The Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago

The worship service recording includes both pre-service and post-service music.
View PDF of worship bulletin | (Right-click on link and open it in a new tab if you want podcast to keep playing)

As we move into the new year, Associate Pastor Nanette Sawyers guides us in reflecting on this past year and looking ahead to a new day and a new year. We remember that God is alive in us and that we can trust in God’s light and love.
We also offer a musical piece in the form of a Taizé chant, singing:
The Lord is my light, my light and salvation, in God I trust, in God I trust.

The worship service recording includes both pre-service and post-service music.
View PDF of worship bulletin | (Right-click on link and open it in a new tab if you want podcast to keep playing)

A sermon by Joseph L. Morrow.
View PDF of worship bulletin | (Right-click on link and open it in a new tab if you want podcast to keep playing)

As we move from Advent into the celebration of Christmas and the birth of Emmanuel, God with us, we invite you to take a few moments to reflect with this “Rhythm and Word” video. May the wonder and joy of the gift born in the manger come alive for you throughout this season!

Johann Sebastian Bach's "Magnificat" was presented in lieu of a sermon on December 21, 2025.
The worship service recording includes both pre-service and post-service music.
View PDF of worship bulletin | (Right-click on link and open it in a new tab if you want podcast to keep playing)

Although the time period after the exile did not unfold in the way that was initially expected, a new expectation began to build around a coming Messiah, one from David’s lineage, who would help usher in this new age. 
In this episode, Matt Helms invites us to reflect on Daniel’s vision of a time when the empires of the world lose their dominion, lose their power — a power that is instead given to this mysterious figure known as the Son of Man. This returns us to the idea of covenant that has been a throughline throughout this series.  
Crucially, we see a new aspect of the covenant drawn in. This is not just a promise for a particular people in a particular place. Instead, we have moved from the particular to the universal — and it is those broadened hopes for all creation that lie behind Jesus’ arrival. 

The worship service recording includes both pre-service and post-service music.
View PDF of worship bulletin | (Right-click on link and open it in a new tab if you want podcast to keep playing)

A sermon by Camille Cook Howe.
View PDF of worship bulletin | (Right-click on link and open it in a new tab if you want podcast to keep playing)

In this episode we are exploring the return from exile and the era of the Second Temple.
What seems to have emerged in the century following the return from exile was a tension between a sort of isolationist wing and a more universalist wing. There were those who wanted to remove all foreigners and double and triple down on following the Law, while others advocated for understanding God as being the God of all people and all nations, not just Israel alone.
Here Matt Helms invites us to reflect on some thoughtful and incisive questions that the book of Jonah has to ask of us, primarily around our own sense of self-righteousness, and times when that conflicts with an expansive understanding of God’s love and mercy.
Ultimately, this view that God is the God of all people wins out. And even though things aren’t perfect, hopes begin to rise around a Savior, a Messiah, who will help to truly usher in an age where God is in control — not just in the present time, but forever.