Edgebrook Evangelical Covenant Church
6355 N. Spokane Avenue
Chicago, IL 60646
Phone: 773-763-4230
Fax: 763-2306
Website: www.edgebrookcovenantchurch.org
Spring Work Day Scheduled
The first 2009 all-church work day has been scheduled for Saturday, May 30th from 9 a.m. until approximately 4 p.m. The trustees have compiled a long list of projects that need to be cared for on this day and there may be one that’s custom-made for you!
In advance of the work day, the list of projects will be posted in the chapel during coffee hour. Look for a project that you might enjoy and put your name beside it. Please mark your calendars and commit to spending some time sweating and bonding with your church family.
A light breakfast and lunch will be provided for all who participate. If you are a board chairperson or lead a small group, please encourage your members to come and work as a team. Even if you can only come for a few hours, PLEASE COME! We look forward to seeing you there.
Trustee Talk
So this is what the Sovereign LORD says:
"See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone,
a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation;
the one who trusts will never be dismayed.”
– Isaiah 28:16
As most of you are aware, the steps leading up to the church office entrance have deteriorated from the elements and years of use. We have arranged for a temporary repair until the weather clears. We have requested bids and selected the best bid from a trusted contractor to pour new concrete for the steps and the courtyard. However, new concrete cannot be poured until there are no further freezing temperatures overnight. Please be patient and careful as you use this entrance.
Central Conference Women Ministries Update
On Saturday, March 28th, Edgebrook Church hosted the 75th Annual Meeting of Central Conference Women Ministries. More than fifty women representing nine of our eleven districts and twenty churches attended. A huge thank you goes to Barbara Agnello, Mary Doucette, Lois Janken, and Ann Helen Anderson who helped plan, prepare, welcome, and serve, and to Shirley Sowell who willingly stepped in to help.
After a “Chicago Style” lunch of pizza, pasta, and cheesecake, the women heard a message from Elouise Spencer of Wellspring entitled, “True Value.” She challenged the women to respond to the “least of these” as mentioned in Matthew 25:40. An offering was received to kick off the 2009 Conference Project, “Safety Net,” and $819 was received. Candi Tepke completed four years as Conference President and Ann Richards of Batavia was elected as the new President.
Edgebrook Women Ministries Update
While articles for the May Newsletter are due today, it a little hard to think of spring when we are having a snow storm!
On behalf of the Edgebrook Women Ministries Board, I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for participating in our Lenten Breakfast. We had 35 in attendance; Jill Lind provided us with a wonderful message about “Keeping the Sabbath;” and Benjamin De Los Monteros and Randy Nelson provided the music – what a blessing to all who attended, and of course, thank you to Pastor for serving Communion.
Our next major event will be June 9, 2009 at 6:30 pm -- our annual picnic. We will discuss more about the “Safety Net” project which was introduced at the 2009 Central Conference Women Ministries Board annual meeting March 28, 2009. This program is about women living in abusive situations and how we can help provided them with an alternative lifestyle outside of that misery. It is co-sponsored with the Well Spring Center for Hope, a comprehensive domestic violence agency located on Chicago’s South Side.
Don’t forget the early registration for fall fellowship at Covenant Harbor: September 18 – 20, 2009 or September 25 – 27, 2009.
And a reminder for the Triennial XIII July 22 – 28, 2010, in Washington D.C. -- mark your calendars and watch for further details.
Good News Community Kitchen Update
Volunteers from Edgebrook Covenant Church helped serve a healthy supper on Saturday, April 4th.
Thank you to all who contributed toward the cost of the food. A total of $310.00 was donated and used to purchase food this month. A special thanks to Jason and Alaina Mach, Gail Shaw, Betty Johnson, Anita Hohenstein, Chris Jablonowski, Sharon and Mike Spore, and Mary Coleman for helping to serve 125 meals and for cleaning up.
If you are interested in helping out, EECC will be serving dinner at the GNCK on Saturday, June 6th. Please contact Tony Senatore if you would like to volunteer. Contributions can also be given to support this ministry . Mark "GNCK" in the memo section of your check made out to Edgebrook Covenant Church.. Please continue to pray for this outreach ministry.
May Greeters
In May we look forward to being greeted by:
May 4 – Mary and Michael Doucette and family
May 11 – Scott and Patty Shepherd and family
May 18 – Tom and Judy Whipple
May 25 – Kathy Waldsmith and Chris Pokorny
Update from Erin Neises in Spain
Coming to Christ...
