As Shannon Kershner wrote in her congregational email last week, “until you hear otherwise, please assume that we will keep doing what we are doing now—masks required, restricted campus access and hours, etc. I thank you for your patience.”

The wide range of programs, activities, and participants that are part of our Fourth Church and Chicago Lights community make how we move forward around masking complex, particularly given the number of vulnerable populations we serve—from preschoolers to older adults to those with insufficient access to health care—and given the range of staff and volunteers who work with them.

So while we will not be lifting our mask mandate on February 28, please know that we are hard at work determining what our life together will look like around masks, in-person programs, and more!

Looking for ways to connect with the Fourth Church community and one another? On the church calendar you will find many opportunities to do so online (or, where noted, in person). 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).

The worship bulletin will be available to download and print on Friday

In person and streamed from the Sanctuary on our YouTube channel: www.bit.ly/fpcvideos

in Buchanan Chapel

The worship bulletin will be available to download and print on Friday

If you missed the new “Rhythm and Word” video released yesterday evening, you can find the fifteen-minute worship experience—along with others in this video series—on our YouTube channel (www.bit.ly/fpcvideos).

Our Lenten journey begins this coming Wednesday, March 2, with the solemn observance of Ash Wednesday.

Wednesday, March 2

Both Ash Wednesday services will include Communion and the opportunity to receive the imposition of ashes.

Shannon J. Kershner preaching

Rocky Supinger preaching

In person and streamed from the Sanctuary on our YouTube channel: www.bit.ly/fpcvideos; also available by phone by calling 888.916.9166

Offered as a resource for personal meditation and prayer, our daily Lenten devotions are written by Fourth Church members and staff.

If you would like to receive them in your inbox each day during Lent (and do not already receive our daily devotions), simply sign up at www.bit.ly/fpcdevotions or email devotions@fourthchurch.org.

If you would like to be part of one of our new Zoom Small Groups for Lent, please email Simon Crow.

These groups will start next week (the week of February 27) and offer opportunity to connect with five to seven other people via Zoom for a time of fellowship, relationship building, and spiritual formation.

Wednesday, March 2

7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.

The imposition of ashes will be available outside the Sanctuary throughout the day on Ash Wednesday. This is offered for those in our community who are unable to be with us for worship but who find the ashes to be a meaningful way to mark the beginning of this season of repentance and reflection.

During the upcoming season of Lent the Spiritual Formation Council invites you to join them in traveling the “Path of Discipleship.”

This year’s six-part series will use the book Back to the Well: Women’s Encounters with Jesus in the Gospel by Frances Taylor Gench. Led by Nanette Sawyer and Joe Morrow, the series will take place via Zoom on Tuesdays at 6:00 p.m. beginning March 8. For the Zoom link, register at www.bit.ly/fpcpod2022

A new adult education class begins this Sunday: “The Book of Job and the Invention of Faith” taught by Adam Rose.

This new course offering will explore how the book of Job transforms the Hebrew Bible’s concept of God (from a large-but-finite and explicable deity to an infinite and fundamentally inexplicable one) and therefore transforms the proper behavior of both humans and God in the relationship they share and the possibility of a covenant between them.

11:15 a.m.–12:15 p.m.

Room 5G and via Zoom

Register online at www.bit.ly/bookofjob22

Anyone interested in singing music of the gospel tradition is encouraged to join us for rehearsals, which will take place on Sundays at 11:30 a.m. in Room 4F. This new choir, under the direction of Bryan Johnson, Executive Director of Music at Trinity United Church of Christ, will be preparing to sing in morning worship in March.

If you are interested in singing with this choir, please contact John Sherer. Also please note that all singers are required to show proof of COVID vaccination. 

The First Tuesday Book Club invites readers to examine the ethical and social issues facing Christians today and provides a forum for thinking Christians and others to wrestle with the complexities of living as faithful people in today’s confusing world. Reading the book in advance of the conversation is not required.

The March topic of discussion will be Wholehearted Faith by Rachel Held Evans.

Author Rachel Held Evans was appreciated for bridging the gap between her evangelical upbringing and the more progressive faith she claimed as an adult. When she died suddenly in 2019, she left behind unfinished writings that—with the help of her friend and colleague Jeff Chu—have been woven into the book Wholehearted Faith.

The Reverend Amy Pagliarella, Book Review Editor for the Presbyterian Outlook, will lead us in conversation about that book when we gather via Zoom on March 1.

7:00 p.m. via Zoom

For Zoom details, register at www.bit.ly/firsttuesday322

Books by Women invites all interested women to join them online in March for conversation about Free Thinker by Kimberly A. Hamlin.

This is the first biography of Helen Hamilton Gardener, a women’s suffrage activist who at the time of her death in 1925 was the highest-ranking woman in federal government and a national symbol of female citizenship.

Tuesday, March 8

6:00 p.m. via Zoom

For Zoom details, email Simon Crow

If you would like to pray with a Deacon on Sundays, the Deacons invite you to come to Stone Chapel (through the door next to the Sanctuary pulpit) following Sunday morning worship.

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 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 Jeff Doane, Parish Associate 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.

In the Sanctuary, the front section is for those required to or choosing to practice social distancing. The remainder of the Sanctuary is open seating. Seating for Jazz at Four is all socially distanced.

We continue to require that everyone on the Fourth Church campus wear a mask, fully covering the nose and mouth, at all times. Anyone not wearing a mask fully covering their nose and mouth will be asked to leave, as we know that some people make the decision to worship with us in person—or participate in adult education classes—based on the knowledge that everyone will be fully masked. This is but one of the ways we continue to live out our commitment to value the health and safety of all.

Since everyone is masked throughout the service, the congregation is invited to sing.

We are not checking vaccination status, but anyone coming on site certifies by doing so that (a) they do not currently have COVID-19; (b) they are not experiencing COVID symptoms; (c) they have no reason to quarantine; and (d) they will practice social distancing if they are not vaccinated against COVID-19.

Our Sunday morning worship service is livestreamed at 10:00 a.m. (Central) via our YouTube channel (www.bit.ly/fpcvideos)

The service is also available online any time afterwards on YouTube.

For those who do not have Internet access, we also make our livestreamed worship services 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.

Our Sunday services are available for viewing following the conclusion of worship and throughout the week at www.bit.ly/fpcvideos.

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.

If you know someone who would like to receive email 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