Whoever is in charge of publicity for All Saints Day should be fired! What a lame holiday! Nobody hardly knows about it. Click here if you need a refresher. It’s gotten so bad that the day before the holiday (All Hallow’s Eve) has become more important than the actual day. Google won’t even change it’s banner for All Saints Day and they’ll change that thing for anything!
All Saints Day is a day in Western Christianity to celebrate Saints, known or unknown who have passed on. On this holy day in the Catholic calendar, Catholics have to go to mass today to celebrate the Feast of Obligation (talk about telling it like it is!)
We are all saints though! Paul ends many of his letters saying things like ‘All the saints greet you’ (Phil 4: 22; 2 Cor 13: 13) He’s talking about Christians here. Peter says in 1 Pet. 2: 9 that we are all ‘holy priests’.
I think All Saints Day is a great idea. I think we should celebrate this kind of thing more often! So in honor of the day I want to honor a saint I read about this week. While at McMaster I was working on homework in the Seminary Library. It’s not the BIG library but the one in the college that has all the books that they won’t even put in the big library; Mostly because they are old, fragile or obscure or some combination therein. I looked beside me and saw a book that would easily qualify for all three, “The History of the Disciples of Christ 1840 – 1940”
My tribe (Churches of Christ) is derived from the Disciples (we split about 100 years ago) so this is a book of my history! I picked it up and carefully read a bit. It talked about the beginnings of the June Meetings. I remember going to June meetings as a kid and if I am not mistaken, the last June meeting EVER was held at Tintern in 1992. I’ll have to check on that. Apparently June meetings were held in the area for DAYS on end. A tent was brought up from Ohio and set up in Rockway in 1843 and there were 4 000 people there for meetings! Unbelievable!
The book talked about Pioneer Preachers who came through the area. Alexander Campbell came through the Niagara Peninsula during this time and the Jordan Church of Christ was the result of that meeting! O.E. Tallman was mentioned as one of the preachers in the area (they misspelled his name as O.E. Tall though). It talked about the gradual split between the Disciples and Churches of Christ and at the end there was a directory of currently active Churches of Christ. One saint caught my eye.
Sandford Ave. Church of Christ Sunday 10: 30 am, 6: 00 pm, Wednesday 8: 30 pm Evangelist Harold Walker.
So from the Great-Grandson of one saint to another, Happy All Saints Day!
ephesians2eight 
Here, Here!
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