Today’s blog post is written by Pastor Jen.

The other day, I was staring at one of my bookcases – the one that I use to store prayer books and worship planning resources – when I noticed all my devotional books for different seasons. I have ones for Advent and ones for Lent, ones for Easter and Christmas, but then it struck me: it’s ordinary time.

We are, at this point in the church year, deep into the longest season that we sometimes refer to as “after Pentecost,” but which is also known as Ordinary Time.

The time between big seasons of preparation and celebration, Ordinary Time can make up as many as 34 weeks of the 52 in our liturgical year.

And while it can get a little boring to keep seeing those numbers…”5th Sunday after Pentecost”…”21st Sunday after Pentecost”…show up week after week, I am coming to love Ordinary Time.

A few weeks ago, I flew out to Cleveland to see dear friends that I went through seminary with. For Christmas this year, they had used their airline miles to buy me tickets to fly out and see them, and the timing was perfect. One of my friends there is a bivocational (well, really she’s a trivocational) pastor and was just about to start a month off, part vacation, part sabbatical. I was arriving exhausted too, off a month of some difficult news in my family, lots of things going on at church, and trying to get all my ducks in a row for my own sabbatical.

So what did we do during my mini-vacation?

A lot of ordinary things.

I was hard-pressed to share stories of exciting travel adventures when I got home, because the truth is this:

We played video games.

We took a walk around her neighborhood.

We watched her cats try to play with each other, and we figured out what to make for dinner.

We played a board game with her husband and another seminary friend of ours, and I went to her church for a Saturday night service.

I slept in, and ate fresh bagels, and we walked around the city’s arboretum.

And it was perfect.

We did lots of ordinary things, but together, and my empty cup was slowly but steadily filled again.

This is the gift of ordinary time.

Don’t get me wrong; I love our festival seasons of the church year, just like I love a vacation where I go somewhere exciting and glamorous, where I have adventures to share upon coming home.

But sometimes ordinary is exactly what my soul needs: simple things, a slower pace, rest. The kind of time that allows me to notice the show that fireflies are putting on in my neighbor’s yard, or to savor a slice of perfectly ripe peach. Time to breathe and to be present and to notice that God is still very much active in the routine things of life.

Summer can be the opposite of ordinary time, for a lot of us. It can be juggling camp schedules and family vacations and beach days and road trips. It can be full days and late nights and a happy chaos of sandy feet and sunburned shoulders.

But hopefully it can also be a time where we stop and savor the ordinary. Where we recognize the gift of it, and the grace of it, and the holiness in it.

The next time we cross paths, I hope you’ll tell me about your ordinary time. I’d love to hear about it.

yours,

Pastor Jen

“Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.” (Mt 5:44)

“But strive first for the kingdom of God….” (Matthew 6:33)

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” (Galatians 5:22-23)

“If we do an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, we will be a blind and toothless nation.” (Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.)

An op-ed in the tribune this morning by Richard Boykin entitled “Lack of Civility is making American politicians ineffective” is good. I agree with it only in part, but that’s the point of an editorial piece. It gets me thinking, and my thoughts are (as usual) about how the faith — in particular my/our Christian faith and community and what is supposedly OUR home domain, the Kingdom of God — play a part.

I know that many of us within the church bristle a little or a lot about “Church and politics” thoughts and conversations. I hear regularly from you (and sometimes even in my own head) that “Politics don’t belong in the pulpit.” The trouble with this thinking is that there’s no way to it if one is trying to follow Jesus at the same time.

Here my daughter Hannah was so helpful one day when we were talking about it and she said, “Hey dad, did you know that “Politics” literally means “The Things of the City”? Thinking about the word and issue in this way, who more than the Church is deeply concerned about the things of the city? For a faith community called to, focused on and working for a just and right world, Politics is a central word.

