As you look for ways to connect with the Fourth Church community and one another, be sure to check the church calendar, where you will find many opportunities to do so. Included among them are

• “Classics of Lenten Music,” in person and via Zoom, on Sunday morning, March 30
• Online Coffee Hour via Zoom on Sundays
• Men’s Bible Study via Zoom on Tuesday mornings
• Knitting and Crocheting in person on Tuesday morning, April 1
• Benevolent Guild in person on Wednesday mornings
• Free Friday Noonday Concerts, in the Sanctuary and livestreamed; presented by soprano Amanda Pabyan and pianist Julia Siciliano on April 4
• Cornerstones dinner and program, in person on Friday, April 4, on “When Welcoming the Stranger Is Uncomfortable” (registration required at bit.ly/cornerstones202504)
• “Arts and Culture: Flowers and Liturgy,” led by Shawn Fiedler, in person and via Zoom, on Sunday morning, April 6
• “Meals Ministry Pop-Up,” with an opportunity to sample bag lunch from the program, during 12:00 p.m. Coffee Hour on Sunday, April 6
• Inquirers’ Class in person on Sunday, April 6
• Books by Women discussing, in person, Clouds of Witness (A Lord Peter Wimsey Mystery) by Dorothy L. Sayers on Tuesday evening, April 8
• Women’s Bible Study via Zoom, at noon and in the evening, on Wednesday, April 9
• Art Exhibition Opening Reception in person on Thursday evening, April 10

You can also find the day’s events on the bottom of our website home page

Fourth Sunday in Lent, March 30

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

11:00 a.m. worship in person

Tom Are Jr., Interim Pastor, preaching

Worship bulletin

About This Sunday’s Sermon

Peter was following Jesus. That’s a good thing.

From their first encounter, Jesus called Peter to follow. Yet the text states that Peter follows “at a distance.”

The distance was less a statement of Peter’s physical location and more a statement of Peter’s heart. From a distance, fear is real, and denial is possible.

If you will be worshiping online this Sunday, please join us for Online Coffee Hour.

We will gather via Zoom at 10:30 a.m., after the service concludes, and have a time of fellowship and connection with one another and a member of the pastoral staff.

Sundays

10:30 a.m.

via Zoom at bit.ly/coffeehourzoom

You are invited to remember or honor a loved one with a contribution toward the Easter flowers that will decorate the Sanctuary. A list of individuals remembered and honored will be printed in the Easter bulletin.

Contributions can be made online at bit.ly/fpcgift and must be received by next Sunday, April 6 for names to appear in the bulletin.

For more information, contact Andrea Miller.

As Brian Satre of the Long-Range Plan Progress Task Force shared this past Sunday, when Fourth Church adopted its long-range plan in 2024, leadership also committed to regularly survey the congregation to discern your sense of the alignment of Fourth Church’s ministry with the plan.

The task force recently launched the initial Long-Range Plan Progress Pulse Survey, which they would appreciate you completing at bit.ly/fpclrpsurvey25. The survey is also linked on the home page of our website. We ask that each member of your household complete the survey, once each.

Your input will help us continue to live into our calling to love God and love one another as we strengthen our commitment to

• faith formation
• connections and belonging
• community engagement and partnerships
• church sustainability

Thank you for sharing your feedback!

Note that this collection of responses is separate from the Online Church Family Survey for which we asked your input in previous weeks.

If you completed that one, please complete this one also.

LGBTQIA+ Task Force Members

The Fourth Church Session is forming a task force to improve our welcome to and inclusion of transgender and gender nonbinary persons of all ages.

You can learn more at bit.ly/taskforce42025

The task force will be appointed by Interim Pastor Tom Are and the co-clerks of Session, Jared Light and Allison Youngblood.

If you or someone you know is interested in helping this group make its recommendations, please use the above link to submit your name by Friday, April 11.

Holy Week Ushers

We are in need of ushers for our Holy Week services this year.

We will be worshiping on

• Maundy Thursday, April 17 at 6:30 p.m.
• Good Friday, April 18 at 12:10 p.m.
• Good Friday, April 18 at 6:30 p.m.

If you are available to usher at one or more of those Holy Week services, please sign up at bit.ly/holyweekushers25

In a one-session adult education class this Sunday — “Classics of Lenten Music” — Musical Director of Classical WFMT Oliver Camacho will talk about masterpieces of Lenten music, particularly Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater (1736), a harrowing portrait of grief composed in the final weeks of the composer’s life and one of the most enduring and celebrated works of the Italian Baroque.

