GILEAD (say it, GIL-ee-ad)

It’s a Spiritual about making the wounded whole. It’s a Pulitzer-Prize winning novel about seeing the sacred in the ordinary. It’s a pharmaceutical company that makes life-saving medication for those living with HIV. In the bible, it’s a place where healing happens, where medicine grows on trees. And the place where a man named Jacob wrestles with God and gets blessed.

And yes!, we do know it’s the name of a dystopian military dictatorship in The Handmaid’s Tale! But before Margaret Atwood, before a fictional regime got to it, Gilead was in the mouth of the prophet Jeremiah, asking: “Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Then why has the health of my poor people not been restored?” For us, that’s rhetoric that says: collectively, there is enough. People need healing of all kinds — and it is available.

Gilead Chicago is a community that seeks healing in a particular place. That place is the north side of Chicago. That place is America. And that place is also in each one of us, who gather in this God-wrestling community. Join us in this place as we make beautiful worship, throw great parties and make real friends, and tell stories that save lives.