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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 Fourth Great End, our focus for this week, is “The Preservation of the Truth.”

This Sunday is World Communion Sunday, a day when we celebrate our oneness in Christ with our global family.

We invite you to have some bread and juice on hand for worship this weekend so that we might together take part, from our own homes, in this shared meal.

This Sunday we will receive a Peace and Global Witness Offering as part of our observance of World Communion Sunday. The offering will be directed to efforts toward peacemaking that are supported by the Presbyterian Church (USA) as well as local efforts to address violence in Chicago.

Gifts to this offering can be made online at www.fourthchurch.org/give-online (noting “Peace Offering” in the comments) or by a check made payable to Fourth Presbyterian Church, with “Peace Offering” in the memo line.

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.

We hope you—and your pets!—will join us via Zoom for our annual Blessing of the Animals this Sunday afternoon.

This year our Blessing of the Animals will be virtual, as we gather online with our animal friends to thank God for the gift of special creatures in our lives.

3:00 p.m. via Zoom

For the Zoom details, register at www.bit.ly/animalblessing20

With the Illinois Graduated Tax Amendment on the general election ballot in Illinois this November, the Equitable Education Committee at Fourth Church will be hosting a Zoom panel discussion about the amendment—with special emphasis on the impact on education funding—this Tuesday, October 6 at 7:00 p.m.

David Greising, President and CEO of the Better Government Association, will moderate the conversation of panelists Ralph Martire (President of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability and Arthur Rubloff Endowed Professor of Public Policy at Roosevelt University), Leslie Munger (Former Illinois State Comptroller and Deputy Governor), and Robin Steans (President of Advance Illinois).

7:00 p.m.

For the Zoom details, register at www.bit.ly/taxamendment

Congratulations to Joe Morrow, whom the congregation elected this past Sunday to serve as Associate Pastor for Evangelism and Community Engagement! We are deeply grateful to Joe for his ongoing partnership in mission and ministry here at Fourth Church.

In our Presbyterian tradition, a call is a three-way call—between the minister, the congregation, and the presbytery, and so at the November 17 meeting of the Presbytery of Chicago this call will come before that body for their affirmation and approval.

We also extend our gratitude to the Associate Pastor Nominating Committee who unanimously recommended Joe—Ken Gaines; Elizabeth Hurley; Jared Light; Brian Satre, chair; Linnea Schramm; Kashane Taylor; and Jessica Wang. Thank you for your time and dedication throughout the search process!

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.

This Sunday we kick off our 2021 Stewardship Campaign for Fourth Church and Chicago Lights. In doing so, we will celebrate the particular ways in which this faith community is committed to actively participating in God’s re-creating and reconciling work in this world, and we will also 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.

7:00 p.m. via Zoom

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

This fall the Adult Education Committee is organizing a remote book club, specializing in nonfiction titles that they have found especially thought-provoking. They invite you to join them via Zoom for a moderated discussion of these scintillating reads.

To launch this series of conversations, author and Fourth Church member Jeanne Bishop will talk about her book Grace from the Rubble, in which she tells a story of pain and forgiveness in the aftermath of one of America’s greatest tragedies: the Oklahoma City bombing. As the publisher notes, this “powerful new book tells the heart-stirring story of how the father of a young woman killed in the Oklahoma City bombing and the father of her killer, Timothy McVeigh, forged an unlikely friendship and found forgiveness.”

9:30 a.m.

For Zoom details, register at www.bit.ly/3bTHnZd

This three-week class concludes this week with a presentation by Cassie Burke, Bureau Chief for the Chicago edition of Chalkbeat. Chalkbeat is an independent news organization committed to covering stories impacting the effort to improve schools for all children, especially those who have historically lacked access to a quality education.

If you were not able to be with us for the first two sessions with Derrick Dawson and Dr. Maurice Swinney, you can watch them here.

12:30 p.m.

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

In our weekly “Foundations of Faith” encounter with the Bible, members of the pastoral staff are taking turns hosting three-week thematic studies of biblical texts at 12:30 p.m. on Sundays.

This week David Handley will conclude our discussion around the theme “Knowing God, Loving God, Serving God.”

6:00 p.m. via Zoom

For Zoom details, email Anne Ellis

The book group Books by Women has been hosting conversations for more than twenty years to discuss classic and contemporary works by women authors. All women are invited to join in the discussions whenever their schedules allow and the books are of interest.

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

After the success of our small groups via Zoom this summer, we are now making plans to launch additional groups to meet for six weeks beginning this month.

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 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#

The Nominating Committee has extended the deadline for submitting names of individuals recommended for roles in church leadership—whether as Elder, Deacon, or Trustee or for Nominating Committee or Chicago Lights Board member.

The last day to send names to the committee will be Friday, October 9, so if you have not yet taken opportunity to do so, please take a moment today to complete the Leadership Candidate Form online at www.bit.ly/nominating2020.

Married September 19, 2020

Died September 11, 2020