Sunday, October 15

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

Lucy Forster-Smith preaching

Worship bulletin

11:00 a.m. worship in person only

Lucy Forster-Smith preaching

Worship bulletin

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

The Gathering: Communion at 2:00

Rocky Supinger preaching

Worship bulletin

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.

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, input that 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 is conducting two town hall sessions for you to both hear about the strategic directives and share your feedback.

The first session will take place this Sunday October 15 at 10:45 a.m. via Zoom.

The Zoom link can be found on the home page of our website as well as at www.bit.ly/townhall1015 (meeting ID: 854 6445 6263; passcode: 609476).

The October 15 session will also be recorded and made available for viewing at a later time.

The second session will be in-person on Sunday, October 22 at 12:00 p.m. in the Sanctuary. (In-person only)

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.

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.

Commitment Sunday at Fourth Church will be a full and festive day, as not only is it Reformation Sunday as well, but it will be the day we welcome to our pulpit the Reverend Tom Are Jr., who is joining us as our Interim Pastor.

We look forward to Tom and his wife, Carol, joining us on October 29, when he will preach at both morning services.

At the same time, as we noted in a letter from this congregation to Village Presbyterian Church earlier this month, we are keeping the Ares and the Village congregation in our prayers “in these days of leave-taking and in the Spirit-led future that lies ahead” — in particular this weekend as on Sunday they conclude their twenty-year ministry together.

With the outbreak of war in the region, we hold in prayer our siblings in Israel and Palestine and all impacted by the violence.

For those seeking a way to put those prayers into action, gifts to Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, providing humanitarian assistance in the region through partners on the ground, can be given at www.bit.ly/pdagifts.

We have two urgent volunteer needs. Might you be able to help?

There is a waitlist of Chicago Lights Tutoring students in need of tutors on weekday evenings—in person or online. For details or to sign up, please visit the Chicago Lights website, www.chicagolights.org.

Meals Ministry is in need of doctors, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and medical students to assist with our medical services program for guests attending Sunday Night Supper. To learn more, please contact Mike Usiak. 

Each year our annual Michigan Avenue Forum seeks to promote civic formation with public discussions of current issues shaping the community’s ethical landscape.

This year the program, “Understanding Antisemitism,” will feature a panel discussion exploring the history of antisemitism, including the Christian church’s role in its promotion and perpetuation; the recent rise in violent episodes and hate crimes; and concrete strategies for non-Jewish houses of worship to dismantle antisemitism and pursue reconciliation and healing.

Taking place on Thursday, November 2 at 6:30 p.m. in the Sanctuary, the forum will bring together a panel of

• Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, award-winning author 
• Becca Lubow, community organizer at Jewish Council on Urban Affairs
• The Reverend Nanette Sawyer, Associate Pastor at Fourth Church

In a conversation moderated by Cynthia Johnson of the Michigan Avenue Forum Committee, the panel will discuss how antisemitism works, how it is connected to white supremacy, and the church’s role in upholding it. 

We hope you will join us for this important conversation!

“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. 

Explore the CLL in Two New Classes

Two new Special Topic classes extend a great invitation to exploring all that the Center for Life and Learning has to offer for those sixty and more. Why not try one—or both!

Are You There, God? It’s Us, Humanity:

Exploring the Psalms

with Susan Quaintance

With all due respect to Judy Blume and her classic adolescent novel with a very similar name, the psalms asked that question about 2500 years before she did! The psalms are recognized as some of the most beautiful poetry ever written and routinely show up in world literature anthologies. They are foundational in both Jewish and Christian worship and prayer. Why?

Susan Quaintance returns to the Center for Life and Learning as facilitator to lead us in exploring possible answers to that question, along with pondering what value they might have in the current historical moment.

The class meets in person and via Zoom on Wednesdays, October 18–November 8 at 10:30 a.m. Registration required.

Storytelling Workshop

with Annette Mileski

Stories and storytellers have been a part of human history throughout time. It is one of the things all cultures share. It is the way we connect with those who have gone before us, and it provides guidelines for those who will come after us. Stories are threads that bind us to one another.

Participants in this four-week interactive, in-person storytelling workshop will learn basic storytelling techniques as well as tips to create and develop their own personal stories.

CLL Director and expert storyteller Annette Mileski will be facilitating this workshop, which begins on Thursday, October 26 at 3:00 p.m. Registration required.

Penned for the church in its earliest days, the New Testament epistle to the Romans has some powerful things to say about God’s love for us.  

Join Rocky Supinger in exploring that in this latest ten-minute “Rhythm and Word” video.

Do you enjoy singing?

Come add your voice to the Fourth Church Choral Society, which is rehearsing on 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 to North Carolina for the Montreat Youth Conference, which happens every summer, although Fourth Church youth have not participated in it since 2018. Each of the six students who attended in late July/early August were brand new to the conference, as were Sally Sharp and Jill Fenstermaker, our adult leaders.

Montreat, a conference center with roots in the Presbyterian Church (USA), is located in the mountains of western North Carolina, so it takes about eleven hours of driving to get there.

Once there, students hear a keynote address every morning and then reflect on the conference theme (“In. Joy”) in small groups led by volunteers and made up of peers from other churches. (There were about 300 youth there for our week; over the course of the summer 5,000 youth take part in the annual conference.) There is worship and recreation each evening, and lots of time in between for rest and play. 

A highlight of the week is the variety show on Thursday night, and two of Fourth Church’s students contributed their talents for singing and comedy, respectively. 

Montreat provides our youth with an expanded community of their peers in the church and exposure to voices they wouldn’t hear at Fourth Church alone. For that reason, it will continue to be a staple of our summer trip programming.

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

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

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.