The issue, I think, is that we need to think about the word and process of politics as first flowing from our understanding of the Kingdom of God, to be formed and shaped there, and to continually seek this Kingdom first — and this has never been more difficult than now, right now, in our 24 hr a day breaking news cycle and the sound bites on our social media, which are always leading us toward the far edges of common life and civility and away from the real issues, the politics, the things of the city. Unless we are as people of faith disciplined enough to begin and end each new day with the love of Christ and his coming Kingdom and those fruits of the Spirit supposed to come to life in us who bear Holy Spirit, our words and actions become toxic, self-centered focused on getting and keeping power, and angry.

The Tribune piece cites a recent example of the end of a recent Chicago city council meeting, when two aldermen’s disagreement about a proposed housing development found them almost at blows out in the hallway after the meeting. “I’m gonna knock your ass out” one said, and the other, “If you slap me, I’m going to hit you with a bat.”

I don’t know if these individuals have living faith at work in their lives. Maybe not. But my guess is that each of the aldermen are people of some faith, but that somehow their faith formation has lost it’s needed voice in their current conversation. Reading the seminal and holy words above, how might the conversation in the hallway been different? Though the issue at hand remains the same, as does their deep differences about it, maybe if their moment was rooted in the fruits of the Spirit, say, they would have found a table at the cafe across the street, and had at it, but also through practicing kindness, and patience, and self-control. And civility would have a chance maybe even for them to find some solution, some negotiation, some common way forward. Maybe they could have stood up together at the next meeting and called the factions they represent together. “What about this idea?” Naive is the word you might have coming into your mind about now.

I say not according to the Kingdom of God, and for those whose hearts are focused on the love of Christ. I say that if we can enter into our more public and civil life focused on the Kingdom of God, then our hard conversations about justice for the poor and advocacy for the vulnerable and policy decisions about use of resources can indeed be had in a civil and ultimately fruit-bearing way. But we have to get the order of things right — Kingdom of God first, front, and center, our home. Again and again. This is our life of discipleship — worship, and prayer, bible study and reflection — these things form our center, and from these things we go out into our life in the world.

The hard truth from which we as the church must seek repentance is that much of our civic life — our words and actions as Christians, and as the Church — has taken up the angry and septic spirit reflected by the aldermen in the hallway. And much of the time, we do so, we say, with God’s permission, and as an act of God’s will. This is our great sin these days, these days which could find the Church actually modeling a way forward for the world around us that includes love, respect, patience, and all the rest of God’s good things as we face the hard questions of what’s best for our world. I may be wrong, but my perception from those outside of our Christian tradition is that the Church has become must more of “an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” church than a “love your enemy” church.

We must work to change that. As we decry our civil servants who are not modeling good and effective leadership, beginning with the lack of respect and decorum, we must also look in the mirror at ourselves, and how much better we as the church engaged in political process are doing. In a world always bent on revenge and retaliation, we must show a better way.

We MUST be engaged in politics, but we MUST do so as those deeply driven by compassion and love, who follow the Prince of Peace, who are always bent on possibilities of reconciliation and a more right and just world, who are never free to stop loving our neighbors and praying for our enemies, and who never pursue violence as an answer to anything, but are committed to love’s transforming power. This is the central political platform of the Kingdom of God. Love. Joy. Peace. Patience. Kindness. Goodness. Faithfulness. Gentleness. Self-control.

Can we put these things first, and seek to live from their center?

Praying With You

Peter Hawkinson

Today’s blog post is written by Pastor Jen.

I will be honest with you: sometimes ministry looks a little bit like throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks.

We are in a season, coming out of the pandemic, where this feels especially true. We’re re-evaluating many of our typical ways of gathering, we are trying new things and reconfiguring the old. Sometimes, this means a lot of trial and error before you find something that works (especially in the summer).

And sometimes you strike a chord.

That’s what it felt like last month when a group of us gathered in the Youth Room for popcorn, candy, and a movie screening: like we were tapping into a real desire for learning and conversation about important things going on in our world.

I am so grateful to all of you who showed up, who reflected on difficult subject matter, and who kept thinking about it and even sharing it with others. That’s exactly how we start to create change, and I am proud and excited to continue this series tomorrow night.

