Zion Covenant Church and First Covenant Church are sponsoring the event, which will benefit several Christ-centered recovery ministries in the community sponsored by the churches. Welch has become a popular speaker around the country and has written a best-selling book about his life-changing transformation.
Welch also wrote a hard-driven song called “Flush” about escaping his years of addiction to crystal methamphetamines. Lyrics include “I am something/I’m not nothing/I can’t let myself decay.”
Judd Hamilton, the director of urban outreach and recovery ministries at Zion, says he felt compelled to invite Welch, but still was surprised when the world-famous musician accepted.
”His life changed very similarly to mine, just dramatically,” Hamilton said. ”He just asked God to search his heart, said ‘Jesus, you know I want to stop.’ I thought it would be great if he could come here and tell that story, and now it is happening.”
After his Crown Theater engagement, Welch will speak at an under-21 event at the Gateway Center, which is led by Covenant minister Amy Rohler. For a Covenant News Service story about the center and her work, click here.
Presale tickets for Brian ”Head” Welch’s appearance at The Crown Theater are $10 and are available at Chautauqua Music, First Covenant Church, Zion Covenant Church, First Lutheran Church, The Gateway Center and Labyrinth Press Company. Tickets at the door on the day of the event will be $12.
Admission to the Gateway Center talk will be one dollar. Doors will open at 5:30 p.m. and two local bands will perform prior to Welch’s talk.
For more information, call First Covenant Church at 483-9825 or Hamilton at 573-6539.
Covenant News Service will soon publish stories about the rapid growth of recovery ministries sponsored by the two Covenant churches and the impact they have had on the congregations as well as the community.
Minister Learns Lesson From Unlikely Samaritan
CHICAGO, IL – Al Tizon, an Evangelical Covenant Church minister, spoke on the parable of the Good Samaritan during morning worship at the recent Midwinter Conference. He asked attendees to consider who might be the Good Samaritan that helps them and who might be the difficult neighbor God calls them to love.
Pastor Eva Sullivan-Knoff got a chance to answer those questions almost immediately as she returned to her home in Chicago while the city was trying to dig out of the third-worst blizzard in the city’s history.
“I headed outside with shovel in hand to try and unbury our two cars,” she says. “After shoveling about a 10-foot-long and three-foot-high path of heavy wet snow, I heard a commotion down the block. A driver in a truck got out of his vehicle and was yelling obscenities at another driver.
Her opinion of the driver was less than favorable. Still, she prayed silently for him as he returned to his truck.
Already exhausted and aching from the shoveling, Sullivan-Knoff was trying to figure out how she would be able to remove the large amount of snow that remained. “Then the same truck driver came around the block and plowed the rest of what I had to shovel,” she says.
“I thanked God for the reminder and prayed to remain open to all who I would normally struggle with or prejudge.”
There is more snow expected tonight.
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