During Lent, we gather with our brothers and sisters in the Illinois Valley Cluster of churches for worship and a meal. This year’s theme is “Christ the Liberator.”

Worship begins at 4:00 p.m. each Sunday afternoon at the host church, with a fellowship meal following. This week’s service is hosted by US at Eureka Christian Church.

We will collect a special offering throughout the series benefitting the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Vocational Training Center, a Global Ministries (Disciples of Christ and United Church of Christ) facility, which offers classes, tools, and materials for sewing/tailoring, carpentry, cosmetology, and design.

Checks may be made to Global Ministries.

As is our custom at Eureka Christian Church, we will share in a 24-hour prayer vigil from 8:00 p.m. on Maundy Thursday until 8:00 p.m. on Good Friday. Members of the church are invited each to take an hour to keep vigil with Jesus during his most difficult steps from the Garden of Gethsemane to the cross and finally the tomb. Our chapel will be set up with eight prayer stations to take you through these pivotal moments. Sign up for your hour by contacting Rev. Jennie at minister@eurekachristian.org.

Registration continues for our Civil Rights Pilgrimage, March 22-28, 2025.

Currently, we have room for 11 more participants! If you want to go, please let Rev. Jennie know as soon as possible, and she will save a place for you.

On our pilgrimage, we hope to include: a Soul of America tour in Nashville, Tennessee; stops at the 16th Street Baptist Church and Kelly Ingram Park in Birmingham, Alabama; visits to the Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Museum and National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama; and a guided tour around Selma which includes walking across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. (These destinations are subject to availability; final itinerary may vary.)

Cost is $1800 per person for a single room and $1500 per person for a double room. This includes transportation, lodging, activity fees, all breakfasts and four dinners. Lunches and two dinners are on your own. A $200 deposit is required at the time of registration to secure your place. Half of the remaining balance is due August 1, and the final payment is due December 2.

The last Total Solar Eclipse in North America for the next 20 years will take place on April 8, 2024. At Camp Walter Scott, our church campground, totality will occur for nearly a minute around 2:03 PM. Why not make a day of it?!

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You’re invited to come to Camp Walter Scott and:

• Watch the eclipse! (through protective glasses of course – 100 pairs available, first come first serve)
• Bring a food for a picnic!
• Walk the frog pond trail with its native wildlife signage!
• Visit our ever popular goats!
• See our native prairie beginning to grow back in for the year!
• Walk our new skunk trail! (skunks not included)
• Go out on water-craft with lifejackets! (and adult supervision if applicable)
• Play on the playground or in our main field!
• Enjoy any of our other outdoor recreation!

For more information, please visit the Camp Walter Scott website or call (501)570-6685. Overnight accommodations are available. There is also some interest in carpooling, so if you would like more information, please email Rev. Jennie at minister@eurekachristian.org

Camp Walter Scott is located at 15290 E 300th Avenue in Dieterich, Illinois.

Did you know that you can find our live-streamed worship services through three different platforms?  We are not just on Facebook!  Sunday services are also live-streamed through our website and YouTube channel.  Here are the links you can use:

https://www.youtube.com/@eurekaccdoc

eurekachristian.org/worship-online

facebook.com/eurekacc/live

Let the composting commence! 

We are now set up and ready to receive your organic kitchen waste as part of our new composting project.  If you have been saving your kitchen scraps, please bring them to church on Sunday or at your convenience.  And remember to take a new coffee can home with you so you can keep on collecting those organic goodies!  

If you haven’t started yet, this is your chance!  You can take a coffee can home with you after worship and start collecting now.  When it’s full, just bring it back to church and get another can.  

What is compostable?  We are accepting any organic waste except for dairy, bones, and meat.  

Eureka Christian Church, we are well on our way to being part of the solution to reduce the nearly 400 billion pounds of organic waste that Americans throw out every year. This will be transformed into valuable soil amendments—which is good for the soil, good for the creatures we share this home with, and ultimately good for us.

Eureka Christian Church is pleased to welcome members of our Boy Scout Troop 57 to the Traditional Service on Sunday!

Several members of the troop, in fact, will share what scouting means to them as part of the sermon. (A note to our First Light folks: though the scouts won’t be with us for the First Light Service, they were kind enough to share their words with me ahead of time. So you will still get to hear their thoughts!)