Our next movie, “Aftershock,” brings to the fore an important conversation that is being had in healthcare all over our country: the issue of black maternal and child health. It begins with the stories of two women, Shamony Gibson and Amber Rose Isaac, who died within six months of each other between the fall of 2019 and the spring of 2020 in the New York metropolitan area, both due to complications from childbirth.

Preventable and treatable complications.

Take a look again, if you would, at those dates: 2019 and 2020.

Well into the twenty-first century, in the limits of a major US city, these women died. And their stories are just two of the many that make up some shattering numbers, leading the CDC to report this year that black women are still three times more likely than white women to die from a pregnancy-related cause (see the full article here).

But what is so compelling about this movie is that it doesn’t just tell these tragic stories and leave the viewer in a place of sorrow and anguish.

It moves, powerfully and steadily, towards hope.

The film follows the advocacy work of the surviving black fathers and partners of these women as they care for their children and try to ensure that more mothers don’t meet the same fate.

It introduces viewers to healthcare professionals who care deeply about the black maternal health crisis, and are working to improve outcomes.

And it shows a beautiful, healthy birth experience of a black mother in the most dangerous county in the United States for black women to give birth.

Make no mistake, this movie has its sad moments. But it holds the realities of grief and loss together with the promise of healing and hope. (Something, I believe, that we are all trying to do these days.)

It is honest, and poignant, and beautiful.

I hope you’ll come and watch it, tomorrow night in the Youth Room at 7 PM.

(And rest assured, I’m replenishing our stash of Junior Mints.)

yours,

Pastor Jen

“Stories are verbal acts of hospitality.”

This six word sentence that the late Eugene Peterson wrote has become a favorite of mine. It says so much, so clearly, so briefly. If it be true, a whole new world comes to life in our stories. Like a beautiful meal in a warm (or cool) home, stories invite, feed, and create fellowship. As an evening together with loved ones stays alive in our memory as a holy moment, so do our own stories, especially those that seem to find time standing still. The stories of your life invite me deeper into my own, and of the Divine in them. I think about them as holy moment stories. Here’s one I’m remembering this morning, and that still haunts me in a lovely way though it happened thirty-seven years ago.

I am standing on the northwest corner of Michigan and Adams, straight across the street from the left lion sticking it’s neck out at the Art Institute. It’s a cold, blustery late November afternoon, and flurries are in the air. I am twenty-three years along in life, and wrestling with relationships — another heartbreak — and possible vocational futures — social work or seminary? Why exactly I’m downtown I can’t remember. My guess is that I’m just walking the streets to engage the questions.

What happens next is a mystery I’ve yet been able to explain. I have this distinct day-dream, a kind of vision of an elderly woman. Her scarf is gold, as is the beret she wears. Her frizzy, long silver hair abounds, and she is smiling. That’s it, and I come back to life a bit shaken, and make my way into the Wallgreens to warm up and wonder what that was. After a few minutes, back out with a bag of licorice nubs, and that woman in my dream, she comes around the corner smiling at me. She pauses, briefly, as if she has seen me in a dream too, seems to speak without a word, then moves past me and disappears into the sea of people. I wonder if I should go get her, but I’m stunned, left standing in place. Getting back to Wabash and onto the train I see her again and again. What comes to me roundabout Belmont is that image in scripture that says “some have entertained angels without knowing it.” (Hebrews 13:2)

To this very day her smiling face and those flashes of gold remain alive and crystal clear in my mind. Every time I’m downtown I look for her, and when I come to corners I get goosebumps still. What happened there that day? Will it ever happen again? Who was she after all?

I wish I could say that day changed my life somehow, or that I got a holy message. That’s not the truth. Yet when I come back to that moment I find deep comfort in it somehow, someway. And somehow I still feel she’s roaming around down there. I wonder if ever I’ll see her again before I die.

