Today, October 31, was the day, 507 years ago, that Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the church door. It's a day that changed religion and lead the way to the Protestant movement.
Today we taught our homeschool group about the Reformation. First, we watched a Torchlighters movie about Martin Luther.
The kids all received a "passport" when they arrived that told them a little about the reformation. It mentioned the 5 solas and some of the activities they would be doing. The five solas of the Reformation are:
- Sola Scriptura Our ultimate authority is God’s Word—Scripture. (Scripture Alone)
- Sola Fide We do nothing to be saved, except to have faith in Jesus. (Faith Alone)
- Solus Christus We trust only Jesus to save us; salvation doesn’t come through good works. (Christ Alone)
- Sola Gratia God saves us based entirely upon his grace, not because of anything we did, are doing, or will do in the future. (Grace Alone)
- Soli Deo Gloria We were made to glorify God. (The Glory of God Alone)
We then talked about a hymn that Martin Luther wrote called A Mighty Fortress is Our God.
“A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing! Our helper he amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing!” This song reminds us that God is our source of strength and protection in everything, even when we are weak. We never need to be afraid when we hide in him.
We then started with the activities. Each mom was in charge of one station and the kids rotated through the stations. I was in charge of the Three-Legged Race for Your Life! This was because Martin Luther was called an outlaw and had to flee for his life. His friends helped him and hid him away where he could continue his work.
It's funny to me how kids of all ages really like doing 3-legged races! Ha!
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We also had a station where they burned the Papal Bull that he had received from the Pope. Who doesn't love to catch a paper on fire?
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They also threw some Coins in the Coffer. This was something Luther disagreed with that the church did. It was collecting money for indulgences which were said to help the person who had died spend less time in Purgatory. When a coin was put in the coffer, you could hear it, just like you could hear coins tossed into the cans.
The last activity was Nailing the 95 Theses to the Door. We did this by blindfolding the kids and taping it to one of the doors. Ha! It was pretty funny to watch the super dizzy kids putting them on the door, but they had fun.
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They really enjoyed all of the activities. After it was over, we celebrated with a Diet of Worms. This really was when Luther was in a meeting in the town of Worms, but we enjoyed having some hotdogs, pretzels, and gummy worms.
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This was a fun way to celebrate the Reformation today with our friends! The kids all had a great time and I'm pretty sure everyone learned something today as well. Happy Reformation Day!
What a great way to help your children learn about such an important event in church history. Looks like a great time was had by all. I hope you live to experience them coming back one day, as adults, and letting you know what it meant to them!
It is hard to beat the old hymns and one of the greatest is Luther's remarkable hymn which you cite. We used to have a favorite record years ago of Steve Green signing that song a capella. Then, given he and his team's musical talent, they sang songs a capella as separate themes extracted from the song. If memory serves, they had written those songs themselves.
This reference to that song was brought to mind, by your post tonight, along with an excerpt of his famous words in it, "On earth is not his equal ..." as I will be meeting in the morning with some Mormon missionaries. They are accustomed to being turned away. I will be meeting them to share the Truth, as I grew up with them and, in a manner of speaking, believe I know them better than they know themselves, as they have been blinded by the god of this world - II Corinthians 4:4.
Claiming His promise to provide the words we need, when we need it, I rest in peace knowing He will meet these young men where they are.
God bless and keep you and your family!
Thanks so much for the message and encouragement! Yes, everyone had a great time and learned. We used to have a Reformation Celebration at our church before we moved away from Texas, so I took some ideas from them. I hope your time with the Mormon missionaries went well. There are usually a few roaming around our town and I've watched some videos about the missionaries. I didn't know they rotate to a new area so often until recently! God bless you!
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