Meanwhile, on the other side of the pond…

As I write, it's a few minutes after 4 AM on Friday morning, but insomnia isn't my issue. I'm in Germany at the moment, where it's just after noon. We're traveling by bus from Wittenberg to Erfurt, both cities being hot spots in the early days of the Protestant Reformation.

Corrine and I are with six other pastor couples from Alberta, plus two Ambrose University/College professors, and we're nearing the halfway point of a church history tour in Central Europe. The last two nights we stayed in central Wittenberg, just a few meters from the front door of All Saints Church (Castle Church) where Martin Luther posted his famous '95 Theses' on October 31, 1517.

Wittenberg is still a fairly small town - about 45,000 people. In Luther's day, it was a small walled city, far from the power brokers in Rome. But when Luther challenged abuses in the church and the authority of the papacy, it set a motion firestorm of change that would profoundly shape the impact of Christianity for generations. We trace some of our heritage back to Luther and his contemporaries who removed walls between clergy and laity and gave Bibles to individual believers in native languages.

But Luther's greatest impact may be his dogged insistence that the Scriptures teach salvation by faith alone (Romans 3:20-31). This weekend at church we're having a party to celebrate this very idea. We're going to celebrate the goodness and grace of God, and we're going to cheer on a few friends who are declaring salvation by faith through their baptisms.

I'm disappointed to not be there, but we'll be watching online from somewhere in Germany. If you're in town, don't miss this celebration. Weekends like this remind us all why we do this thing called 'church.'

Happy Friday everyone!
Greg