worship guide
Reformation Sunday Worship Guide
Our Reformation Sunday Worship guide includes a variety of sermon and liturgical resources to commemorate the Protestant Reformation.
Reformation Sunday
Remembering the Reformation
Reformation Sunday is observed on October 31 or the Sunday preceding, marking the anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his 95 Theses to the door of All Saints' Church in Wittenberg, beginning the events that would culminate in the Protestant Reformation.
Ways to Observe Reformation Sunday
There are so many ways!
It can be an opportunity to celebrate the distinctiveness of your theological tradition, to connect your congregation with their roots in the Reformation and to those afterward who carried the torch up to the present. This will look different for every congregation and allows for a lot of creativity. Lutherans can remember Luther, Reformed Churches can remember Calvin, Anglicans Cramner, Methodists may chart the path from the Reformation to Wesley, and so forth.
It is a fantastic opportunity to connect with the theological fundamentals of the Reformation: scripture, faith, and grace. As familiar as these are to your congregation, recalling them to the place where theology meets their individual and corporate connection to God through Christ is as powerful and liberating now as it was 500 years ago.
Theological confessions played an important role in Protestant churches after the Reformation. Consider congregational readings of affirmations of faith from your denomination or historical Protestant confessions.
The legacy of the Reformation is bittersweet. Jesus wanted his disciples to be one, just as he and the Father are one. Since the Reformation, Protestants and Catholics have been divided. Not only do we not worship together, but we have persecuted each other and fought wars over our divisions. Further, theological controversies have divided Protestants into hundreds of further denominations. This is a good chance to remind your congregation that, for all the reasons the Protestant Reformation was good, this continuing division is not. Consider prayers of lament for our history and disunity.
TPW has assembled resources to inspire you as you prepare your sermons and services for Reformation Sunday, with links to resources by theme and a special contemporary liturgy from Lisa Degrenia and l
