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CONTENTS
Have You Pledged to Let Your Light Shine?
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Worship This Week
Upcoming Music Events
Volunteer
one Have You Pledged to Let Your Light Shine?
2017 Annual Appeal
The 2017 Annual Appeal for Fourth Presbyterian Church and Chicago Lights is underway! Have you made your pledge yet?

Materials have been sent to member homes, with an invitation to consider how we might together let our light shine. As we reflect on how we embody Christ's love in everything we do--including how our giving supports this light in the city--we open ourselves to becoming transformed in our relationship to God, in our identity as Christians, and in the work we do together as Fourth Church and Chicago Lights.
 
An option for online pledging as well as more information about the 2017 Annual Appeal "Let Your Light Shine!" can be found on our website: www.fourthchurch.org/giving/appeal
 
Please make your pledge--and help us reach our goals of $3 million for Fourth Church and $500,000 for Chicago Lights--by Commitment Sunday, which is November 6, 2016, when we will celebrate our commitment to let our light shine!
 
two N. Ireland and Iona Deadlines Are Saturday!
Register for These Summer Trips
There are only a few more days left to sign up for next summer's music mission trip to Northern Ireland and for the spiritual pilgrimage to Iona, Scotland!
 
John Sherer and Vicky Curtiss will facilitate the July 10-19, 2017, trip to Northern Ireland, on which participants will have opportunity to offer the gift of music through concerts in churches and cities and learn about the impact of Northern Ireland's religious, political, and ethnic conflict as a way to understand conflict in other settings. Travelers will also explore local communities to learn from mission partners about peacemaking and reconciliation there as well as how to build peace and promote justice in our own communities.
 
Also next summer is opportunity to experience God's presence through times of contemplation in the beautiful island setting of Iona, Scotland. The Spiritual Formation Council at Fourth Church invites all to join Vicky Curtiss and Marsha Heizer for this July 19-31, 2017, pilgrimage. Participants will explore Celtic Christian spirituality, worship daily with the Iona Community at the Abbey, and learn the history of the island where St. Columba first brought Christianity to this part of the world. The pilgrimage will conclude in Edinburgh, Scotland, to learn about John Knox and worship at St. Giles' Cathedral, where Calum MacLeod is Minister.
 
Applications for the mission trip to Northern Ireland are available online here, and applications for the spiritual pilgrimage to Iona are available online here; registration is due by this Saturday, October 15. Participants may join both trips but will need to register separately.
  
threeWhat's Involved in Being a Tutor?
Volunteer with Chicago Lights Tutoring
We are still looking for individuals to be tutors and mentors for the 400 first- through twelfth-grade students who participate in the Chicago Lights Tutoring program!
 
Volunteers are especially needed on Thursday evenings from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m.
 
New volunteers are asked to attend a one-hour orientation session to learn more about the program and how to become a permanent or substitute tutor. The next volunteer orientation will be held this Saturday morning, October 15 at 10:40 a.m. in the Gratz Center. RSVP online here.
 
fourChristian Ethics and Political Discourse 
A Michigan Avenue Forum with Clarence Page
Next Monday, October 24 Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune will be joined by Princeton emeritus professor Robin Lovin and Fourth Church members Mary Schaafsma and Niala Boodhoo at 7:00 p.m. in the Sanctuary for "Morality, Christian Ethics, and Political Discourse," a conversation about the current path of morality in our country.
 
Join us for this discussion about the church's place in a conversation of morality, ethics, and politics and where, as a church, we can seek to make a difference.
 
Time:
     Monday, October 24
     7:00 p.m.
 
Place: 
     Sanctuary
 
fiveHoward Thurman with Rev. Carol Allen
Adult Education Class Starts This Sunday
The teachings of Howard Thurman, grandson of a former slave and one of the most influential religious leaders of the last century, will be the topic of a class led by the Reverend Carol Allen, former Fourth Church pastoral staff member and current spiritual director, and beginning this Sunday.
 
During this three-week course "Standing at the Wall: The Life and Legacy of Howard Thurman," we will use Thurman's book Jesus and the Disinherited to explore his central question: "What good is Jesus to those whose backs are up against the wall?"
 
Participants will explore how Thurman's answer can be a resource for us in our own personal lives when we face dehumanizing forces and as we commit to the formation of God's "beloved community."
 
Copies of Jesus and the Disinherited can be purchased at the Book Nook during Coffee Hour on Sunday morning.
 
Time:
     Sundays, October 16-30
     11:00 a.m.
 
Place:
     Room 5G

sixRequiem and Mozart's Mass in C Minor
Save the Date for November Concerts
Mark your calendars for two special concerts next month!
 
On Sunday evening, November 6 the Morning Choir will sing Maurice Duruflé's Requiem during an All Saints' Communion service of remembrance at 6:30 p.m. in the Sanctuary.

That Friday, November 11, the Fourth Church Choral Society will perform Mozart's Mass in C Minor with Fourth Church orchestra-in-residence Camerata Chicago at 7:00 p.m. in the Sanctuary. Tickets for this concert are available through Camerata Chicago. (Use code FPCC at checkout for a 50 percent discount.)
 