Adrian is just one example of God's work here in Spain.
Adrian is a friend of one of our students named Vanessa who have been attending our 'Story of the Soul' outreach. Not only was our Agape Team sharing the gospel with him, but also Vanessa. Joel, one of our team member with Agape, met with Adrian and shared the 4 Spiritual Laws with him just before Christmas. Since things move very slow here in Spain we found out that Adrian had prayed the pray for Christ to come into his life shortly after the new year.
He is now being disciple by Joel where they meet on a weekly basis, and is growing in his faith. He is also been faithful to continue to come to our 'Story of the Soul' outreach on Thursdays. Please keep praying for his spiritual growth and time in the word. The enemy works very hard here to keep new believers stunted in their growth and living a defeated Christian life.
Student Weekend Away!
What a wonderful weekend for an Agape (Campus Crusade ) Retreat. This past weekend we brought our students being discipled along with those from the Agape team in Granada. In total we had about 20 people in this beautiful Cortijo (farmhouse) just outside of Málaga.
Our focus was to take our disciples and share with them a little more indepth about the example that Jesus gave us by discipling the 12. We were able to talk about the multiplication of faith and making it applicable to our lives. We spent time worshiping the Lord, growing together as a Christian community, and sharing in His call for our lives.
The best part of this weekend was the talk about multiplying faith. Ana Schrader gave the talk to us and showed us two methods of sharing faith; one being addition and the second being multiplication.
If you and I were to just share our faith with each person that we met, we would have to talk to about 1,000 people a day to reach the world. And we would talk to each and every person in this world in almost 17,000 years. WOW!!
Okay, so now if we follow the example of multiplication, like Jesus did this is what would happen. First, we can look at Paul who invested in 3 people, one being Timothy. He spent one year of his life with them, so then they could invest in 3 worthy men one year of their life, and then each one of them could do the same, etc. Eventually we see this pyramid shape of all the people who are being reached who started with one person. So now if we can just imagine reaching the world for Christ, we would do it in 17 YEARS!!!!!!
Isn’t that amazing! I mean, have you ever wondered why the message of Christ is still around? It is not because Jesus went and talked to each one of the thousands of people who were on the earth. No, He taught people the truth and faith, who then taught more people, and that is why you and I today are still receiving that message.
For me this weekend was rejuvenating and encouraging to have defined my purpose and role in life just a little bite more... being apart of the multiplication of faith. At times it is hard to keep moving forward as a Christian in today’s world, but no matter what job I have or where I have been called to, I am first a Christian who is sent to make disciples, and second a soccer player, a student, etc. This calling to make disciples is not just a calling to me, but to all Christians who have accepted Christ in their lives (Matt 28:18-20).
So far in my walk with the Lord and discovering this call in the Christian life, I can say it is pretty astounding. And I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. This is my life making Christ known to those who yet do not know Him. And I could not be here without you and your support. You are a huge part of the success to God’s work here in Spain. Thank you!
Names on the Church Prayer Sheet
If you’re like me, Sunday after Sunday you glance at the information contained in the white folded prayer sheet in the church bulletin, reading with interest the new items and the praise for answered prayer, and glancing with less interest or maybe skipping names that appear week after week with no change or update. Usually the names that are “always” on the prayer sheet are names of our elders who live in nursing homes, some of whom many Edgebrook members have never met—they’re just names on the church prayer sheet.
I was convicted of disinterest in our elderly members a couple of weeks ago. My conviction led me to drive after church to Windsor Park Manor, the Covenant retirement community in Carol Stream, Illinois, to visit Muriel Cerny in Johnson Healthcare Center, the nursing section of Windsor Park. I must confess, it’s not hard for me to relate to elderly members of our church, because for me the church of my childhood is also the church of my adult years—except for a few years in young adulthood when I lived in other states, Edgebrook has always been home. I have a history with our elders that makes visiting them easy or sending them birthday cards more a personal privilege than a duty as a deacon.
You may wonder, what is the point of my telling you I visited Muriel? I have two points I’d like to get across: 1) The visit to Muriel maybe made her day brighter, but beyond doubt the visit was a wonderful experience for me. I came away from that visit thankful that there are places such as Johnson Healthcare Center where dear saints are cared for, and energized and refreshed in my spirit that I had spent an hour personally with someone who has been praying for me all of my life. 2) Probably many Edgebrook members have a “Muriel” in their circle of friendship, someone from their childhood church who is still living in another state, maybe in a health care facility, who still prays for them. I hope that this little article will convict you to make a call or drop a note in the mail to that person. It will likely brighten the day of that dear saint, and I know you will be amazed at what it will do for you!
