Apparently, we’ve exhausted the winter weather here in Central Illinois.  Either that, or the East Coast has stolen all of it.  But as I write this Update, it’s almost balmy outside, and that ain’t right…

I loves me the Advent season!  Not only do we decorate our church facility very nicely (which some of our FCCers look forward to all year), and not only do we sing some of my favorite music (which other FCCers look forward to all year), but we focus on one of the most crucial moments in the history of humanity -- the Incarnation…

We had a wonderful day here at First Covenant this Sunday, enjoying our annual potato bar and Christmas decorating party to get ready for the Advent season -- and yet still getting out of the building and back home before the hard weather kicked in!  We even had some familiar faces popping in from out of town, so it was nice to welcome some “classic FCCers” back home…

I’m loving the snow -- and I’m amazed at the people who are hating it on principle.  I mean, it’s covering the grass and dusting every limb, but not sticking to the pavement, so what’s not to love about it?  All of the beauty, and none of the shoveling -- that’s pretty much Winter Heaven, isn’t it?

Before I forget, let me make sure that I begin this Update by thanking all those who have put on a uniform and stood in the gap for our freedom:  Happy Veterans Day!

Okay, our Youth Group took judging our 4th, Annual Chili Cook-Off this weekend far more seriously (and less seriously) than we ever would have dreamed.  I mean, they carefully tasted every one of the 14 pots of chili that people brought in, filled out judging forms and explained their criteria, and took an extended time doing it…

What a fun day at First Covenant Church we had this week! First off, we finished off our Adult Sunday School class on Paul’s letter to the Philippians (the studies are all online through our website), and it was a wonderfully uplifting experience to go through the book together.  I’d tell you what we’re starting next week, but where’s the fun in that?

Thank you to all of you who have been in prayer for our church family members who were going through so much, particularly over this past week.

This was a week of all kinds of emotional ups and downs here at First Covenant Church.  On the one hand, we showed the commercial for our annual Chili Cook-Off coming up on November 4, complete with cowboy music, whip-crack sounds, and a rogues’ gallery of Youth kids to serve as judges for the event…

As I looked out at the sea of people in our service on Sunday morning, I noticed that there seemed to be two kinds of people most prevalent amongst our FCCers this week -- those who were excited and enthusiastic and greeting one another with warm hugs and huge smiles, and those who looked like they hadn’t slept since the Carter administration…

What a beautiful morning we spent together with the Lord this week!  We had a great discussion in Sunday School -- which meant that I only got through literally half of the material that I’d planned to cover.  But as I’ve said so often over the years, I learn more through teaching than I ever do in my own personal study, and a large part of that is due to the wisdom that everyone else brings into our interactive discussions over the text…

First things first -- thank you to all of you who prayed for our “Back to School Bonanza” that we hosted on Saturday.  It was a solid kick-off to our new Kids Club ministry (focusing on younger, elementary-school children), and both the children and the parents that we ministered to this weekend were genuinely blessed…

There are times when life feels really, really nice.  Wendy and I helped introduce roughly 197 InterVarsity students to the Morton Pumpkin Festival when Megan and Alex brought them in on Friday night to experience the wonder, and that’s always fun (though I never did get to drive my bumper car this year).  Then we had more fun the next morning with the kids (and our godchildren Olivia and Philip) grabbing tons of candy and catching my annual Frisbee from Keith Sommer at the parade…

I love those weeks where unintended themes just run straight through everything that we do…

Well, we’re ramping up into the Fall here at First Covenant -- I even preached for the first time in over a month!