Change of Service
Back in February of 2020, our Elders at church approved the implementation of the concept of 5th Sunday Serve: Anytime there was a 5th Sunday of the month, we would pause from our ordinary Sunday morning worship rhythm and mobilize as many willing hands and feet as possible to serve our community in Jesus’ name. Do you remember what happened in March of 2020? Let’s just say that our inaugural 5th Sunday Serve scheduled for the spring didn’t go exactly as planned. But, by August 2020, while most of Chicago was still shut down due to COVID-19, we were able to organize and follow through on our conviction that the local church is at its best when we’re serving our neighbors directly.
We’ve continued to serve every 5th Sunday since summer 2020, but over time we began noticing an alarming trend: So many 5th Sundays coincide with times of year when lots of our people were out of town: Spring Break, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, the weekend between Christmas and New Year etc... It’s been a struggle on many 5th Sunday weekends to maximize participation. Given this uphill battle with the calendar, our Elders decided at the end of 2025 to change our service from the 5th Sunday Serve model to a “Serve Weekend.”
Here’s the new plan, starting this very weekend—we’re expanding our serving opportunities from 5th Sunday Serve to four special Serve Weekends throughout the year. These are the dates: April 11-12, May 30-31, August 29-30, and November 21-22.
If this first Serve Weekend is coming to you as a surprise, it’s not too late to jump on board. You can sign up HERE
There are two significant benefits to this new model:
First, by offering opportunities to serve on Saturdays and Sundays, we can partner with more organizations around Chicago, many of which are closed on Sundays. By offering opportunities to serve over the whole weekend, I’m also hopeful that more of us at ECRC can find a window of time to get our hands dirty, too!
Second, with the new Serve Weekend model, we’ll have an in-person worship service from 10-10:30 am on Sunday, and then move out to some of our serve project options. Many folks have missed the fellowship of in-person worship along the way, and we also have first-time guests and visitors every single week at ECRC. So, we can better welcome the neighbors that come over to our place, too!
I’m really looking forward to this weekend myself! As a guy who spends way too much time in public, I’m delighted to have some behind-the-scenes opportunities to be of use. I’ll be in Villa Park raking leaves on Saturday morning (free exercise) and hopefully talking with some aging homeowners about how their lives are going. Then, after worshipping on Sunday morning, I’ll be donating a pint of blood. So many different ways to be of simple, humble use in the Kingdom of our Risen Lord!
– Pastor Gregg