Psalm 100:5
“For the Lord is good and His love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations.“

They started yesterday. The workers arrived early to begin demolishing the two huge boilers that have served us well, kept us warm day by day, week after week, season after season, year after year since they were first turned on in 1963. That’s 60 years!

These inanimate machines have me thinking about faithfulness, and how faithfulness is attached to time. It’s a steady quality, dependable, trustworthy, reliable — and those things take time, which gives us repeated experiences which create trust in the present moment (or not!). Faithfulness is no blind draw, but a proven value with a track record we can trust.

I’m remembering Verna Fogel for her faithfulness. Verna taught our little ones for over 60 years. She got down on the floor with us, wrote notes of encouragement to kids and parents, and ordered her life, really, around what she knew to be her own call to minister the love of Jesus. She started something and stuck with it, week by week, year after year, for decades. Her loving presence was steady, dependable, trustworthy and reliable, so much so that we can’t help but call that space near the door to the parking lot “Miss Verna’s room” even though she left us for glory nine years ago. It was the combination of time, lengthy time with diligent, passionate, focused teaching that is Verna’s legacy. In her own family, Son Steve gathered our junior-highers (with dunkin donuts every week!) for decades himself, and now his son Eric does the same, faithfully. And Marilynn is about all things choir, following after her dad, Ollie… Helpful and servant-hearted in so many ways, over so many years.

Verna would often and repeatedly say to me, with Ollie smiling quietly at her side, “Just tell us about Jesus!”

Taking her example then, Verna’s life and ministry reflected a faithfulness finding it’s origin in the God of steadfast love, a love that takes shape and proves faithful over time and forms others for the same. When we sing to God “Great is Thy Faithfulness” we locate that faithfulness in time and in real history: “Summer and winter and springtime and harvest…a peace that endureth…strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow…morning by morning new mercies I see, all I have needed thy hand hath provided…” Time. And prior experience in that time, in that relationship.

I’m sure that faithfulness is underrated, because it’s not as flashy as other attributes. It’s more steady, coming to life in every season, and through the years. I wonder too in our modern culture of instant gratification and rapid change if it’s also overlooked. Our way of life these days almost won’t allow us a Miss Verna kind of “sticktoitiveness” that forms a faithful life, where we plant our lives down into God’s vineyard and get to work and stay at it in the same community for half a century. Whether in work or in church, we’re on the move. And there’s good things about that too!

I’m told that next week our new furnaces (plural) will arrive. They will be smaller and much more efficient. I only hope too that they will serve us faithfully for the next sixty years. And I’m thankful for life, and the power of the present even challenging moment when saturated with hope and trust in God’s faithfulness. It’s a gift! And a lifestyle I want to pursue for the rest of my days.

Thanks be to God!

PETER HAWKINSON

(This blog is dedicated to the memory of Verna and Ollie Fogel, and their son Steve, and in celebration of the ways their family continue faithfully to love and serve Winnetka Covenant Church!)

Wednesday September 20 begins at 7:30 with a short conversation with one of the fifty or so construction workers using the north end of our parking lot while they work on Sheridan Road — “God bless” he says, “I pray for your church everyday as I come and go.” What an unexpected blessing!

Moving toward the building, I’m greeted by New Vision Covenant Church members who are finishing up their morning prayers together; they gathered about 6 a.m., and are leaving now by 8. I note the humble faithfulness and diligent prayers of God’s people.

8 a.m. Time to put the coffee on. Catching up on emails, and morning reading and prayer before meetings begin. Blogs arrive via email, as do prayers that give me words to pray for the heart. Now I am centered and ready for the day!

9:30 – worship planning and coordination! Working together with Jen, Lynnea, and Mary on plans for Sundays to come. Anticipations build for our gatherings soon to come. Old routines and new ideas. Inspiring!

