If you know someone who would like to receive updates from us but currently is not, please encourage them to add their email address to our distribution list by signing up at www.bit.ly/newsfromfpc

On the church calendar are many opportunities to connect online with the Fourth Church community and one another. Included among them are—

For information about whom to contact for an event’s Zoom details, simply click on the down “arrow” to the right of the event name in the calendar (which is easily accessible from the “Calendar” button in the upper left corner of our website).

Led by Junior High and Confirmation Youth

The worship bulletin is available to download and print in advance

Livestreamed from the Sanctuary at www.bit.ly/FPCworship

This Sunday we look forward to our Junior High and Confirmation youth leading us in worship!

Our online worship service is available live at 11:00 a.m. (Central) via

For those who do not have Internet access, we also make our worship service available to listen to via the phone. If you know of someone for whom this audio opportunity would be welcome, please encourage them to call 888.916.9166 (toll-free) at the time of the service.

The Sunday service is available for viewing throughout the week at www.bit.ly/FPCworship.

Worship and sermon podcasts are available via iTunes and Spotify, and you can sign up to receive the text of the weekly sermon by email.

Tonight our Organist and Director of Music John Sherer will play an online concert to mark the fifth anniversary of the dedication of our Andrew Pipe Organ.

Join us online for this celebratory performance that will feature music by Chicago composers.

7:30 p.m.

Online at www.bit.ly/fpcprograms

On Thanksgiving Day we invite you to join us online at 11:00 a.m. for a Thanksgiving service.

As part of this service we will receive Thanksgiving greetings from our interfaith partners as well as hear short readings and presentations representing their religious traditions. Nanette Sawyer will also offer a sermon on interfaith relations in Christian scripture, the calling to treat our neighbors of other faiths with love and respect, and the spiritual foundation of generosity and thanksgiving

The service will include traditional Presbyterian worship as well as musical offerings from Holy Name Cathedral, the Niagara Foundation, and our own Fourth Church musicians.

Other participating partners and friends are Chicago Sinai Congregation, the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago (CIOGC), the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, LaSalle Street Church, the Muslim Community Center, and others.

11:00 a.m.

Online at www.bit.ly/FPCworship

Give thanks for those who are special in your life and remember loved ones through contributions toward the purchase of Christmas flowers and garlands. These will decorate the Sanctuary for our online services this coming Advent and Christmas season.

A list of those remembered will be printed in the Christmas bulletin. Contributions must be received by Friday, December 11 in order for names to be included in that bulletin.

Contribute to Christmas flowers at www.bit.ly/FPCgifts

In this season of gratitude and giving, we invite you to join us in making preparations to share Christmas joy with those in need.

Again this year Women at Fourth is coordinating our Christmas Wishes efforts to provide gifts for Chicago Lights Tutoring students. This year each student will receive a gift card, a book, and a mask.

To help fill these Christmas wishes, you can order the selected books online at www.bit.ly/christmaswishes20.

Contributions toward Christmas Wishes gift cards can be made online at www.fourthchurch.org/give-online (choose “Congregational Life” as your designation, and type “Christmas Wishes” in the comments).

Sunday and Monday Night Supper guests will again be receiving Christmas gift bags from Fourth Church, this year prepared by staff and volunteers.

Donations are needed to cover the cost of the items to be included in the bags: a food gift card, gloves, hygiene items, and a mask. These donations can be made online at www.bit.ly/giftbags2020

Although we will not have our annual Cookies-and-Cocoa reception this year, Women at Fourth is still inviting individuals to bake cookies, brownies, and other sturdy sweets to share with our Sunday Night Supper guests on December 20. For details, email

Anne Ellis.

5:30 p.m. via Zoom

For Zoom details, register at www.bit.ly/cornerstones1220

Cornerstones, a fellowship opportunity for those fifty and older, will next gather via Zoom on Friday, December 4 for a Christmas concert by John Sherer and tenor Cole Seaton.

Following worship each Sunday we hope you will join us via Zoom for virtual Coffee Hour, an opportunity to connect online with one another and share in a time of fellowship.

Following the postlude

Also accessible at www.bit.ly/fpcfellowship

(the link is posted on our website as well: www.fourthchurch.org)

Meeting ID: 963 5583 1751

Passcode: 631276

Phone: Call 1 312.626.6799

and enter Meeting ID 963 5583 1751#

12:30 p.m. via Zoom

For Zoom details, register at www.bit.ly/fpcff20

This Sunday we begin a new three-week theme in our weekly Bible study as Joe Morrow guides us on “Scriptural Journeys: The Enduring Power of Migrations in the Bible.”

10:00 a.m. via Zoom

For Zoom details, email Carol Allerton

We are in a time of grief shaped by ambiguous loss, yet the upcoming season of Advent reminds us that we are all pregnant with the hope of possibility, joy, and revolution and that the journey to the foot of the manger is a journey marked by transitions.

Rituals help us make sense of those transitions, and they can bring us to the other side of loss and grief if we let them, to a place of healing.

In an online workshop hosted by the Spiritual Formation Council on Saturday, December 5, Lois Snavely will lead an exploration of what it means to create ritual for ourselves and our communities (even virtually) and to navigate through the transitory waters of life. She will also invite us to think about how to use ritual-making as a way to reconnect us to ourselves, our faith, and our God.

For more information, watch this short video message from Lois, who recently served as a seminary intern at Fourth Church.

Advent begins in just over a week, on Sunday, November 29. This first season of the church-year calendar invites us to set aside time for daily personal prayer and reflection and to create space to prepare our hearts and lives to receive the gift that comes to us in the stable.

Our daily Advent devotions—which begin on November 29 and are written by Fourth Church members and staff—offer a resource for this meditative journey. To receive them daily by email, sign up online at www.bit.ly/fpcdevotions.

Devotions also will be posted daily on Facebook, on Twitter (@FourthChicago), and on our devotions web page.

We are grateful to all who have made gifts in support of our mission and ministry this year. Thank you! This monthly generosity report summarizes those contributions to Fourth Church as of October 31, 2020.

Stephen Ministry is a one-to-one ministry of care and supportive listening for those who are experiencing life’s challenges.

If you or someone you know could benefit from a such a connection—even just a one-time phone call—we invite you to learn more about being paired with a Stephen Minister.

We also welcome applications for our next Stephen Minister training course—a fifty-hour series that culminates in making a two-year commitment to serve as a Stephen Minister. That course will next be offered in the spring.

Please join us in welcoming the new members received into membership by the Session on October 25 and welcomed during worship on Sunday, November 8:

Jennifer Beattie

Judyth Gilbert

Jennifer Krivoshey

Deborah Oberschelp

Wayne Oberschelp

Died November 13, 2020