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Calendar of Upcoming Virtual & in Person Meetings in January/February 2022

• Worship with us in person or live streaming, Sunday, January 23, at 11:00 am. (Or you may watch the service using the link below anytime after that, at your leisure.)  Today, we welcome back to the pulpit Chaplain Mike Welf, Past Moderator of the Presbytery of Chicago, Elder at First Presbyterian Chicago Heights and Chaplain for the Chicago Heights Fire Department, as our preacher.   To begin worship, click here to go to this Sunday's worship service
• After worship, join us on Zoom from 12:15 to 2:00 p.m., where we can see each other and visit just like we did at our Heavenly Perks coffee time (except you provide your own cuppa  tea/coffee).  Click on the ZOOM picture below. (use picture link below)

  

• First Monday: Next Book Study | Kathleen O'Hanlon & Joyce Anders
  Zoom Link:  7 pm-8:30 April 4, 2022 So, what do we read next? I am proposing that we take the next three months away from meetings so that each of us can browse through bookstores or Amazon to find the book you would like our antiracism club to discuss. However, I am asking that it be a very different kind of book from "Stamped," fitting the following descriptors: 
  - short, rather than long
  - a personal story, rather than a panoramic history
  - concrete and sensory, rather than abstract and academic 
  Novels are fine as long as they portray some experience of racism in the United States. 
  When you find one--anytime within the next three months--please hit "reply all" and just tell us the title and author, and nothing more. We might want to browse through your selection ourselves and think about choosing it.
• Tuesdays: 10:30 a.m. every Tuesday Morning  at a Zoom meeting.  We are currently studying the Book of Acts.  Contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for more information (we formerly met at Panera and may meet at Panera again) 
• Tuesdays: | Tuesday Adult Education Class  | 7:00 pm Central Time | Tim VanNasdale
  Zoom Link for meeting:  Tuesdays, 7 pm (next class 01/25/22)    If  you are interested in participating in this book study, please click on the blue link above or let us know through email: the church office  or phone: 708-798-0490 so we can include you in the weekly email notification with the Zoom link.
• Zoom link for meeting Tuesday at 7 pm Illinois time. Update from Tim: I've decided to go with a curriculum called "Is the Bible Reliable?" You can see the promo for the class here. There is an $8 study guide, if you'd like to pick it up. You can purchase it here. There are 10 videos that we'll watch and discuss together. The titles for these videos are:
  • In the Footsteps of Abraham
  • The Exodus: From Egypt to Canaan
  • The Israelites Conquer the Promised Land
  • Israel's Rise to Prominence through David and Solomon
  • The Assyrian Invasion
  • The Babylonian Conquest of Judah
  • Investigating the Historical Authenticity of the New Testament
  • The Reliability of Luke and Acts
  • How Archeology Backs Up the New Testament
  • The Trial of Jesus

  The class is led by an author named Stephen Meyer. I'll leave some resources below for you to check out a bit more about him and his work, if you're interested. It's going to focus on methods for determining text historicity along with using insights from archeology as well. I'll likely be drawing in work from Titus Kennedy and Gleason Archer as we go through the course as well. I'm really looking forward to it.
• Sundays: | SundayWorship Service  We are now worshiping in the church building at 11 am on Sunday mornings.Access to our Live Streaming Service can be found on the "Worship Page" | Post Sunday Streaming Worship Meet-up is continuing on Zoom  12:15 - 2 p.m. Sunday  
• Healing & Wholeness Service date is: TBD.  We offer access to a Healing & Wholeness Service online  at any time.  This service is a time of reflection, prayer, and meditation.  This service can help us to experience anew God’s healing, peace-giving grace or refuel us for becoming agents of healing and reconciliation.  Taking time for this mimics a pattern for Jesus and his disciples.  They would be out in the thick of a clamoring multitude and then retreat to a quiet place to reconnect, recharge, and clarify their mission.  Our quiet place awaits us in this service online.  (Watch for an announcement for maybe private prayer time on Zoom after this service.) | Please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for prayer needs request.

Looking forward | scripture readings for next sunday, January 30

Jeremiah 1:4-10 ||| Revised Common Lectionary

4Now the word of the LORD came to me saying, 5"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations." 6Then I said, "Ah, Lord GOD! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy." 7But the LORD said to me, "Do not say, 'I am only a boy'; for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you, 8Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the LORD." 9Then the LORD put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the LORD said to me, "Now I have put my words in your mouth. 10See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant."

Luke 4:21-30 ||| Revised Common Lectionary 

 21Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." 22All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, "Is not this Joseph's son?" 23He said to them, "Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, 'Doctor, cure yourself!' And you will say, 'Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.'" 24And he said, "Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown. 25But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; 26yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian." 28When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 29They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. 30But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.