I wonder how this holy moment story of mine ignites reflection in you. has something like this ever happened to you? Stories are verbal acts of hospitality.

And I wonder what the holy moment stories of your life are? Can you locate them, and will you share them? You must share them.

Love From Here

Peter Hawkinson

“Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.” (Jeremiah 33:3)

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” (Matthew 7:7)

“For now we see in a mirror dimly.” (1 Corinthians 13:12)

“Doubts are the ants-in-the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.” (Frederick Buechner)

It’s July 2, and I’m writing to share excitement about the fall, and ask for your help.

Our first adult education forum on Sunday mornings 9:30 from September 15 – October 20 will be entitled “Questions We’re Asking”. Each week we will gather around a different question and have dialogue. These will be questions that come from you, and can be theological questions or questions of church and culture that come out of your wondering or struggle.

So here’s the ask: What is the one question you’d like us to have an open conversation about — biblically, theologically, personally, practically? If you could take a few minutes to reflect on this and submit a question to me at petehawk@winnetkacovenant.org, I can use some summertime hours to form basic tools to get our conversations going.

Thanks for your questions! Please take a moment to send one now!

Peter Hawkinson

“You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf. Yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” John 5:39-40, NRSV

“you have your heads in your Bibles constantly because you think you’ll find eternal life there. But you miss the forest for the trees. These scriptures are all about me! And here I am, standing right before you, and you aren’t willing to receive from me the life you say you want.” John 5:39-40, The Message

These words from Jesus call me and haunt me as my journey goes on life in life and ministry. They’ve woken me up in the night and wake me up in the morning. They are so alive with meaning, fresh into my current tug-of war with life, the new life that Jesus brings and my love for the familiar, staid and safe solid ground that my convictions give me. After thirty years of ministry, this I believe to be Jesus’ seminal sermon to the Church.

Our particular theological framework as Protestant Christians is rooted in a high view of scriptural authority, very much like those scribes and pharisees who are really angry at Jesus for healing on the sabbath and so breaking the law and disobeying the sacred text. Stunningly, at the same time, they miss the very embodiment of God speaking to them, breathing air with them, the very Messiah for who they long and wait with desperate prayer. The very text meant to help them see and know and experience the Living God has in fact become the very thing keeping them from finding life in Jesus, who says as much in the text above: “For this reason they started persecuting him, because he was doing such things on the sabbath…and they were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God.” v. 16 ff.

How does that happen? And can I/we be so blind as to fall into the same sad and angry place when Jesus appears and heals up a person, or when the Holy Spirit gets up to something new among us?

Jesus tells us it is when we begin to idolize and deify the scriptures instead of letting the text lead us to the One who John says IS the Word (capital W) made flesh, full of grace and truth, in whom there is life: “The law indeed was given through Moses. grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” (ch 1). We must wrestle with scripture’s authority…when is it healthy and life-giving and how can it quickly lead us to miss what God is up to right in front of us, in our midst.

We need to understand and remember and remind ourselves over and over that scripture’s authority comes from God’s inspiration of the text, and not from the text itself. When we come to the text for life, seeking to be formed/changed and ultimately to encounter Christ, the Living Word, then we will find life indeed. But when we locate divinity into the text itself, and scripture becomes an idol we worship, Jesus is set aside, actually replaced by the scripture itself, and our authority rests on “what the bible says” rather than “what Jesus says and does.” “What the bible says” more often than not finds us acting in ways that build walls and limit participation, that in one way or another restrict the life, the life — salvation, healing, grace and mercy — the life that is everywhere where Jesus is. As our spiritual ancestor David Nyvall says, “Without the Spirit…the Bible becomes a casket for dead dogmas instead of a garden of life and fragrance.”

That’s what happened that day when Jesus in Jerusalem one sabbath day among the many invalids “saw a man there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, ‘Do you want to be made well?'” Why wait another day when he has suffered so much? And so the spirit of the old law comes to life, but the letter of the law remains.

