Join us Each week in person or online
Sundays at 9:30am.
THIS WEEK AT A GLANCE
Sunday Sermon
John 1:1-18; 2 Timothy 3:16-17
Songs: “Here I am to Worship” “Jesus Messiah” “Speak O Lord” “In Christ Alone”
FEATURED UPDATES
Annual congregational Meeting
Mark your calendar for January 28th at 6-7:30pm! We will gather to celebrate God’s faithfulness over the last year and prayerfully look ahead at 2024. We hope you join us!
SPRING SEMESTER COLLEGE DINNERS
Please sign up to bring a side dish or consider hosting our college students at your home.
Dates and sign ups can be found here: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0C45A9AD2BA1FB6-college2
adult Sunday School this winter
Important Dates:
January 7th- No adult Sunday school. Join us as we take down the Christmas decorations following Worship.
January 14th- Pastor Dawn leads a creative and interactive practice that reflects on the previous year and looks to the New Year.
January 21st- Jim and Hydi Peterson, our supported Covenant missionaries, share about their work in Japan.
January 28th, February 4th and 11th- Dr. David Lauber teaches on the patience of God.
February 18th, 25th, and March 3rd- Dr. David Van Dyke and Tara Van Dyke continue their class on relationships.
Winter retreat 2024
The Hi and Jr. League winter retreat is January 26th-28th at Covenant Harbor! Join us for a time of fun, and fellowship!
Book Club resumes
The racial justice book club will resume Thursday January 11, 7:30 - 8:30 p.m. on Zoom with the new book by Wheaton College Professor Esau McCaulley. How Far to the Promised Land.
For much of his life, Esau McCaulley was taught to see himself as an exception: someone who, through hard work, faith, and determination, overcame childhood poverty, anti-Black racism, and an absent father to earn a job as a university professor and a life in the middle class.
But that narrative was called into question one night, when McCaulley answered the phone and learned that his father—whose absence defined his upbringing—died in a car crash. McCaulley was being asked to deliver his father’s eulogy, to make sense of his complicated legacy in a country that only accepts Black men on the condition that they are exceptional, hardworking, perfect.
The resulting effort sent McCaulley back through his family history, seeking to understand the community that shaped him.
In these pages, we meet his great-grandmother Sophia, a tenant farmer born with the gift of prophecy who scraped together a life in Jim Crow Alabama; his mother, Laurie, who raised four kids alone in an era when single Black mothers were demonized as “welfare queens”; and a cast of family, friends, and neighbors who won small victories in a world built to swallow Black lives.
With profound honesty and compassion, he raises questions that implicate us all: What does each person’s struggle to build a life teach us about what we owe each other? About what it means to be human?
How Far to the Promised Land is a thrilling and tender epic about being Black in America. It’s a book that questions our too-simple narratives about poverty and upward mobility; a book in which the people normally written out of the American Dream are given voice.
If you want to know more about the book, watch this interview with Professor McCaulley at the Wheaton Library. Author Visit: Esau McCaulley
Book club welcomes everyone who wants to discuss the book even if you are not able to join every week.
makerspace
The next Makerspace will be This Sunday, January 7th, from 5-7pm. We will be focusing on joy and hope and rebuilding and happy memories!
RVSP to 2013themakersspace@gmail.com
adult bible studies
Our Women’s Evening Bible Study in the book of Acts, is every other Wednesday night, 6:30-8 PM (coinciding with the Midweek children’s program). Pastor Dawn will upload a video after each lesson, so you can watch if you miss it. Upcoming date: Jan. 10th. dawn.lauber@gecovenant.org Midweek Women's Bible Study Registration
Our Zoom Bible Studies on Hebrews, are Tuesdays 9:30-11am and Saturdays 8-9:30am Zoom link. (password if needed: Welcome!)
Our Men’s Evening Bible Study in 1st Timothy, is every other Wednesday, led by Pastor Jeff.
Wednesday (opposite of the Women’s Bible Study) 6:30-9pm. Upcoming dates: Jan. 17th
CHURCH PRAYER MEETING!
“Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.” -Colossians 4:2
ATTENTION: The Church prayer meetings are on Zoom every Monday night at 7pm!
Zoom ID: 859 848 614
Password: geecc
All are welcome to this sweet hour of prayer! See you there!
MISSIONS FOCUS
Christmas Greetings on their way
The Christmas letters are on their way to our global partners. Thank you for contributing your notes and words of cheer to the greetings!
