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

While we are not gathering in person in this season, there are many opportunities to connect online with the Fourth Church community and one another.

You will find these online opportunities posted on the church calendar, which is easily accessible from the “Calendar” button of our website (in the upper left corner). 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.

Shannon J. Kershner preaching

The worship bulletin is available to download and print in advance

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

Our six-week sermon series—“To What End? Being Church in These Days”—continues this week, as together we explore the Six Great Ends of the Church. This set of statements was crafted in the early twentieth century to define and guide the life and work of the Presbyterian church—who we are and what we are called to do.

The Ffith Great End, our focus for this week, is “The Promotion of Social Righteousness.”

In addition to making our online worship service available via our worship channel at www.bit.ly/FPCworship, we are also sharing the service via Facebook Live (www.facebook.com/fourthchurch) and—for those who use smart TVs or TV streaming devices—via our YouTube channel (www.bit.ly/fpcvideos) at 11:00 a.m.

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.

If our 11:00 worship time does not fit your schedule, the service will be available for viewing throughout the week at www.bit.ly/FPCworship.

You can also subscribe to our worship and sermon podcasts available via iTunes and Spotify and sign up to receive the weekly sermon by email.

A few hours remain to submit names of Fourth Church members you think are good candidates for officer roles—as Elder, Deacon, or Trustee—or for membership on the Nominating Committee or Chicago Lights Board.

Your leadership recommendations (self-nominations are welcome!) can be made before October 10 by completing the form at www.bit.ly/nominating2020.

Last Sunday we kicked off our 2021 Stewardship Campaign for Fourth Church and Chicago Lights!

This annual stewardship season celebrates the particular ways in which we, as a faith community, are committed to actively participating in God’s re-creating and reconciling work in this world. It is also the time when we take the opportunity to recommit ourselves to “Putting Our Faith into Action”—the theme of this year’s campaign.

As we reflect on what we are called to do and to become, we invite you to prayerfully consider the investment you will make in your Fourth Church family and its work in 2021.

We also ask that you please make your 2021 pledge by Sunday, November 8 so on that day—Commitment Sunday—we can lift up all that we are able to do together through our generous response to God’s blessings in our lives.

Fourth Church Meals Ministry is in need of volunteers to help prepare Sunday Night Suppers as well as individuals to help serve the grab-to-go meals outside.

If you are available to assist, please sign up here for a date(s) to cook or here for a date(s) to serve the meal.

If you have questions about volunteering or using VOMO, our volunteer sign-up app, please contact Robert Crouch, Director of Volunteer Ministry.

The fifty-sixth year of Chicago Lights Tutoring begins this Tuesday, October 13.

The staff has been hard at work converting the regular in-person programming to an online experience, and as they launch that virtual learning and mentoring opportunity, we wish the students, tutors, and staff a wonderful year!

Sundays, October 11–November 8

9:30 a.m.

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

For the next five weeks we are honored to have Dr. Steed Davidson leading us in an exploration of “Women in the Book of Judges.”

Dr. Davidson is Dean of the Faculty and Vice President of Academic Affairs at McCormick Theological Seminary, where he is also Professor of Hebrew Bible / Old Testament. He is also the author of Empire and Exile: Postcolonial Readings of Selected Texts of the Book of Jeremiah as well as Writing/Reading the Bible in Postcolonial Perspective and serves on the editorial boards of Biblical Interpretation and Black Theology: An International Journal.

12:30 p.m.

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

A new three-week theme in our Sunday Bible study begins this week: “Varying Voices of the Prophets: Cries for Justice, Lamentation, and Consolation.” Jeff Doane will lead this exploration of texts in Amos, Jeremiah, and Isaiah on Sundays, October 11–25.

7:00 p.m. via Zoom

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

For those who want to begin reading for our next First Tuesday Book Club conversation, the book for discussion in November and December will be The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James Cone. Nanette Sawyer will lead our conversation of this powerful exploration of the two symbols and their interconnection in history and religion.

If you were not able to join us via Zoom this past Tuesday evening for the panel discussion on the Illinois Graduated Tax Amendment Forum, hosted by our Equitable Education Committee, you can watch it on YouTube.

6:00 p.m. via Zoom

For Zoom details, email Anne Ellis

All women are invited to join in monthly Books by Women discussions whenever their schedules allow and the books are of interest.

The October book is Jeanne Bishop’s Grace from the Rubble, a true story of tragedy and the unexpected grace of humanity.

7:00 a.m. via Zoom

In this new discussion group, six to eight men will gather on Monday mornings via Zoom (for three months) to share life stories and discuss the Gospel of Luke.

To express interest in taking part in this group, email David Handley.

After the success of our small groups via Zoom over the summer, we are gathering names of those interested in taking part in new groups that will meet for four to six weeks.

There will be groups discussing a book, others engaging in conversations about race, and others reflecting on faith.

If you would like to connect with five to seven other people via Zoom for a time of fellowship, relationship building, and spiritual formation around one of these topics, please let us know by emailing Anne Ellis.

Are you or someone you know interested in becoming members of Fourth Church?

If so, our next online Inquirers’ Class will be held on Sunday, October 18 at 9:00 a.m. and Wednesday, October 21 at 6:30 p.m. via Zoom.

You can register here for this two-part class.

For additional information about Fourth Church membership, please contact Joe Morrow.

Following worship this 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 also posted on our website: www.fourthchurch.org)

Meeting ID: 963 5583 1751

Passcode: 631276

Phone: Call 1 (312) 626-6799

and enter Meeting ID 963 5583 1751#