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Sundays at 9:30am.
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THIS WEEK AT A GLANCE
Sunday Sermon
Don’t you know?
Matthew 7:21-23
FEATURED UPDATES
CHURCH PRAYER MEETING!
“Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.” Colossians 4:2
The Church prayer meetings are on Zoom every Monday night at 7pm!
Zoom ID: 859 848 614
Password: geecc
All are welcomed to this sweet hour of prayer! See you there!
Next steps
Next Steps: Discerning God’s Will for Our Lives, a class for Young Adults (college-aged and 20-somethings, taught by Pastor Dawn and Dr. David Lauber, held in the North Alcove)
Your Family Story: Parenting with Purpose ( Feb. 12, Feb. 19, taught by Dr. David and Tara Van Dyke, held in Munson Hall)
-Pastor Dawn Lauber, Associate Pastor of Congregational Life
IMPORTANT NEWS FROM THE ARK
an update from the ark preschool
February is a big month at The Ark Preschool as we are gearing up for fall enrollment for the 2023-2024 school year. We started accepting applications on February 1st and classes are filling up very quickly! If you have family, friends or neighbors with preschool age children, please have them call The Ark Office at 630-858-7755 or e-mail me (holly.pelsor@gecovenant.org) for registration information. Applications are located outside of my office and on The Ark Preschool website.
I want to thank those of you who donated to the Love Offering on January 29th. All donations went towards The Ark Scholarship Fund which helps families who are unable to afford full tuition for their children due to a number of life circumstances.
We have a scholarship family in our Fours Afternoon Class that recently moved to West Chicago. Due to only having one car, the family is having a hard time getting the child to and from preschool every day and is looking for someone to help transport him on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoons. School starts at 12:30 and ends at 3:00. Please contact myself or Lois Hanson if you would like to help and want additional information.
Thank you for your support of The Ark ministry to our community and church family.
BOOK CLUB
Join us on Zoom each Thursday evening, 7:30-8:30pm as we discuss Pastor David Swanson’s “Rediscipling the White Church: From Cheap Diversity to True Solidarity”.
All are welcome!
Pastor Swanson is the Pastor of New Community Covenant Church, a multicultural congregation in Chicago's Bronzeville neighborhood, and speaks around the country on the topics of racial justice and reconciliation.
If you are interested in joining, contact Darren Miller, Mary Crickmore, or the church office.
A letter of thanks from the hudsons
Pastor Jeff and the Glen Ellyn Evang. Covenant Church,
We are so grateful for all the incredible support for our family during this very difficult time.
Thank you so much!
-The Hudson Family
Men’s Ministry Update
Covenant Point Men's Retreat: Feb. 24-26, 2023
Each year, Covenant Point hosts a men’s retreat for Covenant Churches in the Midwest. We have had a number of men from our church attending this annual event in years past. Whether there is one, or a dozen men from our church, it has always been a great time of fellowship, worship, and learning. Please check out the link below to learn more (and register if you wish).
2023 Men’s Retreat Covenant Point Bible Camp
7pm Friday, Feb 24 – 10am Sunday, Feb 26
Come for a weekend of fun, fellowship, meaningful conversation, and worship. Invite your friends for the excellent food, good times, and life-giving worship and messages. Recreational opportunities include a broomball tournament, afternoon jam session (bring your own instrument), snowshoeing, cross-country skiing on our groomed trails, sauna and polar bear dip, or games and conversation in the dining hall.
Check-in begins at 7:00 PM on Friday, with our first gathering at 8:00 PM.
MISSIONS FOCUS
Missions Focus
Celebrating 37 Years in Missions
This coming Sunday, we will hear from Scott and Mary Crickmore about their missions careers. They shared the following intriguing biographical narrative.
In 1982 when Scott and Mary met on a New York-Paris-Tel Aviv TWA flight, Scott was a B-52 pilot in the Air Force Strategic Air Command nuclear deterrent force, and Mary was on the staff of Young Life in Oklahoma City. A year later they were married by Pastor Liljegren here at Glen Ellyn Covenant Church, where Mary grew up. They began to look for mission opportunities, focusing on unreached people groups. In March of 1985, during the African famine, they went to Mali short term with the Christian Reformed Church to manage transportation and distribution of food aid. They were invited to commit to a long-term ministry to the Fulani people group, who are Muslim herders.
In 1987 Scott and Mary moved into a Fulani village to do incarnational evangelism (identifying with and living like the local people to the extent possible) and development work. During the next 24 years, they lived part time in the village and part time in the capital, and worked on public health, access to veterinary help and animal medicine, literacy, land rights, irrigation, and Bible studies using the texts that were being produced by Wycliffe and the Norwegian Mission Society. They became involved in the Bible translation work for Fulani language variants in six countries using new computer software, and Scott coordinated an annual conference and training for all the Fulani translation teams. In 2006, the New Testament for Malian Fulani was dedicated. By 2025, some of those teams will have complete Bibles.
Since 2005, their roles shifted to more administration and support of nationals and younger missionaries. In response to an invitation from The Seed Company, Scott changed organizations in 2011 to support the funding of Bible translation projects full time. When they retired in November 2022, Scott was a regional director over 10 countries and Mary was a regional director throughout five countries. They both mentored younger people (with more energy!) who have taken over their roles.
They will share more this Sunday, Feb. 12, briefly during the worship service and more in depth during the Sunday School hour. We hope you will be able to join us.
Other Items
Information on ongoing needs and opportunities with our missions partners is available from Darren Miller via missions@gecovenant.org and the missions partners’ websites. Let Darren know if you would like to be added to the distribution list for their newsletters. The GE COV Prayer Letter, available via Diane Brown, shares how we may pray for our missionaries. Our missions display case in the church atrium shows highlights of our missionaries and ministry partners.