This is how our Lord Jesus himself deals with the authority of scripture. Whatever leads to healing, whatever leads to life — that’s the way forward, that’s the interpretive lens, that’s the authoritative word.

What do you think about it?

Love From Here

Peter Hawkinson

Today’s blog post is written by Pastor Jen.

This summer, I’m excited to share with you a new program offered by Adult Christian Formation:

Movies that Matter.

For years, we have tried different ventures in this summer space, from book reads before and during COVID, to an AntiRacism challenge. I find it’s a great season to do something different, but one that comes with its own difficulties too: people travel a lot, and their own routines are upended. (Parents of school-age children, I see you.) Some folks have a lot more time on their hands, and many have even less than during the more predictable, if still busy, school year.

It seems like our best efforts at gathering – whether that is for fellowship, service or formation – happen when people can join on a whim, if they happen to be at home, happen to be free, happen to be so inclined.

And yet, this is still a good time to explore new material, to start or continue conversations about important topics. Hence, our summer program for 2024: Movies that Matter.

Each month from June through August, we will offer a movie screening at church, complete with all the necessary trappings of a night at the movies: popcorn, candy, something to drink. The only difference is that these movies will focus in on a particular social issue, and be followed by a brief discussion.

Our series kicks off tonight at 7 PM, and I’m particularly excited about our first film, “Your Fat Friend.”

Aubrey Gordon, whose website describes her as a “Fat Lady About Town,” first gained popularity writing under the pseudonym YrFatFriend on (the platform formerly-known-as) Twitter. She writes poignantly and powerfully about what it’s like to live in a fat body in a world designed for thin people. She describes her own journey through different diets and medications and programs like Weight Watchers to achieve that ideal body size, and how her failure to do so has impacted relationships, the quality of medical care she receives, her experiences in travel, and so much more.

Aubrey is a bestselling author of two books and the co-host of the excellent podcast “Maintenance Phase,” which takes as its mission to “debunk and decode” the wellness and weight loss industries.

This movie is an incredible glimpse into Aubrey’s life and work, and I encourage you to join us. It’s a movie that is really for everyone (although, because of some language, I would say it’s not for children). You don’t need to inhabit a bigger body or love someone who does just to be impacted by this. You don’t even need to be sick of the way that we exalt thinness and conflate it with health. You just need to be someone who wants a better way of being in the world for everyone, regardless of size, age, gender, ability, orientation, religion, political persuasion…etc.

I loved this movie and I really hope you’ll come tonight.

Please also mark your calendar for our next dates: July 10 and August 14. Films for those nights will be announced closer to the date – but if you come tonight, you can help vote on what we watch next!

I’ll bring the popcorn. You bring a friend.

Yours,

Pastor Jen

(Note: our announcements have indicated that the movies will be screened in the upper room, but for the sake of comfort we will move to the Youth Room (yay couches!) and expand to a bigger space if our numbers require it.)

…An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt…” (Mt. 2)

A couple of months ago in a pizza pub I made friends with a stranger, who was wearing a baseball hat with a cross on it. We got so friendly in line ordering our pizzas that we ended up sharing a booth in the crowded place. As we ate, news images from the southern border blared out at us, and most poignant was a mother swimming across the swollen Rio Grande river after a rainstorm, holding a baby high in the air as she fought the current. Joe, my new friend, said, “Now would you look at that. Who is their right mind would put their baby at risk like that?” “A desperate one” was the best answer I could muster, wondering what it must be like to be that mom. “No, a selfish one” Joe spit back, and continued: “She’s willing to sacrifice her child to get what we have, and illegally too!”

What struck me then and has stuck with me was Joe’s lack of concern and compassion for the whole situation. Did he have any awareness of the dangers she has faced on the road there? Does he care about what folks are suffering through in Venezuela’s political turmoil? What about the Gang violence, extortion, persecution, poverty and food insecurity in El Salvador and Guatemala? “Maybe, just maybe I’d be doing the same thing to try and give my child some hope for life” I offered. “Meh”, he said, and up and left. Clearly my point of view was wrong, as far as he was concerned.

