cardinal is sitting in the tree outside my window. Cardinals have always been my symbol of hope. When I am uncertain, or having a bad day or a bad season, God has used this red bird as a reminder to me of his love and as a visual symbol of hope. I have neglected my bird feeder lately because of my feud with the squirrels so I haven’t seen much of my cardinals. So today I am grateful for this tangible reminder that God is with me and knows my needs.
I need people too! I need people to remind me that God is at work and that I am loved. My husband Rob is good at reminding me of this. And I have some good friends who help me see more clearly and ask me good questions. We need people to help us remember and to help us cut through the clouds and fog when we get too busy to see things clearly or when life gets too crazy. We need friends to help us remember God’s love.
Often, I need to take time to look back at my calendar, and my photos in my phone to remember what has been going on. Because I take a lot of photos, I can use these as visual reminders of all that has happened in the last few months and use this a prayer of reflection, thanking Jesus for the people and places that he has used to bring joy in my life and also to remind me that I might be doing way too much! And it might be time to slow down!
What things help you remember?
What things remind you of what God is doing in your life?
Sometimes we need touchable, tangible reminders in our life that God is at work and that we are still loved.
What things does Jesus use in your life to help you remember his care and love?
Take some time to consider this. And if you haven’t ever thought about a tangible symbol of God’s love for you, like a Cardinal, then be willing and be open and ask God to show you. Take time to notice this week what God uses to remind you of God’s love.
Who are the Saints in your life you’d like to remember?
Who are the people in your life that have impacted you? Who are the people you’d like to remember?
Living or dead. And maybe you didn’t meet them or know them personally, but through your reading or through a podcast, you’ve come to appreciate them and they have encouraged you on your journey of faith. Eugene Peterson would be one on my list, and CS Lewis and Brene Brown just to name a couple of writers who have impacted my life.
Make a list of these people.
- If the person is still living, write, text or call them and thank them for impacting you.
- Spend some time praying for that person.
- Find a quote or a picture of them and sit with this and allow God to remind you of how they have impacted your life.
Story telling.
Talk about and remember impactful people with a friend or around your table with friends and family. Take time to tell why this person has impacted you or why he or she is important in your life.
Take time to remember family members that impacted your life and tell these stories to others. I love sharing stories of my grandparents with my kids.
Stories help us remember and can remind us of what God is doing and has done in our lives.
Find out more about a saint or a person of faith.
Take time to investigate someone you’ve wanted to know more about and ancient saint or a current one. Someone like Mother Teresa, Dorothy Day, or St. Hilda.
Pick someone to learn more about during the month of November. You could do this as a family, or as a small group and have a story telling time at the end of the month. Let each person choose a “saint” or just choose one as a group. Share why this person is important to you or what you learned that you didn’t know before!
Prayer Station Idea:
Find a fish net and lay it out on a table. Ribbon or yarn(wool) in many colors. Cut lengths of ribbon and have small scissors for participants to use to cut more. Participants will pick a color that reminds them of a person who has helped them connect with God. And they will tie the ribbon on the fish net and pray for that person or thank God for that person. Then they will take another ribbon in a color that reminds them of someone they would like to impact with God’s love. And use this ribbon as a reminder to pray for that person. (based on Fisher’s of People, Matthew 4:19)
Who has helped you know God’s love? What person has helped grow and connect with Jesus?
PICK A COLOR of Ribbon that reminds you of that person and tie it on to the net. Pray for that person and thank God for them.
Who do you know who needs to be caught in the net of God’s love and go beyond their ordinary life into a life of abundance in Jesus?
Pick a color of ribbon that reminds you of that person and pray for that person. Take home a ribbon to remind you to continue to pray for that person.
It’s never too late to take time to remember. Take some time this week, this month to remember the people that have impacted you and helped you know God. Take time this week, this month to remember that good things God has done and is doing in your life and be thankful. Ask God to give you tangible reminders and Remember that you are loved.
FreerangeWorship
By Jenneth Graser —
I worship you holder of the earth.
