Bethany's Stewardship Campaign Begins

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“It’s just down the street from my church.”
“We feed hungry people at my church.”
“My church has amazing music!”
“Everyone is welcome at my church.”

Bethany is your church. It’s where you worship. It’s where you serve. It’s where you gather with friends. Some of you were married at Bethany. Others were baptized here. For many of you there are names of beloved friends and family on our memorial wall. Make your commitment to this community clear by pledging your financial support for 2018.

A couple weeks ago, Rebecca challenged our congregation to use the phrase “my church” with friends outside Bethany as a way of moving from being a welcoming church to an inviting one. “My Church” also seemed like an apt theme for our 2018 Pledge Campaign.

“My Church” isn’t about any of us owning Bethany. Bethany doesn’t belong to us, but we belong to it. You are Bethany. Our church wouldn’t exist in the same way without each of you. We depend on your time and energy, your dreams and visions, and your faithful giving to do the work to which God has called us as a congregation.

This year as a congregation we have set a goal of $54,000 in pledges. That’s $6000 more than the pledges we received last year. We believe this goal is possible, but we need your help to get there. Any amount you can give in the coming year is meaningful, and any amount you can raise your pledge from previous years will help us achieve our goal. I pledge, and I’m going to increase my pledge this year, because Bethany is My Church. I hope you will too.

Please fill out the enclosed pledge card and return it to church by mail or on any Sunday in our pledge campaign, October 29-November 19. Let’s meet our goal, and make new and exciting things possible at Our Church.

If you would prefer to submit a digital pledge card, you may fill our the form below. Or, to set up an automatic payment, you can click here to access our online giving site. 

BETHANY UCC ONLINE PLEDGE CARD

Bethany: Not a Welcoming Church

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Whoa. What? 

On Sunday, inspired by this article, Rebecca preached about the difference between being a welcoming church and an inviting one. (To welcome folks is passive; to invite them is active.) She preached about the difference between being guests and hosts. (As members of the body of Christ, we're meant to be both!) She preached the bad news that it might be hard or awkward, and the good news that as Church, we have an abundance of the bread of life that so many people are starving for, so it's worth it!

We'll get that sermon posted ASAP, but in the meantime, take a look at that article, and see what you think about it.

Lights, Camera, Action!

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Freelancers Anonymous is a comedy feature film about women who tech! Directed by Sonia Sebastian and written by Amy Dellagiarino and Lisa Cordileone, the movie follows Billie as she finds herself on a quest to start her own business. Frustrated with always being taken advantage of at work, Billie quits in pursuit of doing something more fulfilling, and runs into an eclectic group of women looking for the same. They pool their talents together to start developing an app, but run into more problems than they accounted for.

The cast features an ensemble almost entirely made up of women and stars Lisa Cordileone, Natasha Negovanlis, Alexandra Billings, Jennifer Bartels, Megan Cavanagh, Mouzam Makkar, Amy Sheils, Cassandra Ward, Jenny McNulty, Haviland Stillwell, Grace Rex and Jamison Scala.

Bethany United Church of Christ plays a central role in our movie, being both the home base for the freelancers to begin their business, and the spot where Billie and her fiancée Gayle are planning to have their wedding. Freelancers Anonymous (the movie) is the first piece of a larger trans-media company, Freelance Anonymous LLC, which is geared towards closing the gender gap in STEM industries and focusing specifically on women and those in the LGBTQ community.

Freelancers Anonymous is produced by Full Spectrum Features, in association with Black Apple Media.

Growing Veggies, Growing Community

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The raised beds we built and planted with money from the Council Discretionary Fund are popping: pole beans and cucumbers are stretching toward their trellises; tender greens have — so far — evaded the plentiful Ravenswood rabbits; and the tomatoes have all kinds of blossoms.

The gardens don’t yet require much weeding or harvest but there is work to be done.  Can you join Rebecca on Thursday afternoons at 4, or sign up for some weekly maintenance before or after church on Sundays?  Look for the “gardener” slot on the summer Sundays sign-up sheet.

Whether you like to garden or not, you are welcome to the food we are growing.  Take home some basil for pesto, other fresh herbs, or, in a few weeks, arugula.  This year, our garden goal is only to enjoy the project of growing food together, and enjoy eating it!

Feast

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You don’t want to miss worship this July! We’re introducing a new worship theme for the summer called, “Feast.” This is the season of picnics and cookouts, the time of year when fresh produce is in abundant supply, and every weekend holds three more neighborhood festivals. Feasting is a Christian tradition, the opposite of fasting; it’s part of our faith to throw parties and eat great food! So we’ll be throwing a party every Sunday morning, July 9-30, complete with special decorations and festive coffee hours. We’ll explore the stories of great meals in the bible and ask what it means to be people of the feast. Mark your calendars! Cancel your vacations! Come party with us at Bethany this July.