10:00 – Staff meeting. It’s time to celebrate Jen’s birthday with coffee cake, apple spice donuts and cards. What a pleasure to work together through the years. We peruse the bulletin insert, church calendar, and Wednesday wire. We coordinate and correct schedules, problem solve and confirm new and changing plans. Then we check in and share how we are, and pray for one another. Relationships deepen and take strength in working together to serve.

11:15 – just a little time to call a couple friends and check in, and send off a card or two. Jen’s off excitedly to the airport to greet her folks who have arrived for her birthday.

11:45 – Bag Lunch with Lynnea in her office. We are talking about current tensions and challenges, and how we might best understand and respond. The door outside her office is busy with about fifty folks arriving for their noon recovery meeting. One of them has a dog who comes and greets us most days. Another makes a conscious effort to stop and thank the church for its healing hospitality. The locksmith is here to fix the door still ajar from a robbery some time ago. The mail arrives, and a couple of you come by to make sure we’re on track for our first REFUEL dinner, which is always a cookout. So much coming and going, wonderful energy!

1:30 – over to Wallgreens for the latest flu shot and COVID vaccine. the pharmacy is overwhelmed and understaffed. In the waiting I’m praying for those whose faces I see — an elderly man with two walking sticks, a young mom moving back and forth with the pram trying to keep the baby satisfied, the pharmacist being shouted at through the window, and a young couple sitting next to me making wedding plans. How grateful I am for medicine!

3:00 — Peter and I are setting up table and chairs outside, anticipating the joyful gathering. Finding plates and cups, napkins and utensils. Soon John the griller will be here! Misse and Kari are leaving after working around the church all day on plans for children and families. Now time to go pick them up! Getting my steps in.

3:30 — A little time for sermon work. God asks Jonah “Is it right for you to be angry?” Jesus shoots the same question at the scribes and pharisees, and tells a crazy story. “What does the Spirit have to say to the Church?” I wonder. Good thing it’s only Wednesday. Much to ponder about God’s generosity and our challenge with it.

4:30 — John Lindahl is here to grill! I will help and taste-test! Kurt comes too. The construction workers are coming back to their cars, and shooting longing looks our way as they smell the hamburgers. A group of women arrive excitedly for group spiritual direction with Judi Geake. Things are ramping up!

5:30 — It’s the invasion of the gnats! and so, all of a sudden, “let’s get everything back inside to the gym.” Many hands make light work. We are eating together, and it’s easy to notice how excited the kids are for Wednesday Nights again! Blessed fellowship and yummy food.

6:30 — The Band has arrived and all is ready to go in the upper room. We sing together “All God’s Critters got a Place in the Choir” “I am the resurrection (clap) and the life (clap clap clap clap) and “Lord Prepare me to be a sanctuary” and a new song about “loving our neighbors”, our theme for the year:

Good Neighbor by Evan Craft

We may not look the same ya might talk different too

got a long list of differences between me and you

different colors different stories even different politics

but He’s calling us now to lay it all down get back to the heart of it

and be a good, good, good, good, good neighbor,

learn to love each other with the love of the Savior

make room at the table, and share the hope that we got

and be a good, good, good neighbor, and show the world we got a good God.

7:00 — I’m sitting in the choir loft practicing with the choir for Sunday… “Let the words of the Lord Jesus Christ dwell in you…” Mary and Mary Beth guide us along. Outside the sanctuary doors, kids and their parents are building houses out of the huge cardboard boxes that our new round tables were delivered in. Working on being loving neighbors. be ready for a surprise in the narthex! Kids and parents having faith conversations that are also fun and full of creativity. Miss Mel is the bomb!

7:40 — Last task of the work day is no task at all, but gathering with a few other men to sing through a men’s chorus anthem for October 1. “Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah”. It’s last stanza is so fitting as a benediction to a blessed day: “When I tread the verge of Jordan, bid my anxious fears subside; bear me through the swelling current, land me safe on Canaan’s side: songs of praises, songs of praises I will ever give to thee, I will ever give to thee.” So grateful for the hymns of our faith.