By Shawn Braley–
The preacher screamed at us, “Do you want to burn in hell forever?” as he proceeded to holler and yell at the top of his lungs re-enacting what someone who would be burning in hell might sound like, I was scared. I was 13 and I was sitting in the back row with a couple of other Jr. High and High School kids. They weren’t phased. They stared at the back of the pew in front of them as if to communicate boredom. But I was frightened. What if that was me? How much does one have to believe to believe enough?
I’m now 30 and, honestly, I still wonder some times if I believe enough. As if that’s something that can even happen.
I look back at that moment in my life because I needed some sort of reformation. I needed a new way of seeing what it meant to believe in something. Is belief fueled by fear? I don’t think so. Fear is a liar that has never led me to anything worthwhile. Yet, I still choose it time and time again.
Around that same time that the preacher was yelling and hooting and hollering, I remember learning about the reformation. Martin Luther, sick of the man-made religious rituals of the Catholic Church at the time, took to doing something about it. He wasn’t content with some private faith that ignored the things he disagreed with and just went along with the status quo. He wanted something real. I remember being struck by his insistence on redemption being found by having faith and experiencing grace. I wasn’t experiencing grace. I had little faith.
I needed a reformation.
The ways in which I see the world as anything other than beautiful leads me to believe that I’m still falling into my old patterns of fear. I recently took a step away from doing full time ministry. I worked with friends, new and old, to start a new church in downtown Cincinnati. It was a labor of love that had rested on my heart for most of my adult life. I’m frightened. I didn’t leave with a plan. It was a stressful and painful experience. Is failure all that God has for me? I’ve wondered that and hungered for a reformation of spirit and resolve.
I know this is more of a personal reflection than it is a post about the Reformation of Reformation Day. But here’s where I’m headed: I’m never not needing to reform. Every single morning I have to wake up and nail the 95 theses of some old pattern, some lie I’m believing, some shame I’m clinging to, and let God call me out of those things and into reform.
There’s this old hymn that I heard once that had the refrain, “I will remember who I am.” It was repeated over and over. As I sang it, I realized not only does God call us to remember who we are in Him: His sons and daughters, but we’re also called to re-member ourselves. Whatever this world has done to us, we are re-membered, re-formed in Jesus. Whatever brokenness we see in ourselves, we are re-formed in Christ. And that is the reformation that changes the world.
When I reflect on that, I realize the walk with Christ isn’t as much about believing “enough” as if that could ever be possible, but instead, it is all about being reformed into the image of the invisible – something so seemingly outside of me and yet, part of me – and resting in that hope.
May today’s Reformation Day be a day of personal reflection and re-forming in ourselves. If each of us take part, we might actually see the world changed for the better.
Today is All Saints Day. Enjoy this great post by Kathie Hempel —
As a young pre-teen girl, I received a small, second-hand education in the traditional Saints of the Catholic Church. My best friend attended a Catholic school and I would often learn her catechism lessons with her. I had no idea who decided who was a saint and who wasn’t. The stories of these people; however, tugged at my heart.
I was enchanted, as were many of the girls our age, by Audrey Hepburn’s portrayal of a nun in The Nun’s Story and given the chance would have nominated her for sainthood for a variety of my own reasons, not the least of which was her ability to withstand the attraction of Peter Finch. I wanted to be her.
When I grew older, this passion for story only deepened. Biographies. I loved them. Still do. Don’t care if they are about historical or Biblical figures, people conquering challenges of any kind, alive or dead.
In the mix of those earliest readings, there were a smattering of Saints. I remember having visited a church with my friend, where there was a magnificent stained glass of St Teresa of Avila. It mesmerized me, and I sought out her biography.
Teresa of Avila who “tried as hard as I could to keep Jesus Christ present within me.” I grew up hearing stories of our modern saint, Mother Theresa, who roamed the streets of both Calcutta and America caring for those others would forget and establishing orders of like-minded people, who would give their lives to do the same. I loved reading of St Francis of Assisi prayerfully asking God to be made “an instrument of your peace.”
I remain fascinated by the lives, the examples, of the saints. It’s simple really. Although I was raised in and still attend a protestant church, my relationship with Saints, traditional and otherwise, has not changed. I am drawn to their stories. I believe we learn how best to live through other’s stories. Particularly those of individuals who found the courage to stand up for their convictions. Nobility and integrity seem to be words we don’t see in action a great deal anymore.