I thought about the Holy Family running for their lives from Herod. Surely the baby Jesus might have been carried across the Nile River like that because of their fear and desperation. Shades of baby Moses.

As Christians, our hearts are filled with love and compassion for refugees, because our Lord Jesus himself was one, and because his great love extends most fervently to those on the margins, those most vulnerable. I know that important questions of legality and process and health and welfare and safety are complex and need to be worked through: but none of the work of governments needs to stop the Church from loving, caring, and helping, whether it be in Del Rio or Jaurez or in Rogers Park or Skokie, or even at the hotel chocked full of refugees behind my back yard fence.

The Hymn Society has recently released “Singing Welcome: Hymns and Songs of Hospitality to Refugees and Immigrants“. I’ve been reading through them, and offer from them a hymn. As you watch the news, and before you root yourself in political things, consider the scripture above and the hymn and prayer below.

Away And In Danger (to the tune of Away in a Manger) Shirley Murray

Away and in danger, no hope of a bed, the refugee children, no tears left to shed, look up at the night sky for someone to know that refugee children have no place to go.

The babies are crying, their hunger awakes, the boat is too loaded, it shudders and breaks; humanity’s wreckage is thrown out to die, the refugee children will never know why.

Come close, little children, we hold out our hand in resource and welcome to shores of our land — in touching, in healing, your fear and your pain with dreams of your future when peace comes again.

A Prayer for Refugees by Melissa Haupt

Hear us, Lord, as we raise our voices; In you we take refuge. Preserve those whose life is threatened by enemies and who are the target of bitter words or evil schemes. Remember those who are vulnerable and exposed, those who are victims of natural disaster, war, and persecution, those suffering anguish and sorrow.

Bring them to safety; In you we take refuge. Give shelter to those seeking a hiding place, to those torn from their homes, those who are separated from loved ones, those who are lost or have run away.

Bring them to safety; In you we take refuge. You look with mercy and love on all refugees. Help us to welcome the stranger, befriend the lonely, and show compassion. Allow your Spirit to move in us and teach us to seek justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with you, telling of all your works.

Let us rejoice and give praise; In you we take refuge.

Peter Hawkinson

And he said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt. 5:3)

I’ve always wondered what he means when he blurts it out. What does “poor in spirit” mean? I wonder of more than anything else he means “restless”….unable to rest or relax as a result of anxiety. Restless. I find Jesus to be a restless soul, and I’ve often wondered if he had trouble sleeping. I know, I know about when he was sleeping in the storm in the bottom of the boat. The gospels tell us he keeps long hours, and the crowds (for and against him) are relentless. And he spends his waking hours in large part arguing with and even confronting the religious elites with the need to open up to the fact that their religion with all good intentions has hardened their hearts instead of softened them to this Good News he brings.

All this leads me to wonder if he is saying, “Blessed are the restless, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Some call it holy discontent.

I came across a new years eve prayer years ago, and have kept it in my bible: “O God, make me discontented with things the way they are in the world and in my own life. Make me notice the stains when people get spilled on. Make my heart break for the poor, and the misfit at work, and those behind bars. Jar my complacence, expose my excuses, get me involved in the life of my city and world. Give me integrity once more, as I seek to be transformed and changed, with a new understanding and awareness of holy work to do.“

While we don’t often think of restlessness or discontent as a spiritual gift, as a blessing, this spirit can and often does bring much needed change. To be restless is to care, after all. To be discontent is to be honest about something wrong that needs to be made right. A restless spirit is the seedbed of longing (and hopefully getting to work) for a better life, a better society, and a better world.

Tomorrow is sermon writing day. The gospel (Mark 2:23-3:6) finds Jesus provoking conflict because of a restless spirit. The Sabbath command frames the conversation. He lets his disciples pluck grain and then chooses himself to heal a man’s withered hand — intentionally breaking the sabbath day rules to get at some deeper meaning that sabbath intends. He’s restless. Read the text and come ready to engage with the story on Sunday.

