Friday, October 9, 2015
Dear Resurrection Family,
It was 25 years ago this week that we held our first worship service in the McGilley Chapel Funeral Home at 123rd and State Line. That first month we averaged about 90 people. 60 of them are still a part of the congregation. We began with a dream; a dream of reaching out to non-religious and nominally religious people, helping them to know and follow Jesus, and equipping and inspiring them to live out their faith in such a way that together we would change the world. Every week our members invited their unchurched friends. From the start we set aside 25% of our offerings to serve others outside the walls of our church. Our people volunteered in the community. And as the church grew lives were changed and communities transformed.
It’s appropriate at key milestones to stop and say, “Wow, look what God has done in us and through us!” Please wear your 25th anniversary t-shirts to worship this weekend as we celebrate. As we celebrate, we’ll look back over the last 25 years, but our real focus will be looking forward, asking what God has for us to do in the years ahead. It’s going to be an awesome weekend.
We’re celebrating at each of our campuses – for those of you from West, Downtown and Blue Springs, check your campus pastor’s e-note today to see what’s happening at your place. I’ll focus on the Leawood campus in describing the events for this weekend:
Fireworks! Saturday night at 7:00 pm, we’ll celebrate with a fireworks show here at Leawood (West is doing this at the same time). Bring a blanket or lawn chairs to sit on, dress warm and bring a friend. The fireworks represent for us our efforts to be the light of the world and to push back the darkness.
Signing the Beams! We’ll have structural beams for the new sanctuary at each entrance to the church at Leawood, with markers for you to sign your name and write a scripture citation. These will be inside the structure of the new sanctuary, your names and scripture citations hidden within the walls of the new building. This has been very meaningful for those who were here when we built each of our other buildings.
Great Food! After every worship service we’ll have a catered fellowship meal. We need you to register so we have enough food – I’ll tell you about the meals below. We’ll also have Kevo the Clown making balloon creations at some of the meals. Here’s the meals:
• Saturday night: Burgers/brats/hot dogs with chips, slaw, cookies and drinks.
• Sunday morning brunch: Egg casserole, potatoes, sausage, fruit, pastries.
• Sunday noon and evening: BBQ Brisket, rosemary chicken, grilled
vegetables, mac & cheese, spinach salad.
The cost is $7/adult and $4 per child ages 3-12 on Saturdaynight and Sunday morning. The cost is $10/adult and $6 per child ages 3-12 on Sunday noon and Sunday night. You can register and pre-pay for your meals using this link. If you cannot afford this we’d like you to be our guest, just see one of our pastors and we’ll make arrangements for you to share in the meal.
We hope to have great attendance this weekend, and with people staying to eat, we anticipate some parking challenges. For those of you worshipping on Sunday morning, if you are able, please enter from Nall Ave. and park in one of the parking lots south of the new sanctuary. We'll have our shuttles running to drop you at the doors.
We could also use a few more volunteers to help with the anniversary activities this weekend. If you would like to help, use this link.
25,000 Hours of Service: To celebrate our 25th Anniversary we wanted to give back 25,000 hours of service to others. As of last night we were over 19,000 hours. Tomorrow is our biggest serve day. I’ll join one of dozens of teams rehabbing houses as a part of Christmas in October. We have a variety of serve events happening. By the end of tomorrow we anticipate being at 24,825 hours in the last 25 days. If you’ve been serving with Resurrection’s ministry, or with others in the community and have not reported your hours served, click on this link and let us know. I believe we’ll end the weekend passing our goal.
This weekend we’ll also have the Church of the Resurrection’s new Bookmobile at the Leawood Campus. We want you to have a chance to see the Bookmobile. Last year you distributed 30,000 books to children here in Kansas City. I’d love you to see one of the tools we have to support our work in encouraging children in our partner schools to read. It will be parked on the south side of the Leawood sanctuary this weekend.
A brief update about the Syrian Refugee efforts. A team of our members met two weeks ago to discuss how we can respond and be Christ’s hands for Syrian refugees. As with many things the reality of how to help is more complex than our desire to help. The decisions around where refugees are resettled is made, as we understand it, by the State Department. We are looking at ways in the short term to provide aid to our United Methodist Churches in Europe who are currently ministering with thousands of Syrian refugees. I’ll have more information on this in the weeks ahead.
Finally, as I’ve been looking over old photos this week of the early years at Resurrection I was reminded once again of how grateful I am for the very first adult member of the Church of the Resurrection, and her efforts, commitment and support without which this church would not have become what it is today. She was the first person who signed on to say, “I want to be a part of this new church.” She helped with set-up and take down each week as we began meeting in the funeral home. She helped organize the first women’s groups, she worked in the nurseries, and taught in children’s SundaySchool. She helped organize the first sports team. We had long conversations, hours and hours, about the ministries of the church. Most of my best ideas either came from her or were made better because of my conversations with her. And, without her behind the scenes support and encouragement I would have been lost. LaVon was 26 when I was assigned to start the church. She worked part time while being the primary care giver to our two little children. She spent a lot of evenings at home alone with the kids while I was delivering coffee mugs, visiting in people’s homes and attending committee meetings. Our spare bedroom was the first church office, our living room housed youth group and the church’s first Disciple Bible study as well as committee meetings and, at one point, four adult Sunday School classes. Our earliest Coffee with the Pastors also took place at our home. I could go on and on and on, but I simply wanted to acknowledge here the important role LaVon played in the birth and development of this church. Thank you, LaVon, for making this possible.
There are so many others that I wish I could personally acknowledge, who have been pillars and pioneers in the development of this church. I would not know where to stop. To each of you who have given your time and resources to make this congregation what it is today, Thank you! I am so grateful for and proud of the people you are and the congregation God has used you to build!
I’ll end with this: this weekend we celebrate our 25thanniversary. The truth is, in 25 years all who were here prior to the opening of the new sanctuary will be considered pioneers, and these first 25 years as we developed the congregation and her ministries, launched new campuses, and built our buildings, will be considered our “early years” by later generations. Thanks for being one of these pioneers!
Please don’t miss this weekend in worship. A church only celebrates its 25th anniversary once, and this is going to be a terrific celebration together!
In Christ’s Love,
Adam
The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection
13720 Roe Avenue
Leawood, Kansas 66224 United States
913.897.0120
913.897.0120
www.cor.org
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