Join us Each week in person or online
Sundays at 9:30am.
THIS WEEK AT A GLANCE
Sunday Sermon
John 14:15-30
“King of my Heart” “Waymaker “ “Holy Spirit” “A Mighty Fortress is Our God “
FEATURED UPDATES
ADULT SUNDAY SCHOOL Winter 2024
Join us in the gym for coffee and Adult Sunday School!
February 4 & 11 – Dr. David Lauber teaches “Patience in an Age of Acceleration.”
February 18 & 25 – Dr. David Van Dyke and Tara Van Dyke continue their class on Relationships: Friendship (Feb. 18) and Conflict (Feb 25)
makerspace
Makerspace is this Sunday, February 4th, from 4-6pm. Don Holt will lead a writing workshop in the Family Life Center. RSVP at 2013themakersspace@gmail.com
GALENTINE’S day PARTY
The Women’s Ministry Team invites you to our annual Galentine’s Party, Next Wednesday, February 7th, 6:30-8 pm (to coincide with the Midweek Children’s program - during our regular Women’s Evening Bible Study time) in the Family Life Center.
Our Galentine’s Party is open to all – not just regular Bible Study attenders. We will enjoy chocolate fondue and other sweets, a devotional, and great conversation.
RSVP is helpful, but not required.
Any questions or to RSVP: dawn.lauber@gecovenant.org
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 see 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
Student Ministry Updates
We had so much fun on our Winter Retreat at Covenant Harbor! Covenant Harbor did such a great job providing structure and lots of time for us to spend together and bond as a group. It was so cool to see and hear how The Lord is moving in the lives of these students. This is always an encouragement for leaders and myself, but it should also be an encouragement for all you parents who have raised such awesome kids.
We were so privileged to be able to hang out with them this weekend, and I hope to continue to have retreats and events like this in the future! Make sure to check out the photos that Covenant Harbor took this weekend.
You can access these on Google Drive here.
Important Updates;
-This week is Joint Jr/Hi League! Youth Group is THURSDAY from 7-8:30pm. See you there!
-Sr High Ministries is going to the Unite conference this summer (formerly known as CHIC)! Please let me know if your student is interested by February 11th. Unite is from July 15th to the 19th. Click here for more Unite 2024 details.
Our first fundraiser is below:
-The GEECC Babysitting Fundraiser is Valentine’s Day Wednesday, February 14th 5:00-8:30 pm which is in support of the Glen Ellyn Covenant Church Hi-League Students.
For Kids: Games, Movies, & Lots of Fun ~with some wonderful High School Students.
For Parents: 3 and a half hours to enjoy... Ash Wednesday Service, dinner, shopping, or whatever!!
To register, e-mail Joseph Sawyer, Director of Student Ministries at joseph.sawyer@gecovenant.org
Walk-in's are welcome!
-The updated calendar for February is up on the Student Ministries Newsletter.
Book Club thurdsay nights
The racial justice book club is currently on Zoom on Thursday nights at 7:30pm 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.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/2834386059?pwd=WDQyNkYxRVRuS0ZuSEZnbHZUSUIwUT09&omn=88279134886
Meeting ID: 283 438 6059
Passcode: BOOKS
adult bible studies
Pastor Dawn leads our women’s Bible Study, every other Wednesday 6:30-8pm. We will meet in the Family Life Center. February 7th is our Galentine’s Day Party. On February 21st, we will be in Acts 13. The midweek Children’s program occurs the same night.
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.
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.
Recent Partner Visits
What a delight it was to be with two of our ECC-affiliated missions partner couples recently. If you would like to follow up and connect with them personally, perhaps to send an encouraging note, make an individual contribution, or sign up to receive their newsletters, you may do so through their ECC Serve Globally webpages: Jim and Hydi and Carl and Karen.
Partner Update
Tarcisio, affiliated with Firm Foundation, and his colleagues had an especially busy December. Highlights from his recent update were very impressive. Nineteen students at Evangelical Theological College, where Tarcisio is academic dean, graduated with Theology diplomas. Building of three more classrooms at the college has been completed. And, the National Children’s Camp drew from five additional districts and served 6700 children, an increase of 1400 attendees. Read more about Tarcisio’s ministry here.
