On the church calendar are many opportunities to connect online with the Fourth Church community and one another. 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).

For highlights of some of the opportunities you will find on the calendar, keep reading!

Lucy Forster-Smith preaching

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

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

Our online worship services are available live at 11:00 a.m. (Central) via

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

The Sunday service is available for viewing throughout the week at www.bit.ly/FPCworship.

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.

With our Ash Wednesday observances yesterday, we began our Lenten journey. In this season that calls us to embrace the faith journey by reflecting upon and deepening our relationship with God, we invite you to use our Lenten devotions for your daily reflections.

We hope these meditations, written by Fourth Church members and staff, will be a meaningful resource as we each take up the gifts of faith—worship, study, prayer, and service—in preparation for Holy Week and Christ’s journey to the cross.

7:00 p.m. online

For details, register at chicagolights.org/gala

Just two weeks from Friday is the virtual Chicago Lights Gala of Hope at Home! Have you registered to join us yet?

This year’s online event, for which registration is free, will be hosted by Ron Magers, include music by the Ken Arlen Evolution Orchestra, and raise funds for the life-changing youth development and social service programs of Chicago Lights—the community outreach arm of Fourth Church—and the community support efforts of our Replogle Center for Counseling and Well-Being.

During the Gala we will be auctioning off stays at vacation homes—a perfect, safe getaway from the city! If you or a family member or friend would be willing to donate time at your vacation home to support Chicago Lights and the Replogle Center while providing the gift of a time and place away for others, please contact Laura Woods (872.250.9266) or complete the online donation form.

Or if you would like to become a Gala sponsor, please let Laura know that as well.

How does faith drive us to continue Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy of the “Beloved Community” of inclusion and respect? What verses from our scriptures will guide us to be less polarized and see each other as neighbors, as colleagues, as brothers and sisters?

This coming Tuesday, the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago and Fourth Presbyterian Church will host an online interfaith dialogue focusing—in the context of scripture, theology, and faith tradition—on ways to build that Beloved Community as a faithful act.

Nanette Sawyer will join Dilnaz Waraich of the Muslim Community Center in moderating the event, which will feature as speakers the Reverend Barbara Wilson, the Presbytery of Chicago’s Director of Collaboration and Community Partnerships, and Dr. Syed Rizwan, Director of the Catholic-Muslim Studies Program at Catholic Theological Union.

The evening will include presentations as well as small-group discussions to help participants get to know each other. We hope you will join us!

7:00 p.m. via Zoom

For Zoom details, register at www.bit.ly/building0221

Save the date for a special online Michigan Avenue Forum on Monday, March 1 at 7:00 p.m. at www.fourthchurch.org.

That evening we will have opportunity to hear Shannon Kershner talk with Dr. Kevin Ban, Chief Medical Officer for the Walgreens Corporation and former faculty member at the Harvard Medical School, as they discuss COVID-19 vaccine distribution and implications.

We hope you will join us online for this important conversation!

Looking for book suggestions? Our First Tuesday Book Club and Books by Women groups have recommendations for you—as well as invitations to join them in conversation.

7:00 p.m. via Zoom

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

This book group hosted by the Adult Education Committee examines the ethical and social issues facing Christians today.

March book: Union Made: Working People and the Rise of Social Christianity in Chicago by Heath Carter

At our March gathering, Joe Morrow will lead a discussion with author Heath Carter about this book that advances a bold new interpretation of the origins of American Social Christianity.

In Gilded Age America, rampant inequality gave rise to a new form of Christianity, one that sought to ease the sufferings of the poor not simply by saving their souls but by transforming society. Rather than crediting the movement to middle-class ministers, seminary professors, and social reformers, Carter places working people—blacksmiths, teamsters, printers, and others—at the very center of the story and argues that their collective contribution to American Social Christianity was no less significant than that of Walter Rauschenbusch or Jane Addams.

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.

March book: Whose Body by Dorothy L. Sayers

In this first of the Lord Wimsey Chronicles, written in 1923, an amateur sleuth and cast of characters deal with a corpse in the bath.

Two of our mission and outreach programs are looking for volunteers to assist them with their work. Might you be able to help?

Fourth Church’s Employment Network, which works in partnership with the St. Sabina Employment Resource Center on the South Side, is looking for volunteers interested in supporting job-preparedness workshops on interviewing, entrepreneurship, or credit repair.

The skills of those volunteering for SCORE or CARE Chicago are especially needed as are individuals whose organizations can provide internship to job opportunities in the fields of health care, security, manufacturing, IT, retail, administrative, and commercial driving.

If you can help or would like to learn more, please email employmentnetwork@fourthchurch.org

Our Meals Ministry Sunday Night Supper is in need of cooks, servers, and runners to assist with these weekly “grab and go” meals.

Those interested in helping are asked to email Robert Crouch, Director of Volunteer Ministry. Safety and health standards are strictly followed.

This past Sunday, our morning worship service kicked off our celebration

of our 150th anniversary. Photographs from Fourth Church history were shown during the prelude, and Pastor Emeritus John Buchanan joined us as a worship leader. An octet from the Morning Choir premiered the anthem “A New Heaven and a New Earth,” which was commissioned for this anniversary occasion and written by renowned Norwegian composer Kim André Arnesen.

If you missed the service or would like to enjoy it again, you can find it at www.bit.ly/FPCworship. The bulletin from that worship service—with pictures on its cover of the three buildings called “Fourth Church” over the past century and a half—is also available online.

In recent days we have also shared the first in a series of monthly historical accounts, “Back and Fourth: 150 Seconds of History” as well as a letter to the congregation from the Executive Presbyter of the Presbytery of Chicago, Sue Krummel. If you missed either, you can read them online.

And be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram as well to see, throughout the year, photos from our history.

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