Jesus said… 

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 

Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Blessed are the merciful,  for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 

Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Matthew 5

This weekend we had the wonderful privilege of being joined and led by Andy Larsen & Cari Conklin-Larsen, faithful Christ-followers and peacemakers. I was able to join in this weekend for the peace feast on Saturday night at Al Bawadi Grill, a Palestinian restaurant in Niles, and adult Sunday School the next morning. Throughout the weekend, I was struck by Cari & Andy’s leadership and their emphasis on story-telling– their own stories and those of others. On Sunday morning, they shared a little bit about how they both became engaged in this peace-making work, how it led them to one another, how it has led them to other dear friends, and how this work has become central to how they see the gospel and the call of God on their lives. What was so beautiful to me about all of this is that Andy & Cari, by their own admission, are simply normal followers of Jesus just like the rest of us. They haven’t been studying Middle East peace relations and politics their entire lives, they both simply responded to God’s Spirit and loving prompting to begin learning about and participating in experiences they previously didn’t know much about and to become proximate with people that are different from them. The Spirit has led them to become staunch advocates of peace-making, on the ground in Israel/Palestine and in congregations like ours, and has led them to do the important work that Christ called them to, that they weren’t necessarily equipped for prior. 

What an important and beautiful reminder that every single one of us has this same Holy Spirit within us. Every single one of us is being lovingly called to something by our faithful God, I really do believe this. And it could be something as “simple” as peace-making or mercy. After all, through the Beatitudes, what Jesus is calling his followers to is not something any of us can master in a day, or a month, or even in years. Being merciful, being meek instead of proud, being pure in heart, hungering and thirsting for justice and righteousness, and being peace-makers are lifelong tasks that we can only do with God’s help. 

Another follower of Christ that I’ve similarly been inspired by in recent days is Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde. She preached the homily at Washington National Cathedral during a prayer service for our country and for its unity. The link can be found here. Her message was so startlingly simple, which was why it was so beautiful. She reasons with all of us that in these divisive, scary, ever-changing days, if we are to be united we must unite around these things, which are of course also Christ’s way: the dignity of every person, truth-telling, and humility. In Bishop Budde’s words, I could almost hear Christ himself saying, “Blessed even are the poor in spirit, they too have dignity!” and “blessed even are the pure in heart, for they are upright and honest!” and “blessed even are the meek, for they are humble and gentle just as I am gentle and humble in heart!”. At the end of her homily, she then addressed President Trump, echoing Jesus’ words exactly this time, exhorting him towards mercy. This clip has since been widely circulated on the internet and social media, and it has made me glad that large swaths of people, people who rightly have reasons to be skeptical of the Church, are seeing and hearing what Christ’s followers are really called to, which is to, throughout our lives, become characterized more and more by the Beatitudes, by the way of Christ. 

May we be inspired by great leaders like Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde and Rev Dr. Andy Larsen & Cari Conklin-Larsen, who embody and teach us about the way of Christ. But church, may we not stop there! May we know that the same Holy Spirit who has led these leaders to where they are, is within us and is calling us to something too. In these days of political division, conflict, and exhaustion, I really believe that God is still on the move and it is in the hearts and lives of people like you and like me. May we respond boldly to God’s call on our lives, to be peacemakers, to be merciful, to the people we encounter, in the places we go, in the things that we say, in the ways we spend our time, in the ways we spend our money, and more. 

May you find encouragement from one more leader, who I think embodied the way of Christ also, the late President Jimmy Carter. He said: “I have one life and one chance to make it count for something… my faith demands that I do what I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can, with whatever I have, to make a difference.” 

Blessed are you and blessed are the merciful and blessed are the peacemakers,

Pastor Lynnea

Today’s blog post is written by Pastor Jen.

Early last month, when I arrived back from sabbatical, I found a hum of excitement about what was going on….in Sunday School.

Sunday School, you might ask? Really?

Yes! Sunday School!

And not just because we had a wonderful assortment of guest speakers come in, although certainly that was some of the appeal, but because of one thing I heard over and over again: “we got to share our stories.”

Of course, I was thrilled to hear this. Thrilled to see people’s enthusiasm for a program that has waxed and waned especially since COVID, but above all thrilled to see them embrace what is a central part of our faith: telling and sharing stories.

As it happened, I had been thinking about this some during my sabbatical. I spent a weekend down in Alabama where two dear friends and seminary classmates of mine have pioneered something new with the help of a grant from the Lily Foundation. It’s called OptIN, and takes a totally different approach to Christian formation: discipleship as trade school.

