We often need words of encouragement. Faced with disappointments or failures, it is helpful to have supporters urge us to keep trying and persevere. The phrase, “when one door closes, another opens,” comes to mind. Doors can represent new opportunities, ideas or transition from one place to another. Consider what it means to you to regard a door. Where are you? Where do you want to go? What is on the other side of a door that appeals to you? How can you get there?

The metaphorical door is a theme we find in literature and films, but the idea may have originated in Scripture. Jesus seemed to like to use similar expressions regarding doors. He used them to encourage us.

“Ask, and it will be given you, search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you (Matthew 7:7).”

“Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able (Luke 13:24).”

“I am the door. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come and go out and find pasture (John 10:9).”

We will highlight a particular door this weekend as we celebrate Reformation Sunday. It is a door that brought about encouragement and hope. The Protestant Reformation movement was sparked on October 31, 1517 when a monk named Martin Luther reportedly posted a document called “A Disputation on the Power of Indulgences” on a church door in Wittenberg, Germany. That little note, more commonly called the “95 Theses,” knocked the door down on religious thought and practices and opened up the world to new ideas about how we can receive Jesus’s teachings.

We welcome you to enter our church door this Sunday, October 30th, as we commemorate Reformation Sunday. Please join us for our spoken liturgy at 8:00 AM, our Jazz worship service at 10:15 AM, or our healing service at 6:00 PM. Holy Communion will be celebrated at each liturgy. Be encouraged! When one door closes, another opens!

Blessings,

Pastor Marc