Join us Each week in person or online
Sundays at 9:30am.
THIS WEEK AT A GLANCE
Sunday Sermon
John 3:1-21
Songs: “On Christ the Solid Rock.” “Forever.” “Speak O Lord” “Amazing Grace”
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!
SMALL GROUPS
Pastor Dawn would like to connect with existing small groups and also form new ones for anyone who is looking to join.
As part of this re-engagement with small groups, she will provide six weeks of curriculum using spiritual practices around scripture and prayer.
Please Dawn if you are in need of a small group or if your group would like to use these resources (which will be available mid-February).
Email at dawn.lauber@gecovenant.org or sign up in Higher Grounds
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 14th- Pastor Dawn leads a creative and interactive practice that reflects on the previous year and looks to the New Year. (gym)
January 21st- Jim and Hydi Peterson, our supported Covenant missionaries, share about their work in Japan. (Family Life Center)
January 28th, February 4th and 11th- Dr. David Lauber teaches “The Patience of God in an Age of Acceleration” (gym)
February 18th, 25th, and March 3rd- Dr. David Van Dyke and Tara Van Dyke continue their class on relationships. (Family Life Center)
Student Ministry Updates
Important Updates;
The calendar on the Student Ministries page is updated with Sunday School and Confirmation dates. You can see that by clicking Student Ministries.
Jr League and Hi League kick-off the semester this week! 6:30-8:00pm and 7-8:30pm.
Sunday School starts back up this week and will be from 11-11:45am.
Confirmation is this week Sunday from 2-4pm!
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 This 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.
adult bible studies
BIBLE STUDIES RESTART IN THE NEW YEAR
Pastor Dawn leads our women’s evening bible study, every other Wednesday 6:30-8 pm. We meet in the family life center. We are currently in Acts chapter 8. The Midweek children’s program occurs the same night. Upcoming dates: January 10, 24, February 7, 21.
Pastor Jeff leads our men’s evening bible study, every other Wednesday 6:30-8 pm (opposite weeks from women). We meet in the family life center. We are currently in 1st Timothy chapter 4. Upcoming dates: January 17, 31.
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
Upcoming Partner Visits
Jim and Hydi, who serve in Japan, will be with us Sunday morning, January 21. We will hear from them in Sunday School about their impressive camping ministry, sports outreach, theological education and preaching ministry.
Carl and Karen, who have served for 35 years in Thailand, will be with us the following week at the beginning of our congregational business meeting Sunday evening January 28. This will be a special time with them as they share about their remarkable journey in Thailand with business-as-mission work, Christian formation and leadership development, and refugee ministries.
Both couples are global personnel affiliated with The Evangelical Covenant Church. Plan to come say hello and hear from each of them about their intriguing lives of service.
