Sunday, October 23

10:00 a.m. worship in person and online

Shannon J. Kershner preaching

The worship bulletin is available to download and print

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

Audio available by phone (toll free) by calling 888.916.9166

Nursery care is available on Sundays at 9:45 a.m. on the fourth floor of the Gratz Center.

4:00 p.m. Jazz at Four worship in person

with Communion

in Buchanan Chapel

Lucy Forster-Smith preaching

The worship bulletin is available to download and print

Looking Ahead on the Worship Calendar

Next Sunday, October 30 is Reformation Sunday and Commitment Sunday, a day when we will both recall the rich heritage of the Protestant tradition and dedicate our 2023 pledge commitments to Fourth Church and Chicago Lights.

Sunday, November 6 is All Saints’ Sunday. Our 10:00 a.m. service that morning will include a time of remembrance for all departed loved ones, and as part of that remembrance the Morning Choir will sing Requiem by Maurice Duruflé.

Get your pets ready for an outing to the Michigan Avenue courtyard this Saturday, October 22!

We will be gathering Saturday morning at 10:00 a.m. for a Blessing of the Animals service, giving thanks to God for the creatures that bless our lives. All pets are welcome! (Please have them on leash or in a carrier.)

If you’d rather not bring your pets, please bring photographs of them and join us as we celebrate the wonders of God’s creation and our relationships with its creatures, great and small!

Our 2023 stewardship campaign for Fourth Presbyterian Church and Chicago Lights is underway, giving us opportunity to 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. 

It is also an invitation to each one of us to join in that work through our financial support.

In the days ahead, please prayerfully consider the investment you will make in your Fourth Church family and its work and the work of Chicago Lights in 2023 and make a pledge by next Sunday, October 30, which is also Commitment Sunday.

On that day everyone will be invited to come forward to place their pledge on the Communion Table, as we celebrate all that we are able to do together through our pledged commitment to Fourth Church and Chicago Lights—a commitment that is our generous response to God’s blessings in our lives. 

We also invite you to take time to reflect on the question “How is Fourth Church home to you?” We would welcome hearing your thoughts and stories about that, which you can share with our stewardship team at giving@fourthchurch.org

More about the 2023 stewardship campaign

“African American Spirituality

and the Continuous Struggle for U.S. Democracy”

This Sunday morning Randal Maurice Jelks—Professor of African and African American Studies and American Studies, clergy in the Presbyterian Church (USA), and a documentary film producer—will lead a one-session class on “African American Spirituality and the Continuous Struggle for U.S. Democracy.”

Sunday, October 23

8:45 a.m.

in Borwell Dining Room

Register for the class at www.bit.ly/spirituality1023

“Ezekiel: Where Is Home in Exile?”

Taught by Jina Kang of McCormick Theological Seminary, “Ezekiel: Where Is Home in Exile?” invites us to explore the biblical book of Ezekiel through the lens of migration.

This class will not meet this Sunday but will resume on October 30.

Sunday, October 30

11:15 a.m.

in Borwell Dining Room and via Zoom

Register for the class here

“Housing Insecurity: Advocacy Design Team”

A new class, “Housing Insecurity: Advocacy Design Team,” begins on Sunday, November 6 at 11:15 a.m. in Borwell Dining Room.

The Fourth Church Community Engagement Working Group, the Chicago Lights Board Strategy Committee, and the World Mission and Social Justice Advocacy Committee have collaborated to design this November series, which builds on our partnership with Habitat for Humanity.

Beginning Sunday, November 6

at 11:15 a.m.

in Borwell Dining Room

Register for the class at www.bit.ly/aehousing1122

Chicago Lights Tutoring is in need of in-person (at Fourth Church) and online mentors to connect one-to-one with a student (grades 1–12) one evening a week from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m.

There are volunteer openings for Permanent Tutors, who meet with the same student weekly, building relationships, trust, and self-esteem through academics, advising, and social and communication skills, as well as Substitute Tutors, who volunteer on a more flexible schedule to fill in when a Permanent Tutor is unavailable.

If you would like to learn more about how you can make a difference in the life of a child (and in yours!) through Tutoring, please contact Mark Dennison or visit chicagolights.org/volunteer/#tutoring

You are invited to stop by the Loggia Sunday morning to spend some time with the traveling panel exhibition “Shared History Project: 1700 Years of Jewish Life in German-Speaking Lands.”

Cohosted by the German Consulate of Chicago, Chicago Sinai Congregation, and Fourth Church, this exhibition uses iconic artifacts to explore how interwoven the lives of Jewish people and their non-Jewish neighbors have been in the seventeen centuries since the presence of Jews in the Rhineland was first documented in a Roman Edict from the year 321 CE.

It offers an opportunity to consider recurring themes in Jewish life and “expands the view of German-Jewish history beyond the narrow lens of the Holocaust and connects the unique history of the Jewish people to themes that are relevant to contemporary life in all diverse, pluralist societies.”

Also, this coming Wednesday, October 26 (the final day of the exhibition), Chicago Sinai and Fourth Church are cohosting a closing reception at 5:30 p.m. at Fourth Church. It will include Scott Kumer, Director of Music at Chicago Sinai Congregation, and John Sherer, Organist and Director of Music at Fourth Church, playing a short program of German organ music written for Jewish congregations.

The program will include works by Louis Lewandowski, Isadore Freed, Paul Ben-Haim, and Ernest Bloch and will finish with the well-known Hanukkah Hymn, Maoz Tzur / Rock of Ages, with all invited to sing in German, English, or Hebrew.

For more about this exhibition, which will also be open Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (enter at 126 E. Chestnut), see sharedhistoryproject.org

New Zoom Small Groups are starting the last week of October and will meet weekly for approximately a month.

Groups will be looking at The 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah-Jones; Hospitality: The Sacred Art by Nanette Sawyer; Silencing White Noise: Six Practices to Overcome our Inaction on Race by Willie Dwayne Francois III; So You Want to Talk about Race by Ijeoma Oluo; or history and current issues facing Indigenous peoples of the United States.

If you would like to connect with five to seven other people via Zoom for a time of fellowship, relationship building, and spiritual formation, please email Simon Crow.

On Friday evening, November 11, the Fourth Church Choral Society will join organist David Briggs in presenting Briggs’ organ transcription of Mahler’s Second Symphony “Resurrection.”

We hope you will join us at 7:30 p.m. that evening, whether in the Sanctuary or via livestream, for this concert celebrating the Dedication Anniversary of our Andrew Pipe Organ.