Diana Butler Bass writes that “Religious discontent is indistinguishable from the history of spiritual renewal and awakening. She notes that all great faith traditions possess both pastoral and prophetic voices. the pastoral voice comforts; the prophetic voice discomforts. Institutions are inherently pastoral, seeking to maintain equilibrium, while restless prophets push them to be better, to change.

So is the dance between the way things are and the way things could, should, might be. It’s all necessary! I leave with you this extended quote from Bass:

“The history of Christianity can be told as a story of the tension between order and prophecy. Jesus came as a prophet, one who challenged and transformed Judaism. A charismatic community grew up around his teaching and eventually formed the church. The church organized, and then became an institution. The institution provided guidance and meaning for many millions. And then it became guarded, protective of the power and wealth it garnered, the influence it wielded, and salvation it alone provided.

Many of the people in the church did not seem to notice, but some did. What the church taught seemed at odds with their experience of life with God. They became increasingly disenchanted with what the church offered. Discontentment grew. They questioned the way things were done. They experimented with new ideas and spiritual practices. They met on the sly, singing subversive songs and praying to their favorite (and often unapproved saints, and served people the institution overlooked or oppressed. They bent the rules and often broke them. The established church typically ignored them, sometimes tolerated them, often branded them heretics, tried to control them, and occasionally killed them. When enough people joined the ranks of the discontented, the institutional church had to pay attention. In the process, and sometimes unintentionally, the church opened itself up for change and renewal.” (Christianity After Religion, 2012, Harper One, page 89).

Much to ponder. What do you think? What makes you restless these days?

Peter Hawkinson

Today’s blog post is written by Pastor Jen.

Well, it has finally happened.

I’ve seen my first cicada.

Just one, sitting on the steps of our back porch as I took Zoe out this morning, but there it was.

A little more orange than I was expecting, if I’m honest, so I wonder if it’s one of the 17-year brood. (By all means, if you have more info on this, share it with me. I’m a beginner to these cicada-pocalypses.)

But it was a reminder, nevertheless, that a new season is upon us. Cicada season, yes. Sunsets after eight pm. Farmer’s markets returning. Beaches opening. Schools letting out (11 days, by one teacher’s count!).

And an entirely different rhythm of us gathering together as a church family.

Yesterday was our last day of the program year, believe it or not, as we wrapped up Sunday School, had our last 10:30 worship service for several months, and the youth group had their last gathering in the evening.

Now, it’s time for a different rhythm. A slower one, in lots of ways. One more focused on connection and community, on being together rather than “doing” together.

We’ll meet every Sunday for worship (now at 10!) but sometimes this will be outside, and on a couple of occasions we won’t meet at our church home but rather at others’: Kingdom Covenant Church (June 23), and Libertyville Covenant Church (July 28).

We’ll fire up the grill after worship on our outdoor worship days, and enjoy BYO-picnicking together.

There will be backyard potlucks a few times at different members’ homes, and one very special church picnic on June 2nd. (If you need any of these dates or information, just contact the church office and we’ll fill you in!)

We’ll spend an evening baking together (June 7th!) and the following morning filling up community fridges in Evanston with the missions committee.

There will also be a few offerings by Adult Christian Formation, which I hope to tell you about soon.

And that’s not to mention all the other ways that I hope you’ll continue to connect with each other over these next few months, whether in your own backyards, at our Covenant Camps, at the Wilmette Wallace Bowl or at Evanston’s Starlight movies and concerts.

As one of my youngest friends at WCC asked me recently, “Don’t we take the summer off from church?”

Well, no, I told her. Not really.

We do less. And we do it differently. But we’re still very much together.

In fact, as opposed to the school year, perhaps there is more emphasis in the summer on being together, rather than “doing” lots of programs. On “less is more.” On different rhythms for a different season.

And cicadas and all, I am so excited for it.

yours,

Pastor Jen