Adopt a Feast

Each week during our Feast theme, we’d like to have an extra special spread of food that people can enjoy during the service. We are looking for folks who would be willing to host these feasts on July 23 or 30. You would bring food and help make the tables beautiful. You could work with the ministers to choose something to go with that day’s theme or just bring some of your favorites. If you’re interested, please contact Vince at vince@bethanychicago.com

A Feast For Justice

On the final Sunday of our Feast theme, we want to celebrate by providing a feast for others as well. We’ll be taking a special collection of cans and other non-perishable items to donate to Common Pantry. Items on their wishlist this summer include:
• Cereal
• Soup
• Oatmeal
• Rice
• Canned Fruit
• Easy Prep Meals (such as Rice-A-Roni)
• Vegetable Oil
• Cooking Oil
• Condiments (ketchup, etc)

Faith to Table - Feast Worship at Bethany in July

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You don’t want to miss worship this July! We’re introducing a new worship theme for the summer called, “Feast.” This is the season of picnics and cookouts, the time of year when fresh produce is in abundant supply, and every weekend holds three more neighborhood festivals. Feasting is a Christian tradition, the opposite of fasting; it’s part of our faith to throw parties and eat great food! So we’ll be throwing a party every Sunday morning, July 9-30, complete with special decorations and festive coffee hours. We’ll explore the stories of great meals in the bible and ask what it means to be people of the feast. Mark your calendars! Cancel your vacations! Come party with us at Bethany this July.

Bethany Has Pride

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At Bethany Church we are proud to be an Open and Affirming congregation, welcoming people of all sexual orientations, gender identities, and expressions into the full life of our church. We want to show and share our Pride this June with a Pride worship service on June 25th after which we will march together in the Chicago Pride Parade! We’ve already got our spot in the parade with the other congregations from the Chicago Coalition of Welcoming Churches, and t-shirts are in the works, all we need is your feet in comfortable shoes! Sign-up in church this month or by contacting Vince.
 
The Chicago Coalition of Welcoming Churches is also sponsoring a Pride Brunch and Reception on Saturday June 17th, from 10am-12pm at the Unitarian Church of Evanston. RSVP to jacki@chicagowelcomingchurches.org by Wednesday, June 14th.

Bethany Grows

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After storms delayed our first attempt, the raised garden beds are IN! On Thursday, May 25th, about 8 folks worked to construct the beds and haul 2 cubic yards of soil to fill them. The hardest work was digging up the sod.  As of this writing, my legs are still killing me.

What’s next: We’ll plant seeds before June 1 and work to get some rabbit-proof fencing (if it exists) up around each bed before the seeds pop, and before we add any seedlings.  Then, there’ll be weeding (although not much this year, with that clean new soil), watering, and harvesting.  Want to take some basil home with you after worship? Do it!  Want to make some zucchini bread with the monster squash we let get too big? Fantastic.  These gardens, this year, at this scale, are for the joy of growing and sharing food here at Bethany and with our neighbors.  See some dad showing his kids how to pull a carrot out of our garden?  Awesome.  They’re welcome to it.

I’ll be in the gardens on Thursday afternoons (join me?) and more briefly on Mondays but keep your eyes peeled for additional work days and times.
 

Rev. Rebecca Anderson

Council President's Annual Report

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With the 2016-17 year at and end, I am realizing just how much Bethany has accomplished in this past year.
We began the year by welcoming Ann Ridge to the Church Council to replace Georgette Tarnow.  Other continuing members were Dean Arnold, David Digel, Kathy Rodriguez, Sara Haas, Linda Zawada, Alicia Ervin and Judy Beaupre.  Sadly, Linda had to step down mid-year due to health issues, and was replaced by Adam Franklin.

The highlight of the year—and a primary reason why we have accomplished so much—was the hiring of a new team of pastors, Vince Amlin and Rebecca Anderson. In the eight months they have been here, they have brought energy, enthusiasm and a renewed sense of community to our congregation. They have infused our worship services with sermons that have been meaningful, timely and relevant.  Although we were sorry to say goodbye to Beth Dickerson, who had served as our interim pastor for almost two years, we are happy to be embarking on a new phase in the life of Bethany. In recent months, we have welcomed 11 new members to the church, as well as a growing number of visitors to our Sunday worship services.

We continued to rent space to a number of outside groups, We renegotiated our agreement with Pilgrim Lutheran School, which uses our gym for basketball and volleyball practices, to more effectively cover the costs of maintenance that we envision in the future. The Chicago Montessori School continues to be our primary renter; this partnership is currently critical our financial stability.

During the year, we undertook initiatives designed to spruce up the church building and reclaim areas that had fallen into disrepair. Under Kathy Rodriguez’ leadership, the nursery was cleaned, painted and recarpeted, and Scott Beaderstadt used his artistic talents to paint colorful animals on the walls. We also devoted two weekend days to cleaning out the rec room and disposing of many years’ worth of collected items and unusable furniture that had accumulated (Thank you, Adam Franklin, for using Craigslist to help with this).  The project is not totally complete, but now have one outside group using the space on a regular basis.

Our annual stewardship campaign brought in pledges of $47,540 for the year.  Once again, we offered the option of online giving, but the majority of gifts still come in the form Sunday envelopes.

In addition to continuing our traditional mission projects—working with Night Ministry to provide meals, both on the street and at the Crib, a shelter for homeless youth—we partnered with Pilgrim Lutheran Church and School to cosponsor a refugee family.  Many members of the Council and congregation have been involved in this project as mentors, tutors, donors and worker bees. We work with our family, a single Rohingya Muslim mother from Burma and three daughters, twice a week. Helping them learn English and find a new apartment closer to other Rohingya immigrants are our biggest challenges at the moment. In April, we held a successful chili and dessert cook-off to raise money for the project, making more than $2,500.

I want to extend my thanks to Bethany’s members, and particularly to those who served on Council, for making this year a successful one.

Judy Beaupre, President BUCC Council