Rediscovering the Reformation

It began, for me, as a project of curiosity.
When John Piper’s ministry, Desiring God released its 31-Day Journey Through the Reformation, I expected to find a familiar retelling. The kind of devotional history many Protestants have grown comfortable with. I expected stirring profiles of courage and faith, stories of theological brilliance, and a chorus of voices reminding us that Scripture alone stands as our highest authority.

But as I read and reflected through each day — from John Wycliffe to Martin Luther — something deeper began to stir. I found myself not merely studying the Reformers, but examining the modern Church that claims them- including the ‘post denominational’ church. I began to see how far we have drifted from their reverence, their sacramental imagination, mystery, and their sense that all of life — even the ordinary — belonged to God.

This series of reflections, written and now expanded into a longer meditation, is not an act of defiance but of devotion. It is a believer’s journey toward understanding what the Reformation meant, and what it still means for the Church today. It is a call for humility — to learn again from those who, five centuries ago, risked everything to recover the gospel, and perhaps to see how their recovery is still incomplete.

The Aim of This Study

Reformation history can easily harden into hagiography — our heroes becoming untouchable, our stories simplified into slogans. We quote “sola scriptura” and “sola fide” with conviction, but seldom consider what these claims required of those who first uttered them.

As I revisited the lives of these men and women, I wanted to move beyond admiration to comprehension. I wanted to understand their fears and failures, their humanity as well as their holiness. Each day’s reading pressed me toward a theological question and a pastoral burden:

Have we, modern Protestants, truly inherited their faith, or only their language?

The Reformation was never meant to end in 1517. It was meant to be the beginning of continual renewal — a movement of repentance that would call the Church, again and again, back to the heart of the gospel. Yet what I found in my research and reflection is that many of us have inherited a frozen Reformation: fixed, defensive, and detached from the spiritual vitality it once ignited.

This project was, in part, an attempt to thaw that ice.

The Forgotten Depth of the Early Church

One of the surprises of reading through these Reformers was how deeply they revered the early Church. Luther, Calvin, Cranmer, Zwingli — all looked to the Church Fathers for wisdom, discipline, and liturgical beauty. They did not wish to burn down the house of Christian tradition; they longed to repair its foundations.

And yet, over the centuries, many of their heirs — particularly within modern evangelicalism — have stripped the faith of its depth and texture. What began as a protest against corruption has sometimes become a protest against beauty itself.

Our churches, once resonant with the sounds of sacred chant and the fragrance of incense, now hum with the sterile flicker of stage lights and screens. Communion/Lord’s Supper — once the climactic act of weekly worship — is often reduced to a hurried ritual once a month, or less. The liturgical calendar, which once guided Christians through the life of Christ year after year- tying us to a rich history- has been replaced with the unpredictable rhythm of sermon series and topical Sundays.

In my opinion, the Reformers never intended such barrenness. They fought for the Word of God to be preached faithfully and the sacraments to be received reverently — not for faith to become flat, sterile, or detached from the sacred.

The Reformers Were Not Modern Evangelicals

We often invoke the Reformers as champions of our own modern expressions of faith, but in truth, they would hardly recognize us.

Luther, for instance, wrote hymns not as entertainment or emotional magnets, but as communal theology — the gospel sung into the hearts of believers. Calvin insisted on a liturgy saturated with Scripture, not to avoid formality but to guard reverence. Cranmer’s Book of Common Prayer united the English-speaking world in one voice of confession, repentance, and praise.

These were not the impulses of an anti-traditional movement. They were the instincts of pastors who knew that form and substance belong together — that the heart needs structure, and the soul needs beauty.

To be “Reformed,” in their sense, was to be continually re-formed by the Word and Spirit of God — not to dismantle all tradition, but to redeem it. Yet much of contemporary evangelicalism has confused freedom with fragmentation, mistaking innovation for renewal. We have inherited the slogans of the Reformation but not its sacramental heart.

Beyond the Polemics: Learning from Other Traditions

If the Reformation was, in its best moments, an act of purification, it has too often been followed by centuries of polarization. The Protestant story has become a story of reaction — defining itself not by what it loves, but by what it rejects.

In my own study, I began to sense how much we’ve lost through this posture of suspicion. Many Protestants, especially in the West, instinctively recoil from anything that bears the scent of “ritual” or “tradition,” as though reverence itself were a rival to the gospel. Yet the Church’s long history — East and West — testifies that structure and sacrament were not obstacles to grace but vessels of it.

