Gilead Roadshow 2024
Gilead Church Chicago is going on the road this summer! We’re bringing a Gilead-style service (personal stories, pop songs, and good news that sounds good) to the suburbs to say thank you to the congregations that have been supporting us from the beginning and to build relationships with possible new partners. We want to provide a moving, beautiful, fun worship experience for your congregation while raising awareness and money for the work we’re doing: making church for those who have nowhere else to be church.
What we’re offering: a well-crafted, hour-long worship service, complete with stories, prayers, music, a sermon, and communion, all created and led by our team. We’ll bring everything: from fresh-baked gluten-free communion bread to keyboard and drumkit. Our theme for the summer is “What Was I Made For?” a service on discernment and listening for the voice of God in our lives. It will be a great service to invite youth and young adults to, but it will have a meaningful message for adults across generations.
In addition, if you would like, one or more pastors will stay afterward to do a Q&A or meet with staff or a committee for another hour on topics like:
storytelling
new church/ church innovation
throwing parties as a spiritual practice
discernment
more about Gilead
What we’re asking for: first and foremost, a chance to worship with your community and share about what God is doing at our little queer, storytelling bar church in the city. Secondly, to invite your people to the roadshow (and encourage them to invite their people.) Lastly, to take an offering during worship in support of our work. (Thanks to a grant from the Forum for Theological Exploration, we’re able to pay all of our costs for the Roadshow, which means that 100% of donations go directly to the work of building and sustaining Gilead.)
Why support Gilead Church Chicago: Gilead is a 7-year-old church that is seeking to be church with and for people who have nowhere else to worship and belong. For our folks we’re often the first step back into church after a long absence (or ever) or the last step away from parts of the tradition that were not welcoming or life-giving. We are reaching people that few mainline progressive congregations are: queer Millennials and Gen Z-ers. College students, grad students, people just beginning their careers.
And doing that work means we need the support of established and well-resourced congregations. In a typical worship service at Gilead, you’ll hear people praying for work, for scholarships, for roommates, for housing. All of which is to say, the folks in our congregation don’t have the resources to sustain this life-saving community.
When you give to Gilead, you’re helping to make a space in the church for people who wouldn’t be here otherwise. You’re also helping to shape the future of the church. Gilead has supervised 10 seminarians from more than five denominations in the last 6 years. We’ve also had 4 people under 30 go or go back to seminary from Gilead. We are a place where people hear God’s call and see a path to answering it for the first time.
Thanks for considering partnering with us on this exciting project to share beautiful, creative worship together, and to build a stronger church together.