I want to emulate the best of humankind. I want to follow Jesus in such a way that others hearing my story will one day see that is what I tried to do. I want to be able to confidently say, as Paul did in 1 Corinthians 11:1: Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ. Too lofty a goal? Should it be?
While I admire the lives exhibited in the stories of past saints and every day saints, I hold none on a pedestal. I believe in the ability of each human being to be better. I believe in the awe-inspiring grace of a power so much bigger than I am, who takes my breath away as I look at the seasons change outside the window of the old chapel at our church.
Here families have prayed for husbands, sons and daughters, who have answered the call to fight for our country since WWI. They prayed for those called to their own mission fields, near and far. This chapel has witnessed prayers for those lost to addictions and those who are near death from catastrophic illness. Many stories have been recalled and shared in this small room. As the colorful autumn leaves turn to brown and blanket those buried in the country churchyard across the street, I feel very close to all the saints.
John Wesley’s journal entries for All Saints Day suggest it was “a festival I truly love” and in 1788 he wrote of always finding it a “comfortable day.” While Wesley cautioned against holding saints in too high regard he also wrote, “How superstitious are they who scruple giving God solemn thanks for the lives and deaths of his saints!” In this instance scruple means, “to be unwilling to do something because you think it is improper, morally wrong, etc.” (Merrium-Webster.com)
I believe in observing All Saints Day because I think it is an excellent opportunity to examine lives lived…theirs, ours… to see just how far we have come and how far we have yet to grow and develop into the best us we can be, at every stage of our lives. I pray for others and am happy when they pray for me, because isn’t that really what we want? I believe there is buried within the soul of man the need to be able to intercede for one another in some meaningful way.
For me this All Saints Day will be a day to remember all the stories that have touched my life whether held within the dog-eared pages of well-read books or through those lives who have intermingled with my own. While I may never be memorialized as a capital ‘S’ Saint, I can continually aspire to embolden my own small ‘s’ saintliness by remembering the words of II Corinthians 3:18:
But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.
By Steve Wickham —
TYRANNY is easy to see, just as much as the broom of advocacy. What we choose to see will grow before our eyes.
Dr Caroline Leaf says, “What we think influences every aspect of who we are and how we feel physically.” Truly, thinking creates destinations of being. Action in faith can challenge and renovate thought.
We come to an awareness of how justice and injustice affect us personally. We can cater for it and counter the negative forces that influence our thinking.
In a recent devotion I ran for eleven- and twelve-year-old primary school students, I commended them to the beatitude: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” (Matthew 5:9 NRSV) Ostensibly Christian, I asked them if they were children of God. “Yes, we are,” they replied. So, I said, does this verse tell us that if we’re children of God that we’re to be peacemakers? I went on to say, people call us children of God when they see us act as peacemakers. That’s the logic of this Jesus beatitude.
If God has called us to peacemaking, he has given us an assignment to see — to see a certain way — to not be bogged down in the refuse of life, but to look up, smile in faith, believe in hope, seek divine direction, recommit wholeheartedly, then move.
God has not simply granted us the option of being lights on a hill. The Lord has called us to watch from that post. From there, to project our light, from whom we are.
In our families, and within our friendship groups, not least with some we associate with, however, we occasionally find hatred stirred up in the lingual presentation of fear. It’s impossible to miss this on social media. It can seem we’re fighting a losing battle in our peacemaking efforts. We can quickly sink into dolour that produces a fighting mindset, and our peace-making becomes peace-breaking.
Let’s consider this word from ancient Isaiah:
“He has made My mouth like a sharp sword,
In the shadow of His hand He has kept Me hidden;
And He has made Me a sharpened arrow,
In His quiver He has hidden Me.”
— Isaiah 49:2 (Amplified)
We’re all full of unrealised potential, which fans the flame of hope within us, if we resist despair. We’re made for now, and yet a time to come. We’re arrows in a quiver, ready for the right time and situation to be pulled and used for the Lord. And yet the Lord has deployed, and is deploying, his arrows. The Kingdom has come and is coming.
God is building a people of power — but not a people powerful in and of themselves. Not a people who use or exploit power, but a people who trust ever so unswervingly in his power — which is peace that reconciles and restores.