Recovering a generous posture toward the historic Church does not mean surrendering Protestant convictions. It means recognizing that the Holy Spirit did not fall silent between Pentecost and 1517. It means allowing the breadth of Christian history — Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant — to inform a more holistic devotion to God.

Our calling is not to romanticize the past, but to receive it with discernment. We are heirs of a vast household of faith, not orphans of modernity.

Recovering the Sacred

At the heart of this rediscovery is a longing for sacredness — for worship that once again feels like standing on holy ground. You know you crave more than a good sermon and emotional worship music. Something is missing when you walk out of that church.

The Reformers, despite their fierce critiques, never abandoned the sacred imagination. Luther’s table prayers, Calvin’s reverent tone in the pulpit, Cranmer’s poetic liturgy — all reveal a world still enchanted by the nearness of God. They did not seek to make worship casual; they sought to make it true. It seems as though we have accepted kneeling at the stage of entertainment rather than at the altar of God.

But as modern evangelicalism has democratized faith, we have often flattened transcendence. The sanctuary has become a stage; the congregation, an audience. We no longer enter worship trembling with wonder; we stroll in with coffee cups and casual indifference.

Yet something deep within the human soul still longs for the mystery of divine presence — for the trembling joy Isaiah felt when he cried, “My eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” To recover the sacred is not to regress into medieval superstition; it is to awaken again to the holiness of God.

Reformation as a Mirror for the Modern Church

The Reformers lived in a time of crisis — political, moral, and theological. The Church they loved was fractured by corruption, ambition, and spiritual lethargy. Their call to reform was not driven by disdain but by heartbreak.

In many ways, the Church today stands before the same mirror. We, too, are plagued by disunity, by moral scandal, by spiritual fatigue. We, too, are tempted to build our faith on personalities and platforms (under the banner of the Word) rather than on the living Word of God. Our hyper charismatic showmanship has taken center stage. A symptom of the early days of our country during the 1st and 2nd Great Awakenings.

What Luther and his companions remind us is that reformation begins not in systems, but in souls. The cry ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda — “the Church reformed, always reforming” — is not a slogan of progress but of repentance. It means that the Church must always be returning to the cross, always rediscovering the grace that first called her into being.

If the Reformation teaches us anything, it is that the greatest danger to the gospel comes not from the world outside, but from forgetfulness within.

A Call to Reformation of the Heart

The Reformation was never merely an academic event. It was a revival of conscience — a movement of hearts awakened by the Word of God.

Each reformer, from the scholar to the peasant, embodied the same truth: that the gospel is not a theory to defend but a life to be lived. Their courage was not in their controversy, but in their faithfulness — in their willingness to lose everything for the sake of truth.

To walk through these 31 days was, for me, to re-enforce and rediscover that same call. It was to see how reform begins when we let Scripture expose our self-sufficiency and invite us into humble worship. It was to remember that orthodoxy and love, truth and tenderness, must never be pried apart.

The Church today does not need a new Reformation so much as it needs a new repentance — a renewal of the heart that begins in pastors and laypeople alike.

Wrapping it up: Still Standing, Still Reforming

As I finished this 31-day journey, I felt gratitude — for the courage of those who stood firm, and for the mercy of the God who still reforms His Church.

The Reformation was not an end, but a beginning — a door opened by grace, a call to continual renewal. We honor it not by repeating its slogans, but by recovering its spirit: a burning love for the Word of God, a reverent delight in the presence of Christ, and a humble longing for unity in the truth.

May we, too, stand where Luther stood — not on pride, but on Scripture; on the mind of the Church, not against our brothers and sisters, but before the face of God.

And may this journey move us, not to boast of our heritage, but to bow in wonder at the God who still speaks through His Word, still sanctifies His people, and still reforms His Church — one heart at a time.

Watch the full 31-day video series here:
👉 YouTube: A 31-Day Journey Through the Reformation

Author’s Note

I write these reflections not only as a student of history but as someone called to serve the Church through creativity, formation, and innovation. A graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary, I now serve as Head of Digital Mission & Innovation at a global ministry, where my work centers on helping people encounter Christ through new forms of discipleship, disciple-making, and digital spaces.

This 31-Day Journey Through the Reformation has been both a critique and a confession — not a rejection of the Protestant story, but an invitation to live it more deeply. My hope is that believers, especially those within the modern evangelical tradition, will see the Reformation not as a closed chapter of triumph but as an open invitation to holiness, humility, and awe before the majesty of God.

If this reflection stirs something in you, you can continue the journey by watching the companion video series:
👉 A 31-Day Journey Through the Reformation (YouTube Playlist)

In Christ’s name,

Stewart Severino