Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Reformation Day Faire October 31, 2007

We went all out celebrating the Grace of God at our Reformation Day Faire this year. It was a lot of work but I do love to throw myself into a big creative project, and it was great to watch the kids having so much fun! They played games related to the life of Martin Luther and earned coins to trade for candy at the marketplace.
Some of us dressed up in medieval costumes, but we had some fairies and spider(men?) too. Acadia was an archer, and Lily was a princess. Unfortunately I erased the pictures I took of my girls in their costumes. Arggh! Sometimes our memories have to come from something other than pictures, right?

Celebrating Reformation Day is so much different than trying to ignore Halloween, or having a "harvest party" instead. We are not saying "Yeah, everyone else is doing something fun tonight, but were not doing anything because it would be evil". Instead we are telling our children "We have something important to celebrate tonight, and it's different from what the world is celebrating. The Grace of God is so important that people gave their lives to make sure that you could know and understand it."
The Bible and Jewish culture are full of feasts and celebrations and the Lord wants to celebrate with us! I think it is no coincidence that Reformation Day has been hidden behind Halloween for so long. October 31st was the day that Luther posted the 95 theses on the Wittenberg door. The ring of that hammer has echoed through history as the reformation was born. But as Christians we tend to focus too much on the evil we want to avoid, and not enough on the fullness of all that we have in Christ. "The just shall live by FAITH" was the simple truth that changed Luther's life and then the whole world. And it's a very good reason to PARTY! Whoohoo!






The little bumble bee was fascinated with the "fire".



























No, it's not Snow White's wicked stepmother. She doesn't have that evil white complexion. It's a medieval queen of course!


















This was the guy you were supposed to avoid. John Tetzel. He went around selling "indulgences" which were pieces of paper that said your sins were forgiven. Yep, you could pay your hard earned coins to BUY God's forgiveness. Sound kind of twisted to you? Good! Martin Luther thought so too and this was one of the things he spoke against in his 95 theses. Of course you can't BUY God's forgiveness, but many people in Luther's time did. And I'm sorry to say that many of our kids fell for it too! We had to start warning them not to buy anything from that man with the papers! ( I drilled my own kids at home later, "No Mommy, we didn't buy any!")

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Reminds of my Rochester Cristian School Grammar School [Grades k-8] where we celebrated Reformation Day every year and I well knew about Martin Luther, etc. :). I don't remember anything quite as elaborate as your Faire, tho.

Anonymous said...

i am a dcm at a church and we are hosting our first reformation faire. if you can help me by sending me your ideas, plans, lists, whatever!! i would appreciate it sooooo much!

Alder Stream said...

c_byrd
You don't have an email on your profile, so I can't email you, but I got all my ideas from the Reformation Day materials from Doorposts publishing. They sell a whole notebook of ideas for different ways to celebrate reformation day. I'd recommend you check them out at http://www.doorposts.net/