Worship Bulletin: https://files.constantcontact.com/25ceff9b001/439da73c-0e82-4210-abf8-bbb7af973f62.pdf

On All Saints Day, we give thanks for all the children of God, both the famous and the forgotten, both those who lived in the past and those around us today. Come to worship, to gather at Jesus’ feet and to receive his words of blessing.

The custom of commemorating the saints of the church, especially martyrs, on a single day originated in the fourth century. By the eighth century, the festival commemorating all saints had been moved in England and Ireland to November 1 in order to Christianize the Celtic harvest festival of Samhain, which marked the beginning of winter and communal attention to the dead. In current Christian use, the day is dedicated to thanksgiving for all the unnamed who died in the Lord. In many assemblies, the names of the local dead are read aloud, a focus originally associated with All Souls Day on November 2. The conflation of the two emphases fits with the Protestant belief that the all the Christian dead are saints and none needs release from purgatory.