Other early eighteenth-century works appropriate for Holy Week, including those by Couperin, Bach, and Lotti, will be considered as we examine such features as the differences in national styles and reflect on the role of music in our Lenten journey.

Sunday, March 30

11:00 a.m.

Borwell Dining Room and via Zoom

For Zoom details, register at bit.ly/lentenmusic

During this season of Lent, flowers play a significant role in Christian liturgy.

Next Sunday, April 6 Shawn Fiedler will lead us in a discussion of the symbolism of particular flowers in scripture and theology during the one-session class “Arts and Culture: Flowers and Liturgy.”

He will be joined by Will Nifong and Colin Collete, owners of Mangel Florist, as we consider what meaning we draw from floral displays during holiday periods as well as Ordinary Time.

Sunday, April 6

11:00 a.m.

Borwell Dining Room and via Zoom

Register at bit.ly/flowers42025

This Sunday, March 30 is the deadline for junior and senior high students to sign up for our 2025 summer youth trips.

Come find out why so many youth have described the summer trips as the favorite and most meaningful part of their Fourth Church youth group experience!

Junior High Mission Trip to St. Louis

(incoming sixth grade through incoming eighth grade)

June 15–20

Sign up at bit.ly/jhsummer25

Senior High Mission Trip hosts Youngstown Youth Group in Chicago 

(incoming ninth grade through graduated twelfth grade)

June 28–July 3

Sign up at bit.ly/shsummer25

Montreat Youth Conference

(incoming eighth grade through graduated twelfth grade)

July 26–August 2 

Sign up at bit.ly/fpcmontreat25

Meals Ministry Pop-Up on April 6

Through the Bag Lunch program on Tuesdays through Thursdays —as well as Sunday and Monday Night Suppers — Fourth Church Meals Ministry provides nutritious meals and welcoming hospitality to neighbors who are hungry.

Next Sunday you are invited to learn more about the Bag Lunch program while sampling one of the lunches during the 12:00 p.m. Coffee Hour.

Sunday, April 6

12:00 p.m.

Anderson Hall

Micah 6:8 Circle

Micah 6:8 calls us to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God as a gathered church community and in our everyday lives.

Grounded in that calling, we are forming a small group to support each other in everyday acts of justice seeking and doing good in the world.

It will be a place of processing and discernment for those wanting to make a difference in their neighborhood, workplace, or networks on social issues ranging from hunger and housing to racial equity, climate change, and good governance.

Once a month the small group will meet via Zoom and occasionally in person to share how we are approaching these issues in our individual lives. We’ll review what we have done to advance the good in our chosen causes and concerns, and using the approach of Ignatian Spirituality, we’ll engage in reflection on where we have experienced encouragement and challenges. Then we’ll help each other discern next steps for the following month using the resources of the Quaker Clearness Committee. 

For details, email Joe Morrow, Associate Pastor for Evangelism and Community Engagement.

Cornerstones:

“When Welcoming the Stranger Is Uncomfortable”

For their April gathering, Cornerstones — a monthly fellowship opportunity for those fifty and over — will welcome the Reverend Dr. Beth Brown, Pastor of Lincoln Park Presbyterian Church, as their program speaker.

Dr. Brown will talk on the topic of “When Welcoming the Stranger Is Uncomfortable.” 

She will specifically consider what role can and should churches be playing in the sanctuary movement? Under the current administration, are there limitations to how churches can advocate for the protection of migrant families? 

Come join us in deepening and strengthening our welcome and hospitality.

Friday, April 4 

5:30–5:45 p.m. Networking

5:45–6:30 p.m. Dinner

6:00 p.m. Speaker

6:45–7:30 p.m. Discussion, Dessert, and Coffee

Anderson Hall

Register (required) at bit.ly/cornerstones202504

If you are interested in touring Vietnam and Cambodia with our choir in 2027, please join us this Wednesday evening, April 2 at 5:00 p.m. in Room 4G for an information session.

Or to learn more, email Emma Cox.

Wednesday, April 2

5:00 p.m.

Room 4G

Our World Mission and Social Justice Council invites you to join them on Thursday evening, April 10 for the official opening of the art exhibition “Exploration to Expansion.”

This newest exhibition in our Loggia Gallery features work from our community partner the Firehouse Community Arts Center, a West Side organization engaged in youth development and transformation.

The reception will offer a unique opportunity to hear young artists between ages fifteen and twenty-four talk about their diverse works in photography, murals, paintings, and self-portraits.

Thursday, April 10

5:30–7:30 p.m.