8:00 — In the car on the way home. As I catch up on the cubs game, Ian Happ hits a grand slam! It will be all downhill from there, however. Arriving home, bear is jumping in the doorway, and we walk down the street together to catch up on the day.

9:30 Weary, but even more grateful, the day comes to a close. trying to catch an episode of a favorite Netflix show, my eyes can’t stay open, and I give in to blessed sleep. What a wonderful day!

Love from Here

Peter Hawkinson

I’m recalling moments and days now long ago when I was lucky enough to go home. College years specifically bring lingering memories.

It was a rare occurrence, because The University of North Dakota in Grand Forks from 5258 Spaulding Avenue is 715 miles northwest. And winter comes early. And stays late. And when spring came and school was over, it was time to race to Covenant Point, where I was on summer staff every summer. So as good as I can remember, I went home for Christmas, and for a few days in May. That’s it! Twice a year through those five years — I’m a bit of a slow learner!

What I remember about going home is a weariness that I only realized when getting there. I realized how hungry I was when I encountered a full refrigerator, and how tired I was when I laid myself down on a real mattress. Lots of eating and even more sleeping for those few days, much to the chagrin of my folks and little brother Paul who surely wanted some quality time with me. On the rare occasions I could go home, the plan was to let go and just rest in the safety and comfort of my home and family.

Now, forty years later, I still find myself longing for home. I love to be at home, and to go home whenever I can. But I’m more tuned into the metaphor as it relates to my spirit — it’s weariness, and longing to rest and let go, especially this time of the year as the calendar and it’s treadmill are ramping up.

This is where I’m thankful for Bill Joel, and what might be my favorite song of his, “You’re My Home”, which says in part:

“When you touch my weary head and you tell me everything will be alright you say, “Use my body for your bed” and “My love will keep you warm throughout the night” Well I never had a place that I could call my very own But that’s alright, my love, ’cause you’re my home.”

His song invites me to “go home”, to locate “home” in a person, in a relationship even more than in a place. He goes on:

“Home can be the Pennsylvania Turnpike Indiana’s early morning dew High up in the hills of California Home is just another word for you…”

This must be why I treasure the little ascent Psalm 131 more all the time as life races along:

O LORD, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; My soul is like the weaned child that is with me. O Israel, hope in the LORD from this time on and forevermore.

I myself would call it a “going home” Psalm, not to any physical place, but to rest in the arms of God. That’s the image, of a child, fast asleep in a mother’s arms — a particularly beautiful and comforting image of God for me. And with that going is a letting go of “Things too wonderful for me” — all the unsolved and undone realities of life — resting from life’s stresses and the great mysteries and questions of life, letting go of all the “to do” lists always around — Going home to God, and resting in our weariness.

I happen to believe that the psalm was short so that it could be easily memorized, and therefore spoken with meaning anytime, anyplace. So I’m crowding the words onto a mid-size post-it note that I’ll see all day on the edge of my computer, until It’s engrained in my soul like the Lord’s Prayer. And it will invite me to stop and center myself, take an “adult time out” you might say all through the busy day. What a gift, to rest in what I know most of all, which is the love of God now and forever.

I can sing with Billy, the way the song ends, but to my God, “You’re my home, you’re my home!” And my soul will find rest and hope not because everything’s all buttoned up, but because, as is said so often in the African American Church, “God is good, all the time! All the time, God is good.”

Love From Here!

Peter Hawkinson

With fall soon upon us and winter not far behind, this is a perfect time to plan your winter reading. The library has many good books, both fiction and non-fiction…some old classics… and some that are sure to be ‘new’ old classics. Feel free to stop in and spend some time in the library, taking advantage of the comfortable seating and quiet atmosphere. There is even a cozy afghan in case you want to curl up and read.

All the books have a library card in the front (or back, depending on its age) which you may fill in with your name and the date borrowed. There is a box close to the door for those cards. There is no set time limit for each book, but we ask that you read and return them in a timely manner so that others may read them too.

