Community Church Fox River Grove - Active and Welcoming
Reverend Karen Sersen is the Lead Pastor of Community Church in Fox River Grove. Pastor Karen has been a bi vocational pastor for seven years, she is a wife, a mom, an on-call chaplain for Advocate Good Shepard Hospital and the volunteer Chaplain for the Cary fire Department. In her spare time, she sits on various community boards.
Pastor Karen believes that part of health and wellness means staying active. She is an avid runner, and likes to laugh a lot. She believes that part of our spiritual well-being is being physically active which helps to promote emotional well-being and resilience.
Active in the Larger Community
Therefore, she believes church should play an active role in the community which has been difficult during this season of COVID. Community Church's usual activities are helpful and playful. They provide summer long, affordable, summer camp programs, the bounce house for a local festival, and silly string battles for the annual blessing of motorcycles (at one of Pastor Karen’s favorite bars). With those opportunities gone this year, Pastor Karen and the Leadership team looked around to find “what else" opportunities for the church. In the midst of COVID, Community Church became the district collection point for the Midwest Mission Distribution Center. Midwest Mission works in cooperation with the United Methodist Committee on Relief and UMCOR to collect supplies in response to disasters. Our congregation had fun shopping for items, helping with the donation forms, sorting, counting and boxing items up. What seemed like an impossible task to collect items during COVID was a surprise when Community church along with other surrounding Methodist churches donated over 500 items.
COVID-19 Ribbon Display
Another church activity is the amazing ribbon display between the front columns of the church, one ribbon represents 10 people who have died of COVID-19 in Illinois. This project of figuring out how to hang the ribbons, the cutting, counting and tying of ribbons energized our church. Our young adults home during thanksgiving break brought their friends, who came and went, calling the church to see how many ribbons had been tied. It was an incredible, event. What could have been a depressing day out in the cold, was an afternoon of lively conversation. Over 1300 ribbons were tied. Many commenting, "not sure how this project would turn out." When the last ribbon was tied, we all stood back and prayed and were amazed at the beauty of each lost life.
The ribbon display is still up, and we are still collecting items for disaster relief efforts. if you would like to tie a ribbon or donate disaster relief items, all are welcome, no exceptions. Check our website or Facebook page for other actives.