6:00 p.m. Artist Talk

Loggia

RSVP at bit.ly/artopening41025

Lenten Commitment to Justice Seeking

As we prepare to celebrate Easter with its promise of new life, the forty days of Lent are a time to take on practices that draw us closer to God and God’s vision for our world. Part of that vision includes doing justice for and with our neighbors. 

Fourth Church justice-related ministries invite you to take on a Lenten challenge: make at least one commitment to do good for others this season and extend your commitment into Eastertide (April 20–June 8) 

There are many ways to support neighbors in need, honor their stories and gifts, or advocate for the vulnerable. Consider attending one of our church-sponsored events at the Fourth Church campus or with our community partners. Work to meet a need for neighbors in your home community or place of work or networks of friends.

If you will be worshiping with us in person this weekend, we encourage you to stop by Coffee Hour to write out a commitment card and tie it to the trellis.

One Great Hour of Sharing

Throughout Lent we are receiving a One Great Hour of Sharing Offering (OGHS).

This special offering supports Fourth Church Meals Ministry; Chicago Lights Tutoring and Social Service Center; and the work of Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, Hunger, and Self-Development of People programs.

You can make a gift to this special offering by using the envelopes in the pew racks or by designating “OGHS” when giving at fourthchurch.org/give or via Venmo or by writing it on the memo line of a check made payable to Fourth Presbyterian Church.

Lenten Podcast and Video Reflections

The latest addition to our podcast offerings — weekly “Rhythm and Word” reflections from the pastoral staff — began with Tom Are thinking with us, over four weeks, about the Beatitudes.

This month Nancy Benson-Nicol and Joe Morrow invite us to join them in leaning into the book of Psalms as a resource for our Lenten journey and our preparation for Easter.

You can find these weekly five-minute reflections at fourthchurch.org/podcasts or by using popular podcast platforms such as Apple Podcast and Spotify.

You can also find them in video format on our YouTube channel.

Lenten Devotions

Also available as a resource for your personal prayer and meditation during the season, our daily Lenten devotions take us on a forty-seven-day journey through the story of salvation, beginning in Genesis and leading us to the cross and, finally, the empty tomb.

If you would like to receive them in your inbox, you can sign up at bit.ly/fpcdevotions; you will also find the devotions on fourthchurch.org/devotions, Facebook, and Instagram.

Interim Organist Doug Cleveland acknowledges the enthusiastic applause at the conclusion of today’s free Friday Noonday Concert, in which he performed several “Lenten-mood” pieces, including two works by Bach and three preludes based on familiar Lenten hymns.

You can watch the performance here.

Next week pianist Julia Siciliano and soprano Amanda Pabyan will present songs by Florence Price and Richard Strauss.

Members and neighborhood friends stopped by Borwell Dining Room on Saturday to donate blood for the quarterly blood drive cosponsored by the Center for Life and Learning and the office of Alderman Brendan Reilly (42nd Ward). Donations from the day will be used by forty-two people in the Chicago area.

Mark your calendar for the next blood drive at Fourth Church: Saturday, July 12.

At the monthly Chicago Exchange Japanese Fellowship in the Manse on Sunday, some children enjoyed painting projects while others put together large jigsaw puzzles.

To illustrate the feeding of the 5,000 — the only miracle, aside from the resurrection, recorded in all four Gospels (Matthew 14:13–21; Mark 6:31–44; Luke 9:12–17; John 6:1–14) — Sunday schoolers colored little loaves and big fishes and slipped them into paper “baskets.”

Nancy Bartell, the new Director for Youth and Young Adult Ministries, had a busy first Sunday on the job this past weekend, meeting first with the Junior High students, then the Senior Highs, and finally at Aster Hall with the TwentiesThirties group.

A rollicking good time was had by all at the annual Family Night Magic Show last Friday, as the Great Scott delighted his audience with disappearing polka-dot underwear, balloon versions of various zoo animals, and numerous appearances and reappearances of Tricky the Bunny.

Afterwards, the children got to try their hand at various magic tricks, including experiencing the joy and wonder of successfully pulling off the “disappearing ball” trick!

We invite you to explore our wide variety of ways to connect online with one another and Fourth Church, whether through livestreaming worship; taking part in Zoom Coffee Hour, Bible studies, or Morning Prayer; or attending classes that are offered both in-person and with a Zoom component.

Browse fourthchurch.org/online/connections to learn more!

Death

We give thanks to God for the gift of life eternal.

John Merriman

Died February 1, 2025

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, illnesses, hospitalizations, or deaths, please email Gloria Fleming, Assistant for Caring Ministries and Spiritual Formation; 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 to request support from a Stephen Minister, please leave a confidential message 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 312.787.8425 or visit reploglecenter.org