Not all books are light reading. Some will challenge you and cause you to think…maybe even cause you to rethink how you feel about a particular subject. We have books that comfort, books that challenge, books that inform, and books that excite. Good libraries are that way – something for everyone.

If you have a current book that you have finished reading and would like to donate to the library, the committee would be happy to review it. We ask that all books, fiction or non-fiction, have a religious theme. We are primary interested in recently published books, but old classics will be reviewed as well.

Remember, too, that our library has a bountiful supply of family-friendly puzzles. They do not need to be checked out…just take them home and enjoy. If you find you love one, feel free to keep it. Our supply is replenished frequently. Or return it for others to enjoy.

Finally, in this day and age when research is easy to do on the internet, I want to point out that we have many, many reference materials. There is a table in the library to spread out and do your research if you love the idea of doing it the old fashioned way.

The library is here for you. Are you interested in a particular book? Feel free to call me. I’ll let you know if we have it or figure out a way to get it for you. In addition to those books in the church library, I have a personal collection I’m happy to lend out.

On October 1st the library committee is going to lead the adult Sunday School class, reviewing some books in person, and passing out written reviews of other. Please join us. Others on the committee are Thom Morris, Jan Annes, Rev. Art Nelson, and Debbie Rieber.

Judi Geake

“And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” (Hebrews 10:24-25)

“Remember the Sabbath day at keep it holy.” (Exodus 20:8)

We used to call it “Rally Sunday”. Then “Fall Kick-Off” Now it’s “Re-Gathering Sunday”. Whatever it is, it’s the first Sunday after Labor Day, and it feels as much like anytime as the start of a new year as we return to school and work, and the most “vacationy” time of the year is behind us. And in our American culture it’s the Sunday when we re-gather in our fullest sense, and feel the energy of greeting each other again as we worship and fellowship together.

I want to encourage you to be here with us!

Now, more than ever, it seems so important and rather counter-cultural to heed the commands and invitations to keeping the sabbath day, because not to remember it and keep it holy (hallow it) will inevitably lead to it’s loss.

Now I know all about cultural change, its habits and patterns, and how this has saturated our Christian culture too. 30 years ago, when I began in pastoral ministry, the stats were that 75 percent of church members attended Sunday worship 3 times a month. The stats now show us that 75 percent of us attend Sunday worship 2 times a month or less.

I share this NOT to guilt or shame in any way, but to rather ask with an inviting spirit that we all consider the ways we can re-engage with our spiritual community and practices on the sabbath day. The ancient themes are far from obligatory, instead positive and life-giving — prayer, and play, and food, and rest, and in it all re-membering ourselves — body, mind, and spirit, in the steadfast love of God.

I believe in this post-covid time of so many leaving spiritual community behind, it becomes more important for us to be together, to see each other, and to have some sense of living through life together than it used to be. I think also that it’s more difficult, more challenging, because it is no longer a normal cultural practice, and trends are leading us away from keeping the Lord’s Day the Lord’s Day.

But the thought remains, indeed God’s strong word that it’s embrace will be good for us and is necessary for our flourishing through the week ahead. I love how the Hebrew writer connects “meeting together” with “encouraging one another”. Worshipping God orders our lives in mercy and grace. Sunday School helps us to grow as disciples of Jesus. Sharing lunch sandwiches (around new round tables!) is nothing short of a family reunion, and our offerings in the lunch baskets will help our youth ministry thrive.

In our own local church context, my scan tells me that there are 375 of us who would say we are actively involved in the church and/or call Winnetka Covenant church our home. Let’s see what we can do to fill up the sanctuary and run clean out of sandwiches!

All the more, all the more as the practice fades from our culture, we need as people of faith to remember the sabbath day and hallow it. Now is a great time to renew that practice. Pray about it.

Upper Room All Age Celebration with coffee and treats, 9:30

Worship with choir, band, and handbells, 10:30

Sandwich Lunch, With offering for Youth Ministry, 11:30

Love From Here

Peter Hawkinson