Sunday, October 8

9:30 a.m. worship in person and online

Joseph L. Morrow preaching

Worship bulletin

11:00 a.m. worship in person only

Joseph L. Morrow preaching

Worship bulletin

2:00 p.m. worship in person and online

The Gathering: Communion at 2:00

Rocky Supinger preaching

Worship

Directions and the easiest routes for getting to Fourth Church this Sunday morning, which is the day of the Chicago Marathon, are posted on the Fourth Church website.

Livestreamed Services

Livestreamed worship services (9:30 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.) are accessible by going to www.bit.ly/fpcvideos, subscribing to our YouTube channel, or clicking on the photo with a “Play” arrow on the home page of the Fourth Church website.

These livestreams are available to view anytime after the service begins if you would prefer to connect online at a later time. For tips on how to watch — from the beginning — a service already in progress, see www.fourthchurch.org/watch-from-the-beginning

Audio-only by phone for the 9:30 service is available (toll free) by calling 888.916.9166 just prior to 9:30.

Calling all creatures great and small!

It’s just about time to head to our Michigan Avenue courtyard for this Saturday’s Blessing of the Animals service.

Come join us as we give thanks to God for the creatures that bless our lives. All pets are welcome! (Please have them on leash or in a carrier.)

If you’d rather not bring your pets, please bring photographs of them and join us as we celebrate the wonders of God’s creation and our relationships with its amazing creatures.

Saturday, October 7

10:00 a.m.

Michigan Avenue courtyard

How is Fourth Church home to you? To others?

Our 2024 Stewardship campaign invites you to consider those questions as you reflect on what will be your 2024 pledge in support of the life-giving mission, ministry, and outreach efforts of Fourth Church and Chicago Lights.

Please plan to submit your 2024 pledge — which you can make using the form mailed to member homes and also available in the pew racks and online at www.bit.ly/fpcpledging — by Commitment Sunday, October 29, when we will celebrate all we are able to do together through our generous response to God’s blessings in our lives.

That festive day, which is Reformation Sunday as well, will also be the day we welcome to our pulpit the Reverend Tom Are Jr., who is joining us as our Interim Pastor! Read more at www.fourthchurch.org

This month, along with thinking about how Fourth Church is home to us and others, we are also exploring what it means to be one body in Christ.

We encourage you to set aside eight minutes for this new “Rhythm and Word” video sometime this weekend.

Led by Rocky Supinger, it invites us to reflect on the mystery of how we are connected through our experience of faith. 

If you would like to be alerted to future videos in this October series on being the body of Christ, subscribe to our YouTube channel (www.bit.ly/fpcvideos) or sign up at www.bit.ly/rhythmandwordemail to receive them by email.

The Nominating Committee is beginning their work of reviewing the names you submitted of individuals to serve in congregational leadership positions beginning in 2024.

We could still use some more recommendations, so if you have not yet sent in your suggestions or have thought of additional ones, please offer your recommendations today via the online form at www.bit.ly/nominating2024

Self-nominations are welcome as we look for Fourth Church members to share — in the roles of Elder, Deacon, Trustee, Nominating Committee, and the Chicago Lights Board —their gifts for leadership and ministry.

Since early September the Long-Range Planning Task Force has been in a season of discernment as they work through your comments and suggestions from the congregational survey and interviews. Your thoughtful and voluminous input serves as the foundational work from which the long-range plan will be developed.

The next step in the process is to share with you the draft strategic directives coming out of the collection of information. To do this, the task force will be conducting two town hall sessions for you to both hear about the strategic directives and share your feedback.

The first session will take place online on Sunday October 15 following the 9:30 a.m. service. It will also be recorded and made available for viewing. Watch for details next week.

The second session will be in-person on Sunday, October 22 after the 11:00 a.m. service.

We hope you will join us for one of these sessions as we take the next step in developing a long-range plan for Fourth Church!

For details or more information, email the task force.

Curious about the CLL?

Are you curious about the Center for Life and Learning?

Are you retired or have a flexible day schedule and are looking for ways to connect?

Come to the fourth floor lounge of the Gratz Center on a Wednesday morning at 9:30 a.m. for coffee and conversation!

CLL staff and members would be delighted to talk to you about our program and classes — like Men’s Great Ideas, Foreign Perspectives, Meditation, Book Club, and Beginning Knitting, just to name a few (we offer more than 20 classes every week)!

“Stop the Shooting”

A new three-week class, “Stop the Shooting,” will be offered by the Adult Education and World Mission and Social Justice Councils beginning on Sunday morning, October 22 at 11:00 a.m. in Borwell Dining Room and via Zoom. (For Zoom details, register online.)

This look at organizations and approaches for gun violence reduction and advocacy will feature the following topics and guest speakers.

October 22

“The Spiritual Imperative to Work against Gun Violence” will feature a speaker from Live Free Illinois. This organization is a state chapter of Live Free USA, which works to create safe, equitable communities for all people.

