10/29/2026
Rev. Kate here. This weekend contains a trio of holy days: All Hallow's Eve (Oct. 31), All Saints Day (Nov. 1), and All Souls Day (Nov. 2) - yesterday's mid-week message explored this season. But in our Protestant tradition, we have another special day this weekend - October 31 is Reformation Day, usually marked on the Sunday before October 31 (Reformation Sunday) in churches that mark this day. (When I was the musician at a Lutheran Church, on the last Sunday in October I used to jokingly wish people Happy Martin Luther Day, because that was very much the focus of worship that day.)
Martin Luther was one of a number of faithful Christians in the 1500s who wanted to make the church better. They never set out to start new denominations (for the most part), but rather wanted to reform the church that they were a part of - bring about change from within. Because churches are notoriously resistant to change, their attempts at reform usually ended up with them being kicked out of the church, along with their followers, and because they had a deep faith they continued to worship together, eventually becoming new denominations.
(Our label, Protestant, comes from the word "protest" - they were protesting the places where they saw the church doing wrong. You could say that protesting oppression and corruption is part of our spiritual DNA!)
Martin Luther (whose followers eventually formed the Lutheran church), on the eve of All Saints Day (a day when he knew that the church would be full), nailed 95 statements, or theses, to the door of the cathedral in Wittenberg, Germany. This is often considered to be the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, which is why Reformation Sunday happens at this time of year.
But reformation was springing up all over the place in that time period. Another famous reformer was John Calvin in France. One of John Calvin's followers was John Knox who brought the reformation movement back to Scotland which became the Presbyterian Church, one of the founding denominations of the United Church of Canada.
Over in England, King Henry VIII's motivations were a bit different, but he ended up breaking the English church away from the Roman Catholic church, forming what we know today as the Anglican Church. A couple of centuries later, John Wesley was an Anglican priest who led a revival movement in the Anglican church. He (along with a couple of others) formed a method for practicing their faith in a way that would lead to a growth in holiness - a way of practicing their faith that would eventually be called Methodism, one of the founding denominations of the United Church of Canada.
The third founding denomination of the United Church of Canada was the Congregationalist church - this is another form of Calvinism (ie first cousins to the Presbyterian church) that was brought to the United States by the Puritans. Congregationalist churches are called this, because the local congregation has autonomy over their own practices.
Did you know that all three of the congregations that make up Two Rivers Pastoral Charge - Summerville United Church, Long Reach United Church, and Westfield United Church - were Methodist churches in 1925 at the time that the United Church of Canada came in to being?
One of the threads of the Protestant Reformation that we still see in the church today is the idea that we are "Reformed, and always reforming." Not only do we have roots in these historical reformation movements; but we always need to keep ourselves open to the potential for further reformation. If one of our practices isn't working or is causing harm, we are able to change it. (This is true at the level of the local church, as well as having process in place to change our denominational policies.) Think of how many changes you've seen in the church since you were a child, most of them very positive changes!
So Happy Almost-Reformation-Day to you!
Image: In 2017, Playmobil released a Martin Luther figurine that was available in Germany only, commemorating 500 years since he nailed his theses to the door of the cathedral in Wittenberg. This was apparently the best-selling limited-time figurine that Playmobil has ever released! Little Martin Luther is holding his pen, as well as a copy of his German translation of the bible.