Just like anyone who wants to become a carpenter, an electrician, a cosmetologist, or many other kinds of specialized careers needs to attend a trade school and learn certain skills, we too need some specific skills in our lives as Christ-followers. But where do we learn them?

Unfortunately, many models of Christian formation don’t teach us these skills. Skills like prayer, and worship, and telling our faith stories. And that’s where OptIN comes in. During my visit to my friends’ church, which is a sort of incubator for trying out these different materials and curricula, I got to watch their Sunday School class in the final sessions of the “Building Stories” unit. And it was incredible.

People who had known each other for decades, raised kids together, grown up alongside each other, learned new things about each other by listening to these short stories, no more than a few minutes each. Laughter and tears were both shared, people listened and reflected back on where they’d seen God in their friends’ and classmates’ stories, and a deep sense of something holy filled the room.

I, a stranger to most of them, sat in on their class and was deeply moved.

When I came back and heard that we had begun doing a little of this kind of sharing together, informally, on Sunday mornings, there was no doubt in my mind: it was time for us to try OptIN.

So I invite you, on Sunday mornings starting this week (February 2), to join us for our next study: Building Stories. This will carry us throughout February and into the first week or two of March.

We will begin by telling some simple stories together, getting comfortable sharing with the group, and then we will progress towards identifying some important faith stories in our lives and ultimately sharing those together.

This type of study works best when we all truly “Opt In,” so I ask you, as much as you can, to make the commitment for the next five weeks: to show up, to share, to listen. I am confident you’ll be glad you did.

yours,

Pastor Jen

“The days of our life are seventy years, or perhaps eighty, if we are strong; even then their span is toil and trouble; and they are soon gone, and we fly away…so teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.” (Psalm 90)

On my walk with bear I find myself contemplating the passing of time. It’s stunning, and seems to move faster for those who grow old. It’s not true, of course. And it’s not surprising that this time of year brings me to it’s accounting, because it’s the new year, and because yesterday my own calendar clicked another one tenth of a score ahead.

As the snow crunches on the old path that use to be a railroad cut, I can’t believe it’s 2025 as I remember the days around Y2K. Remember how afraid everyone was that all computers were going to crash? I can’t believe that when Bon and the girls and I arrived to be with you I was 38 and now I am 61? What are your own “I can’t believe’s?”

It was forty years ago now that my grandfather Eric died and the sermon text was Psalm 90. It’s a sweeping, expansive epic about God’s eternity and human frailty, most acutely experienced in the passing of time. I remember that day being somewhat confused about the concept of time being a limited, fleeting thing. How predictable but naive of my twenty year old self! Yet here is sit, 40 years later, unable to fully comprehend where time has raced off too. Much more by now I appreciate, recognize, and humble my spirit in the news that in the grand scheme of things my days will soon be gone. Numbers don’t lie. I am living now my 27,250th day of life. According to the current life expectancy of an American white male (74.6), I have 4,984 days left. How’s that for counting my days! My aches and pains and pills say that it is so.

Now I’m not trying to be fatalistic, and I don’t think I’m sinking into depression, though I have my days! But I’m learning the power of “counting my days” — starting to see how very important this is for the process of living, of life. To be acutely aware that life is passing, to live with a deep sense that the passing of time is inescapable can gift us with wisdom. And this many-dimensioned wisdom is at least in part about being acutely aware that life and it’s time are gifts of the first order. “Time is the final currency” sings David Crosby, “not money, not power. The time will come when you will give anything for one more hour.”

I’m wondering if dealing with our own mortality becomes a fueling gift for the life we have now, presently, living the only day that is today. Learning to count my days — does that give me the impetus to linger and take in the sunset, or call up a loved one and make things right? Does it move me to make plans for adventures sooner rather than later, does it help me find the tender words I want to say while I can say them? How does the real truth that time is fleeting interface with the invitation of Jesus Christ, my Lord to love, and give, and serve so as to help the Kingdom of God come? What am I being called to do with the time I have yet still to live?

I am greatly comforted that “some great morning when this life is over I’ll fly away”…that resurrection is a real hope for us, immortality gifted to us after our own mortal life fails. But just now would you count with me your own days, so that you can live more fully and with gratitude today, and tomorrow should you tarry. That we may gain a wise heart. That we may gain a wise heart.

Love From Here

Peter Hawkinson

Today’s blog post is written by Pastor Lynnea.

