Many people around the world celebrate Reformation Day on or near October 31. The Gagnons began their own gathering in 2018 upon the purchase of their first home. After learning that about a hundred thousand people attend the Charlotte Renaissance fair each year, we were convinced we could have an even more special gathering.

The Protestant Reformation was not a sudden theological invention of the sixteenth century but a renewal movement within the church that sought to recover the authority of Scripture and the gospel of grace. Its core convictions were already present in the teachings of others like Augustine, who emphasized human sin, the necessity of divine grace, and salvation as God’s merciful gift, not human achievement. These convictions resurfaced in reforming movements as early as the Waldensians around 1200 AD, who long before Luther insisted that a) Scripture must belong to all God’s people and b) that salvation must rest on grace received through faith. By the late Middle Ages, church practices such as indulgences had obscured assurance of forgiveness and elevated tradition alongside Scripture, setting the stage for open reform.

On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther famously nailed his Ninety-five Theses to the church door in Wittenberg, challenging abuses within the church and calling for theological debate and reform. What began as a protest against corruption grew into a widespread recovery of the gospel itself. Luther, followed by reformers like John Calvin, publicly reasserted that sinners are justified by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, according to Scripture alone, for the glory of God alone.

For us and many other Christians, Reformation Day is not merely a historical remembrance but a celebration of rediscovering the beauty and clarity of the gospel. Before the Reformation, many ordinary believers lived in a kind of spiritual darkness, often unable to read Scripture for themselves or fully understand the depth of God’s grace revealed in His Word. The Reformation helped recover the glorious truth that salvation is not earned by human effort but flows entirely from God’s mercy, a grace that loved us before the foundation of the world.

The Reformation reminds the church that it must always be reforming, continually returning to God’s Word, and affirms that Scripture speaks clearly and authoritatively to all believers, not just clergy, inviting every Christian to listen, study, and live under its truth.