Church guide

Sunday 8:15 a.m. Worship in the (Air Conditioned) Chapel 10:15 a.m. Worship in the Fellowship Hall

I was a site manager for the South Suburban PADS program in Oak Lawn for 12 years. In the early years when we didn’t have much room and there would come a point in the evening when I had to determine who I turned away and who I let in. Women and children always got in, younger men often had to think about where else they could stay. I’ve heard the stories that were too good to be true, and I know that I’ve been conned a time or two. But I came to realize my being a part of a team that helped people who were homeless was not about whether they were ‘truly deserving’ or not. In twelve years we had one guest who was voluntarily homeless (she was a lay Franciscan living a life of voluntary poverty in penance for her divorce, and a good guest, someone who was very helpful to other guests). But no one goes to a homeless shelter because they want to, they go because they have to. The real question of motivation was why do we do this sort of service? It is true that there was nothing this good on television on Thursday night. But I came to realize that this was not so much about the moral worth of our guests as it was about the kind of person that I wanted to be. Did I want to be the kind of person who turned his back on people who were suffering, or did I want to be the kind of person who stepped up and did something? That’s our question as well. Please join us in support of PADS of Elgin. Rev. Michael H. Montgomery, Ph.D.

Tomorrow our youth and adult mission team set forth for Providence, Rhode Island for a week long mission trip. They will fly to get there (more expensive than the usual renting of a bus, but not by much) but they will stay for free at the Conference Retreat Center (much cheaper than usual) so that the final costs are about the same as when they’ve gone places in the Midwest. We send them on mission trips so that they will learn to have giving hearts, to experience the joy that comes from helping others. We send them to learn about the discovery of Jesus in these acts of service and fellowship. We send them to help form them in their faith so that they combine the love of God and the love of their neighbors. We will pray them off at 8:30 a.m. They will meet at 8:30 a.m. and leave at 9 to catch their flights. Join us if you can, otherwise pray at home and rejoice in the adventure that is to come!

The charge was murder in the first degree. The defendant was filmed by two different people shooting a man who was part of a group that was confronting him and had suck-punched another man from the rear. Everybody ran. Gangs were, or were not, involved. On this point and others, everybody lied. Three years later (why?) I was an alternate on the jury trying the case (why?). As I looked around the courtroom it was a like a stage of an opera: the defendant on trial for his life; the chief witness, who lied a lot but who might be telling the truth now; the parents of the deceased, grieving for their son who had run out of second chances; the parents of the accused, looking at losing their son. And of course, in silent testimony, there was the deceased: never present but never away, either. We can talk about the meaning of the ‘Good News of Jesus Christ’ in the abstract, but what does it mean in these particular lives? And what does it mean in our lives? We will discuss these questions and more in our Sunday worship services at 8:15 and 10:15 a.m.

https://www.ucc.org/daily_devotional_beyond_bravery

https://www.ucc.org/daily_devotional_body_talk_7_06_2019

https://www.ucc.org/daily_devotional_the_gospel_for_the_person_who_has_everything

Over 30 people joined us on our first 'eco-tour' of environmentally sustainable gardens and lawns. Next month: Fermi Labs!

8:15 a.m. Worship, with Communion 10:15 a.m. Worship, with Communion 2:00 p.m. Garden Tour of Ecologically Designed Sustainable gardens

On Sunday we are all invited to a garden tour with a difference. While we have any number of members who are noted for their truly fabulous displays of flowers and vegetables, there is a smaller group that has focused their lawns and gardens to reflect native species of plants and grasses that require less maintenance and are better for the environment (they require less irrigation and use of pesticides and herbicides). Come join us to learn and explore! We will depart from the church at 2 p.m. and go first to Pat and David Segel’s house. Other stops include Paul and Cynthia Stockdale’s, Jim Hinton and Vickie Frederick’s, John and Lori Schultz. This will be a ‘low exercise’ tour—no long hikes into the woods! All are welcome!

Our mission of the month for July will be PADS of Elgin. The PADS movement began across the United States as a way of addressing the exploding problem of homelessness for people who had lost their homes with the end of government assistance programs in the mid 1980s. PADS (depending upon the community, the acronym usually stood for Public Action to Deliver Shelter) faced the problem of the ‘not in my back yard’ syndrome by rotating the shelter from church to church to synagogue to mosque across a community so that there never was a ‘homeless ghetto’ in a community. This church led the creation of Elgin’s PADS program, many of us remember moving the pads from church to church before the formation of a single site down near the intersection of Highway 20 and State Street. At a bare minimum, PADS keeps people from freezing to death in the winter. Elgin’s PADS operation focuses upon getting services to people who are homeless so that that they can get their lives back together and can resume normal life with a home and employment. Elgin’s PADS program boasts an 80% success rate in moving people from homelessness to homes. We have deep roots with PADS of Elgin: our minister Don Schmidt was instrumental in its creation, Dennis Hewitt was its executive director for many years, our member Steve Stauffacher is the chairperson of its Board of Directors. We usually have funded PADS through a mission grant, but through the mistake of one of their employees they did not make a request even though it was needed. We collect money in July for them as a way of supporting their work until we can get them back on our grant cycle. Please give!