— Ann-Helen Anderson
Just One Thing
Our church has started a new year-long project: One Thing. The goal is to bring “one thing – one can, box, or bag of non-perishable food” each Sunday per family or person to be placed in the Food Pantry bin in the narthex. All food will be donated to the North Park Friendship Center food pantry, which our church has supported for a very long time.
Why start this project now? The number of people needing food due to the economic recession has increase over 30% from this time last year. In addition, the Greater Chicago Food Depository, which supplies food to all the food pantries in the Chicago area, has had to destroy tens of thousands of pounds of purchased and donated foods due to the peanut recall over salmonella. This is a huge loss to our local food pantries, and we need to step up and help overcome that loss – as well as help those additional people who need food.
What is the best “one thing” to bring? Protein foods are the best – beans (dried and canned – including refried beans), tuna, Spam, canned meats, boxed macaroni and cheese, “Chunky-style” canned soup, canned lasagna and spaghetti with meat sauce, and nut butters – to mention just a few. Food pantries typically have fewer protein foods donated, and they are more expensive to purchase from the Greater Chicago Food Depository. Protein foods are also the most expensive thing for families served by the North Park Friendship Center to buy on their own.
One thing each week can make a HUGE difference – can you join us? Remember what James said in James 2:8 “If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, ‘love your neighbor as yourself,’ you are doing right.” Let’s help feed Jesus’ sheep together!
What an Awesome and Orderly God!
God's accuracy may be observed in the hatching of eggs. For example:
- The eggs of the potato bug hatch in 7 days;
- Those of the canary in 14 days; -
- Those of the barnyard hen in 21 days; -
- The eggs of ducks and geese hatch in 28 days; -t
- Those of the mallard in 35 days; -
- The eggs of the parrot and the ostrich hatch in 42 days.
(Notice, they are all divisible by seven, the number of days in a week!)
The lives of each of you may be ordered by the Lord in a beautiful way for His glory, if you will only entrust Him with your life. If you try to regulate your own life, it will only be a mess and a failure. Only the One Who made the brain and the heart can successfully guide them to a profitable end.
God's wisdom is seen in the making of an elephant.. The four legs of this great beast all bend forward in the same direction. No other quadruped is so made. God planned that this animal would have a huge body, too large to live on two legs. For this reason He gave it four fulcrums so that it can rise from the ground easily.
The horse rises from the ground on its two front legs first. A cow rises from the ground with its two hind legs first. How wise the Lord is in all His works of creation!
God's wisdom is revealed in His arrangement of sections and segments, as well as in the number of grains. -
- Each watermelon has an even number of strips on the rind.
- Each orange has an even number of segments.
- Each ear of corn has an even number of rows.
- Each stalk of wheat has an even number of grains.
- Every bunch of bananas has on its lowest row an even number of bananas, and each row decreases by one, so that one row has an even number and the next row an odd number.
- The waves of the sea roll in on shore twenty-six to the minute in all kinds of weather.
- All grains are found in even numbers on the stalks, and the Lord specified thirty fold, sixty fold, and a hundredfold - all even numbers.
God has caused the flowers to blossom at certain specified times during the day, so that Linnaeus, the great botanist, once said that if he had a conservatory containing the right kind of soil, moisture and temperature, he could tell the time of day or night by the flowers that were open and those that were closed!
Thus the Lord in His wonderful grace can arrange the life that is entrusted to His care in such a way that it will carry out His purposes and plans, and will be fragrant with His presence.
Only the God-planned safe life is successful. Only the life given over to the care of the Lord is fulfilled.
— Provided by Wayne Schimpff
Thank You
We wish to thank our wonderful congregation for all the generous expressions of care we have received during Charlotte’s surgery and recovery. We have felt your prayers. We have been blessed by your cards. We have been fed by many delicious meals, baked goods, and cookies. We have been encouraged by words of concern and support. We have been delighted by flowers sent from our deacons and given to us by others. We have been humbled and warmed by the prayer shawl from Crafty Angels and other very helpful and thoughtful gifts. Thank you. God bless you. Thank you for so richly blessing us!
Greg, Charlotte & Charlie Mesimore