Here is a preview from Eagle Scout Daniel Stewart:
“Scouting has provided me with an opportunity. An opportunity to push my limits, learn valuable skills, and transform into a dependable young adult. Through scouting I’ve had incredible experiences: hiking the mountains of New Mexico, canoeing on the Canadian border, leading my troop at summer camp. Those experiences I never would have had without scouting. Scouting has also given me a chance to grow closer in my relationship with Jesus. Through conversations with my friends, the positive actions of the people around me, and the pure untamed beauty of the wilderness, I’ve come to have a better understanding of the awesomeness and majesty of God’s creation.  I’ve met new people with different opinions then me. It’s caused me to think about my relationship with Jesus and the church, and I feel that that relationship is stronger now.”

Join us this Sunday to hear more. And get ready to be inspired! Many thanks to Scoutmaster Chris Lee for arranging the troop’s visit and the scouts’ sharing.

I’ll see you Sunday.

Jennie

Worship at 8:15 and 10:30 a.m.
On-site at 302 South Main Street       Eureka, Illinois
Online at eurekachristian.org/worship-online or facebook.com/eurekacc/live

What’s with all the coffee cans?

You may be wondering why we’ve been collecting all those coffee cans.  Well, we are about to begin a composting project at Eureka Christian Church! 

Why composting?  Quite simply, it is good for God’s Good Earth! 

According to some estimates, every year each American throws out 1200 pounds of organic garbage that could be composted.  That’s nearly 400 billion pounds—yes, billion—every single year.  This organic waste shouldn’t be wasted!  It can be transformed into valuable soil amendments—which is good for the soil, good for the creatures we share this home with, and ultimately good for us.  Because as Kenneth Smith says, “When we feed the earth, we make the soil healthier by returning nutrients and organic matter.  And healthy soils = healthy food.”  (He also says, “A rind is a terrible thing to waste!” and “Don’t treat your soil like dirt!”  Folks, we have a sage among us!)

There is something beautifully theological about the church taking that which others throw away and turning it into something that gives life to the world.  This is a good thing for us to do! 

We are not quite ready to launch yet, but wanted to give you a preview of what you can expect.  If you want to participate in this exciting and life-giving project, you will take a coffee can home and fill it with your organic kitchen “waste.”  (Think vegetable scraps, apple cores, coffee grounds, egg shells, etc. We will provide a list of what can and cannot be composted.)  Then, when it is full, you will bring it back to the church at a drop-off location we will determine and take another empty coffee can home with you to begin again.

Meanwhile, someone (any and all are welcome to get involved!), will take the food waste to its final resting place where the real heroes of this composting project—our vermicomposting worms—will get to work transforming our kitchen garbage into the “black gold” plants love.

If you’d like to hear more about this creative and exciting project, you are invited to come to the Leader Retreat Day on Saturday, January 20 from 9:00-3:00 in the Parish Hall when we will share more about this vision.  Even though the registration deadline has passed, email Rev. Jennie at minister@eurekachristian.org to get on the list for lunch! 

And we can still use more coffee cans, so keep them coming!

Join us this Sunday, December 17 for a combined 10:00 a.m. Festival Worship Service featuring our children’s nativity pageant. 

They will be sharing “Sing With Us the Christmas Story,” arranged by Teresa and Paul Jennings.  It will be a lovely morning of Christmas music and children’s voices.  You won’t want to miss it!

Worship at 10:00 a.m.
On-site at 302 South Main Street       Eureka, Illinois
Online at eurekachristian.org/worship-online or facebook.com/eurekacc/live

Join me this Sunday, December 17 at 1:00 p.m. to learn more about ECC’s up-coming Civil Rights Pilgrimage. I will share more information about the trip, including a proposed itinerary and estimated costs. We will meet in the Fireside Lounge at the church.

Anyone interested in learning more about this trip should come to the meeting.  If you want to be involved in this effort but don’t think you can physically go on the trip, come to the meeting anyway because there are important ways you can be involved at home!  If you would like to join the meeting by Zoom, please me at minister@eurekachristian.org for the link.

I hope to see you there!

Jennie