Greetings friends and happy new year! Every January when we collectively flip our calendar page to the new year before us, our lives (whether we want them to be or not) are suddenly inundated with all sorts of mantras like “new year, new me” and good intentions and goals to become healthier. As examples, it’s well known that gym memberships skyrocket in January and in recent years the phenomenon “Dry January” has taken off– where millions of people abstain from drinking any alcoholic beverages for the month of January. Clearly as a society, we see new years as new beginnings, as invitations to try something new or try again, and as opportunities to do the things we’ve maybe always wanted to do. And in many ways, this is good. As people of faith, who are seeking to be spiritually healthy and whole people, it is necessary to take time to reflect on what is past in our lives and in the world and to mindfully take steps towards becoming or continuing to be the whole and beloved people our God has called us to be, people who do justice, and love mercy, and walk humbly with God as Micah 6:8 exhorts. So yes, in many ways new year goals and resolutions can be helpful to our lives and faiths, but there is also very much a dark side to our culture’s obsession with people trying to reinvent and perfect themselves year after year. The number one down-side being it is, in fact, impossible for us to perfect ourselves. We know this, right? This is a fundamental piece of the good news of Christ Jesus, that our Savior defeats the sin of the world and reconciles us with our perfect and unlimited God. We cannot do these things without Christ, we cannot do these things on our own. 

Yet, year after year, there are lots of folks in the world, including tons of Christians, including me, who set out to perfect ourselves by having conflict-less relationships, excelling at our work or schooling, doubling our savings accounts, becoming olympic level athletes with flawless diets, quitting all our bad habits without struggle, never getting sick, and on and on. However, a byproduct of both our broken world and our humanity is that conflict, sickness, fatigue, pain, struggle, and limitedness are realities of the lives we live– we cannot will or self-discipline our way out of these things, we just can’t. 

About 5 years ago, I read a book where the author laid out that sin’s coming into the world, as laid out in Genesis, happened because Adam & Eve refused to accept limits– limits placed on them by God and simple limits of their humanity. They wanted to become like God– unlimited, perfect, and inhuman– and tragically, they failed to realize that they were already like God, made in God’s very image, but that did not mean they were equal to God or unlimited in the way God was. Over the years, I’ve become somewhat convinced that this rebellious streak in us humans, to strive to become unlimited like God is unlimited, is at the core of so much of humanity’s pain and struggle. Simply considering the human species’ deeply fractured relationship with our planet is a case in point. We collectively treat our planet as if it is unlimited, and infinite, and here only for our use, amusement, and abuse. Perhaps we struggle to treat our planet rightly, as limited and finite, because we struggle to recognize that we are limited and finite as well. 

Kat Armas, a great theologian and writer, reflects on humanity’s relationship with creation in her devotional Sacred Belonging. She says, “What a grace it is to remember that we [humans] are not the center of the universe. I think this is part of what draws us to creation stories. In the Genesis narrative, humans are the final characters to step into the scene. The ocean and stars, the plants and animals are all created first, existing and thriving before we even show up. This proclaims the truth that while the natural world has lived– and can live– without humans, humans cannot live without the natural world. We need her for our most basic functions: to breathe and to eat. This fact alone should inspire humility.” 

Friends, perhaps in 2025 our main goal and resolution, above any of the rest, could be to humbly embrace that limitations and “imperfection” are a part of what it means to be human, and that this isn’t always a bad thing (i.e. because of sin) but is simply because this is who our God has made us to be: made in God’s image, but not God. After all, as the apostle Paul encourages in 2 Corinthians 12:9, God’s power is made perfect in our weakness, so let us boast that we are often weak, always limited, and are going to continue to be imperfect even as we seek to grow into whole and healthy people. 

The other day on instagram I came across a Prayer for all the Unaccomplished Goals, written by Sandra Maria Van Opstal, an adjunct professor at North Park Theological Seminary, but more importantly the executive director and co-founder of an organization called Chasing Justice. May we pray this prayer as we reflect compassionately on our imperfect 2024, and may we continue to pray it in this new year as we run into our human limitations and unwanted setbacks.

For the projects left undone

For the to dos left unmarked

For the doors closed

For the health not gained

For all that was not achieved

Lord, help us let go.

For the experiences we disqualified ourselves from

For the times our fears won

For the risks not taken

For the discipline we lacked

For the things we had yet to learn

Lord, help us let go.

For the places to which we can’t return

For the opportunities our integrity didn’t allow

For the friends who refused to see us

For the compromises we weren’t willing to make

For all that was lost because we spoke our truth

Lord, help us let go.