https://www.ucc.org/daily_devotional_freed

Back in the 1960s sociologist Robert Bellah wrote a really important little article on what he called the ‘civil religion’ of the United States: we have a civic understanding of ourselves as Americans which can be described as a kind of religion that has its own rituals (pledge of allegiance, parades), holy days (4th of July and Memorial Day) prophetic figures (Bellah argued for Abraham Lincoln) and which lifted up our key values, and through Lincoln, a prophetic critique of America so that we are always in a state of calling ourselves back to our best selves. It is possible to study this your first year in college and specialize more and more in this topic for the rest of your life, but it is not without its criticisms: • From churches and spiritual leaders has come the argument that this makes America to be something that is worshipped and so is a rival to God and contrary to the 10 Commandments (“Thou Shalt have no other Gods before me.”)? • From others comes the belief that “My country, right or wrong” and we really should disregard the seeming ‘prophetic critique’ that gets offered as a thinly disguised partisan attack. • From others comes the criticism that Bellah left out key American values (chiefly capitalism) in his civil religion so that it is really incomplete. • While there might have been a prophetic critique of America back in the 1960s, that has long since disappeared from public discussion and these days we just celebrate America and being Americans. So what’s a good Christian to do? This Sunday Rev. Michael Montgomery will reflect on our faith and patriotism, based on Matthew 22:15-22.

https://www.ucc.org/daily_devotional_how_can_i_keep_from_singing_a

https://www.ucc.org/daily_devotional_drawn_out_to_draw_others

https://www.ucc.org/daily_devotional_o_lord_how_long

This is the day that our God has made! Let us rejoice and be glad! Worship at 8:15 a.m. in the Chapel Worship at 10:15 a.m. in the Fellowship Hall. All are welcome!

Building up the House of our God! At last Sunday’s Congregational Meeting we approved giving $15,000 to our denominational mission program, ‘Our Church’s Wider Mission’ (OCWM) to replace what wasn’t given out of our Mission Grants gifts in January. It is a long story: a request was not submitted on time so a grant was not given in January but then we got additional funds due to a change in the tax status of our mission fund so we had more money to give, and we gave it to a grateful Conference. The Church Council was given authority to spend a portion of the savings, up to $233,000, for building improvements including, but not limited to: air conditioning in the kitchen, Fellowship Hall and the offices; sanctuary carpeting; and sanctuary lighting.” The key words are ‘up to’ and ‘not limited to’ so that we can address building expenses without having to call a congregational meeting to vote on the perhaps inevitable ‘surprise’ costs of a major redevelopment project. (What’s a ‘surprise cost’? We’ve talked about lighting for the ceiling but are still collecting bids, the city of Elgin wants to relocate our water pipes from the west side to the south side of the building, and they want us to pay for it, we need to make up our minds as to whether we need new carpeting in the sanctuary, it might be time to redo the flat roof since it is 25 years old and the current cooks in the Soup Kettle really think that the stove in the kitchen is ready to be replaced with something that doesn’t burn their hands when they touch the dials, projects keep emerging. Nothing has been decided upon). There was debate: concern was raised that if we kept doing small projects we might never get around to ‘Phase 2’ of our renovation plan for the ‘new building’ on the east side which calls for the essential replacement of our elevator. That will take a capital campaign and might be 3 years away. Michael Blackwood returned to great excitement. An individual post on Facebook by our church usually draws 100 or so visits by people who read what we post. The Saturday post on Blackwood brought over 400 visits and a reporter from the Courier News. And the building up of the church goes on with both the replastering of the sanctuary and the weekly redesign of our basement worship space. Thank you to Bea and Rich Wagner for last Sunday! We look forward to what you want to do to enrich our worship! In the Congregational tradition, we always remember that we are the church, what we do, how we treat one another and what we live for is our expression of the Body of Christ. Let us build up one another with love and fullness!

https://www.ucc.org/daily_devotional_riparian_faith_communities_6_22_19

Please plan to join us for Elgin’s Interfaith Community Thanksgiving Service on Sunday, November 18th, 4pm Bethlehem Lutheran Church 340 Grand Blvd., Elgin.

Beautiful music today at FCC.