We hope to see you at one of both of these musical events!
 
Time:      
      Requiem : Sunday, November 6 at 6:30 p.m.
      Mozart: Friday, November 11 at 7:00 p.m.
 
Place:
      Sanctuary
 
sevenVolunteer with the Social Service Center
Register for an Orientation Session Today!
The Chicago Lights Elam Davies Social Service Center is looking for volunteers to assist guests in the Share Shop or the Consumer Choice Food Pantry, to interact--through Good Neighbors Street Outreach--with individuals experiencing homelessness, or to help with administrative needs.
 
To learn more about the Social Service Center and how you can help, please attend a one-hour orientation session; the next session will be offered this Thursday, October 20 at 3:00 p.m. in Room 4E. Opportunity to tour the Social Service Center will take place following orientation.
 
Advance registration for the orientation is required and can be done online here. For more information, contact Jill Keiser (312.981.3590).
 
eightLearn about Selah Freedom with Sunlight Project
Join Us on October 29
Fourth Church's Sunlight Project will host Selah Freedom, a nonprofit organization working to end sex trafficking, on Saturday, October 29 at 9:30 a.m. in the Gratz Center. The organization is opening a home in Chicago for survivors of sex trafficking.
 
Selah Freedom CEO and President Elizabeth Fischer, who previously presented at the Women at Fourth November 2015 gathering, will explain how to join the organization's volunteer team and the various opportunities available to make a difference in the lives of these survivors.
 
To RSVP (required), email volunteer@selahfreedom.com.
 
Time:      
     Saturday, October 29
     9:30-10:30 a.m.
 
Place:
     Gratz Center
 
nineGala of Hope: February 24 at Hyatt Regency
Save the Date for This Annual Benefit
We hope you'll join us for this year's Gala of Hope, a fun-filled evening benefiting the five outreach programs of Chicago Lights and the Replogle Center for Counseling and Well-Being. Invitations for this annual benefit will be mailed in January, so be sure to watch your mailbox then!
 
Cochaired by Elaine Scales and Martha Sabol, the Gala of Hope will be held on Friday, February 24, 2017, at the Hyatt Regency Chicago (151 E. Upper Wacker).Highlights include a cocktail hour, three-course seated dinner, live music and dancing provided by the Ken Arlen Evolution Orchestra, a mystery wine sale, prize drawings, and silent and live auctions featuring unique experiences, getaways, entertainment, and more.
 
To see pictures from last year's event, visit the Chicago Lights page on Facebook.
 
worship Worship This Week
Sunday, October 16, 2016
8:00 a.m. with Communion
Shannon J. Kershner, Pastor, preaching
Scripture texts:
   Psalm 121

   Luke 18:1-8 

9:30 and 11:00 a.m.
, New Members (11:00)
Shannon J. Kershner, Pastor, preaching
Scripture texts:
     
4:00 p.m. Jazz Service with Communion
Abbi Heimach-Snipes, Pastoral Resident, preaching
   "Hoping for God's Justice"
Scripture texts:
 
Worship bulletins
for this coming Sunday are available online Friday afternoon at www.fourthchurch.org/worship/this-week.html
 
"News and Opportunities"
is the weekly printed newsletter distributed with the Sunday bulletin and is available online Friday afternoon at www.fourthchurch.org/news/2016/101616no.pdf

Sermons
from previous weeks are posted online at www.fourthchurch.org/sermons 

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Concerts at Fourth Church
Friday Noonday concerts are free.  

Friday, October 14, 2016
Camerata Chicago
(Orchestra-in-Residence at Fourth Church)
   performing romantic classics with
Amelia Piscitelli, violin prodigy
7:00 p.m. in Buchanan Chapel
Tickets available online (Use coupon code FPCC for 50 percent discount)

Friday, October 21, 2016
Roosevelt University Choirs
12:10 p.m. in Buchanan Chapel

Friday, October 28, 2016
John W. W. Sherer, organist
(Organist and Director of Music at Fourth Church)
12:10 p.m. in the Sanctuary

Friday, November 4, 2016
Natasha Stojanovska, pianist
12:10 p.m. in Buchanan Chapel
Cosponsored by the Musicians Club of Women
   

A complete concert schedule is available online.
 
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volunteer Volunteer at Fourth Church
There are several ways to get involved in the mission and ministry of Fourth Church. See below for details!
 
Current Volunteer Needs

Shower Ministry Greeters to check in and provide supplies to guests of the Meals Ministry program; Tuesdays, 1:15-4:00 p.m., on a rotating schedule.

In2It Café instructors
to teach thirty-minute enrichment classes--from yoga to chess to dance to creative writing--to Chicago Lights Tutoring students on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, or Thursdays, the first week of October through mid-December, from 5:25 to 5:55 p.m.

Sunday School office assistant to perform administrative tasks one Sunday each month from 9:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.

Tutors
for the Chicago Lights Tutoring program


To sign up for any of these volunteer opportunities or to learn more about them, stop by Coffee Hour on Sunday morning or email volunteerministry@fourthchurch.org.
 
A complete list of volunteer needs is available online