Help us to be honest about our regret

Give us the freedom to grieve the goals not met

Thank you for the strength to make it through

Fill us with courage to dream and thrive

Lord, help us let go. Amen.

Today’s blog post is written by Pastor Jen.

On January 24th, WCC will welcome a very special pair of guests for a weekend full of events at our church.

It’s hard to explain to you just how long this visit has been in the works, but it goes back more than five years, to when I joined a Sankofa trip for Covenant clergy at the end of August 2019. These trips are run several times each year, and are an amazing 72-hour experience packed full of learning, conversation, and visits to major sites in the Civil Rights movement in the American south.

Each trip features individuals matched with partners of the same gender but another racial or ethnic background. They sit together on a coach bus for hours of travel, filled with movie screenings and times for sharing with the group or in pairs, and in-between drives, stops at museums, historic sites, monuments, memorials, and for meals. They also share lodging together at hotels. As you might imagine, through the course of those hours, and all that information, and all those experiences, some real deep connections are made, and some emotional conversations are had.

I had an incredible partner, Rev. Nilwona Nowlin (who is part of the ministry team at our partner Kingdom Covenant Church), and in front of us sat Andy Larsen and his partner for the trip.

Throughout those few days, I heard Andy and his partner converse, and more than a few times Nilwona and I also talked with Andy. I was struck by his thoughtfulness, his non-anxious presence, his ability to remain centered and focused in some challenging conversations, and his commitment to this work of justice and mercy.

So when I learned that Andy also worked extensively in the realm of the Middle East, encouraging interfaith partnerships and connections, and creating dialogues around peacemaking, I knew that we needed him to visit us at WCC.

And indeed we did plan a visit, a wonderful weekend of events including a movie screening, Andy leading us in worship and more…for March 15, 2020. Just as we were settling into stay-at-home orders and COVID lockdowns.

Andy made it to Chicago and his hotel that week, only to receive a phone call from Covenant headquarters informing him that, as he had traveled from a COVID hotspot, he had to turn right around and go home.

It was the right choice at the time, and that was that. But early in 2024, Andy saw a Facebook memory pop up about his would-have-been trip to WCC, and reached out to me.

Should we try again? he asked.

The truth is, conversations about peace and interfaith partnerships in the Middle East are always difficult, but perhaps even more difficult right now. And so they are especially necessary right now.

I am thrilled to tell you that Andy is coming from January 24-26 for a full weekend of events with us, slightly different than what we planned five years ago but just as important and impactful. And even better, he is bringing his wife Cari with him, who also has many years of experience in this region of the world and an important perspective to share.

The full schedule is below, but even before their visit, we will start the conversation.

This coming Sunday, January 5th, and the following week, the Adult Sunday School class will view a documentary film about Andy’s work, called “Blessed Are the Peacemakers.”

We will learn more about this region of the world and Andy’s heart for it, for its people, and for the difficult work of peacemaking there. We will discuss some of our own perspectives and opinions. My hope is that we will prepare ourselves well for diving in with Andy and Cari when they come a couple of weeks later.

If you can’t join us, please consider watching the video on your own time. Even if you can join us, you might also check out “Make Hummus Not Walls,” also available on Andy’s Vimeo acount. And take a look at this blog post which Andy wrote recently, encapsulating some more important ideas that will be part of our Saturday evening dinner program.

I hope you’ll join us, with an open mind and a curious heart. I hope you’ll bring a friend. And I hope we might all come out of this time with a renewed commitment to doing justice, loving mercy, walking humbly, and seeking peace.

yours,

Pastor Jen

Rev. Dr. Andrew and Cari Larsen visit! January 24-26, 2025

Andrew Larsen and Cari Conklin-Larsen of Peace Catalyst International will be coming to WCC for a special weekend of programming. Rescheduled from 2020, their visit is a long-anticipated opportunity for dialogue about Christian peacemaking with a focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and interfaith engagement. Andy is an ordained Covenant pastor with over 25 years of ministry in the Covenant including work with Serve Globally, while Cari has worked extensively with the Syrian refugee community and in Israel-Palestine in addition to her day job in IT. You can learn more about them at https://www.peacecatalyst.org/larsens

Please mark your calendars and join us!

Friday morning – visit to a local Islamic worship center for prayer service

Friday evening – movie screening and discussion (dinner will be provided)

Saturday evening – peace feast at a local restaurant (a family-friendly event) 

Sunday morning – Andrew leads our adult Sunday School class and preaches in worship

This program is made possible by use of memorial funds. Donations will be accepted for our dinner programming, if you feel so inclined.