October 29

Arne Duncan will talk about the work of Chicago CRED (“Create Real Economic Destiny). A former US Secretary of Education and a former CEO of Chicago Public Schools, he founded Chicago CRED in 2016. It operates on the belief that the surest way to stop gun violence is by engaging directly with those most at risk of shooting — or being shot — and giving them a reason to put down their guns.

November 5

Pastor Brenda Mitchell will spotlight advocacy and activism. She is the State Chapter Co-Leader for Moms Demand Action in Illinois and a gun violence survivor. Moms Demand Action (MDA) is a grassroots movement of Americans fighting for public safety measures to protect people from gun violence. It’s part of Everytown for Gun Safety, the largest gun violence prevention organization in the US, with nearly 10 million supporters. 

Do you enjoy singing?

Come add your voice to the Fourth Church Choral Society, which is rehearsing on October Thursdays at 7:00 p.m. in Buchanan Chapel in preparation for a November 10 concert honoring Morgan Simmons, former Fourth Church Organist and Choirmaster.

Or come sing with Voices of Light, our Gospel choir, which rehearses on Sundays at 1:30 p.m. in Room 4G.

For more information about Voices of Light, the Choral Society, or the Morgan Simmons concert, contact John Sherer.

This week’s look back to our summer youth trips takes us overseas with the senior high youth who traveled to Paris, France, where sixteen students spent five days with youth from the American Church in Paris and Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Paris.

The youth pastors at these two English-speaking congregations launched a joint youth service weekend in the summer of 2022, and last fall they invited our youth to join them for the 2023 version.

As Rocky Supinger, Associate Pastor for Youth Ministry and Worship, reflected,

“Our work was quite simple on its face: hand out water bottles and sandwiches on the streets of Paris. For three days we spread out across the city in teams and did whatever we could to connect with total strangers and offer them a small (though real) measure of relief and comfort.

“The simplicity of the task masked its difficulty, though. How accustomed are we to approaching strangers in public with an offer of help? How do we know who actually ‘needs’ something to drink or eat (must you look like you live on the street to deserve a sandwich?). If people accept our help and want to know why we’ve offered it, how ready are we with an answer?

“Working in cross-cultural, multilingual teams made our experience both more challenging and rewarding. For us, Paris was our destination, and one we were eager to visit. For our friends, it is their home; they may continue to encounter some of the people we interacted with at the Bastille and Notre Dame, while we most certainly will not. 

“We spent a lot of time together debriefing our experience, exploring scripture together and studying the complexities of poverty and homelessness, which, of course, are experienced differently in Paris than they are in Chicago. We also played together, shared meals, and worshiped together at the American Church in Paris (where the preacher was Ozzie Smith Jr. — from Chicago!).

“Kevin Reome, Nicholette Andrews-Maggio, and Alisa Rantanen were utterly invaluable as leaders on this trip, getting our group around the city with levity and unwavering attention. Here again, our youth represented Fourth Church beautifully as a community of welcome, understanding, and compassion.”

Watch future newsletters for highlights from the youth trip to Montreat!

If your child is attending college this fall, please email their mailing address to Katie Patterson by next Sunday, October 15.

We’d love to send them one of the care packages our youth groups will be assembling later on in October.

Birth

We give thanks to God for the gift of new life.

Brooks MacKenzie Gayle

Child of Heather Gayle

Marriage

We give thanks to God for the gift of life together.

Molly Alice McGaan and Ian Courtney Leonard

Married September 30, 2023

Death

We give thanks to God for the gift of life eternal.

Robert W. Montgomery

Died June 14, 2023

Prayer

If you would like to submit a prayer request to our Morning Prayer or Deacon Prayer Ministries, please email caringministries@fourthchurch.org

If you would like to join in praying for others—members of Fourth Church and those in need—we invite you to gather with us for Wednesday Morning Prayer at 9:30 a.m. via Zoom or at 10:00 a.m. in person. For Zoom details, email Nancy Benson-Nicol.

Conversation and Presence

If you would like to talk to a pastor, please call the church (312.787.4570) and your request will be forwarded to someone on the pastoral staff.

If you would like to alert pastoral staff to emerging pastoral care needs, please email caringministries@fourthchurch.org; however if the situation is an emergency or requires immediate attention, please call the church at 312.787.4570 to be connected to the Minister on Call.

For one-to-one spiritual and emotional support through life challenges, we encourage you to consider being paired with a Stephen Minister. To learn more about this resource, contact Nancy Benson-Nicol, Associate Pastor for Caring Ministries and Spiritual Formation, or leave a confidential message for a Stephen Minister at 312.573.3365.

To set up a time to talk or for more information about how the staff of the Replogle Center for Counseling and Well-Being can be a resource for you, call the Center at 312.787.2729, ext. 2260.