Love drives this power and hate cannot stand before it. Love compels victory without fighting. Love has capaciousness and compassion, even for hate, and is destined to win it over to its side. True faith in Jesus, expressed as a hope in the power of love, is enchanting.
In the present, and certainly in and for the future, we’re being built as a people for peacemaking. To bring God’s light and release into dark and oppressive circumstances.
Pray hopefully today, no matter the darkness before the horizon. God is here. The world is unfolding as the Lord wills it.
God needs us peacemakers to take our place.
By Ana Lisa de Jong —
Sad
There is something immensely sad
resounding in the depths,
and carrying on the airwaves.
That is finding a response in us.
The groaning of the earth
is felt by the sensitive.
We don’t know what we are listening for,
but we hear it.
We don’t know what is moving us,
but we register it.
Other’s tears we brush from our own cheeks.
Other’s wounds run fresh with our blood.
We are intrinsically connected.
While the waves jolt us,
and the earth appears even to expel us,
as if we were superfluous,
we are still rocked in unison.
The tide carries us in one direction.
We make landfall on a common shoreline.
One person’s healing becomes another’s hope.
One person’s hope is sowed as a seed
to grow in the heart of the other
until love takes root, and
sprouts as the tree that heals the nations
and the broken earth.
Yes, there is something immensely sad
resounding in the depths,
and carrying on the airwaves.
There is an ache, a worry at the edges of our thoughts,
that we might recognise what it is we fear.
And yet name the shapes we see in the dark.
But for light, we might indeed be lost.
But hand in hand we carry a torch each,
that from our hands will never be knocked.
Not while your tears are brushed
from my wet cheeks,
and my heart healed by your love.
Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
October 2017
October 31st is not only Halloween, it is also Reformation Day, a day set aside to recognize, remember, and celebrate the Protestant Reformation. It especially remembers Martin Luther and the central role he played in the reform movement that split the western church of Rome.
That is the day in 1517 when Dr. Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. This year we celebrate the 500th anniversary of this momentous event. It was Luther’s act that caused the initial furor that resulted in the Reformation. Luther chose October 31 because it was the day before All Saints’ Day and he knew that on the following day the church would be packed with worshippers, many of them educated and literate.
Luther argued that salvation could not be obtained by purchasing indulgences, through works of charity, by making a pilgrimage, or by performing other acts of piety and devotion. He argued that salvation was an act of God, given by grace through our faith in Jesus Christ. God has already provided for our salvation by the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus; and salvation is ours to accept through faith, not to achieve through works. A second major theme of the Reformation is the priesthood of all believers, meaning that Christians do not need an intermediary between them and God. It was the right and duty of all Christians to enter into their own personal relationship with God, to read the Bible and worship in their own language, and to pray directly to God rather than through another’s efforts.
Let’s Celebrate
Why not use this occasion for a celebration of our Protestant heritage or if you are Catholic, of the transformation that is possible when we allow God to transform our views of life and faith?
Why not have a celebration at church where all get dressed up as characters from the Reformation. Children’s Ministry International has developed a small booklet, Heroes of the Reformation, which will give you some great ideas on who to think of as role models like John Calvin, John Knox and Martin Luther. If you can’t think (or don’t like) these 16th century role models, dress as a Bible character or another well known saint like St Francis or St Clare who challenged the status quo and brought radical transformation to the church.
In this article, Brad Winsted has some great suggestions of things to do to redeem October 31st as a celebration of Reformation Day. For example: consider transforming your fellowship hall or your living room into Wittenburg, Germany or Geneva. Spend time meditating on the great “solas” of the Reformation: by Scripture alone, by grace alone, by Christ alone, by faith alone, and to God be the glory alone. Have people explain them. Draw murals of Reformation events. Show a video of one of the reformers, like this one of Martin Luther.
Plan something fun to go along with it – Brad suggests some wonderful ideas like medieval line dancing (a lot like Scottish line dancing), medieval relay races (put the indulgences in the bottle), bobbing for apples, German cover dish dinner, acting out your character (don’t tell anyone who you are, but act it out — the ideas are limited only by time, imagination and background).
Let’s make October 31 a day of great remembrance (and educational opportunity) of our Reformed heritage.
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