Weekly eNote from Senior Pastor Adam Hamilton from The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas, United States for Friday, 24 June 2016

Friday, June 24, 2016
Weekly eNote from Senior Pastor Adam Hamilton from The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas, United States for Friday, 24 June 2016
Dear Resurrection Family,
Just a quick note of Happy Birthday to my wife, LaVon. I want you to know, as a congregation, just how important she is in my life, and how significant a role she has played behind the scenes in my work as your Senior Pastor. Several times a month, as we are talking about some dimension of the church’s ministry she’ll say, “Have you thought about doing this…” and, as I listen, I usually think, “What a great idea!” Here’s a small example. When I told her I was planning on preaching a two-part sermon series on The Gospel According to Dogs she said, “Have you thought about having an organization in the narthex so that people could consider adopting a dog after worship?”This Sunday we’ll have four such organizations highlighted in the bulletin and one of them will be in the narthex of the Leawood campus with puppies awaiting adoption. She’d be embarrassed for me to mention this, but over the years there are so many things that she’s suggested, or helped make happen. Today, I’m celebrating her life and the blessing she is to me. Happy Birthday, LaVon!
Have you heard the phrase, the “dog days of summer”? The phrase refers to the hottest, most uncomfortable part of the summer in the northern hemisphere and actually comes from the correlation between the hot humid weather during this period of time and the rising of Sirius, the dog star, in the constellation Canis Major.
Dog days takes on a special meaning this weekend at Resurrection as we continue our series on The Gospel According to Dogs. This weekend we’ll look at a dog’s relationship with its master and how it can help us better understand our relationship with God. I have some great video clips with dogs that teach us about ourselves. We’ll also have Wayside Waifs representatives in the Narthex after service with puppies and information about how to adopt pets. Then come back to church on Saturday or Sunday night at 6:45 for a special Blessing of the Pets. Join us under the covered walkway on the East side of Bldg. B. Please do not bring your pets with you to church and leave them in the hot car. There will be time following worship to go home and get your pet and come back to the church.
I mentioned last weekend in worship that each summer I invite you to share with me your best ideas for sermon series – sermons that would connect with non-religious and nominally religious people, sermons that would help you who are Christians to grow deeper in your faith, and sermons that would address the pastoral, emotional or relational needs of the congregation. The current sermon series was one recommended by one of our members in last year’s survey. I’d like to invite you to take a few minutes right now and to e-mail me your answers to the following questions (email your response to my assistant, Sue.Thompson@cor.org):

1. Give us some basic info about you: Name, Campus you usually attend and service time, and age.
2. Can you think of a sermon series that would be of particular interest to, or connect with, your non-religious and nominally religious friends?
3. Can you think of a sermon series that I could preach that would help you grow deeper in your faith?
4. Are there stories or books or parts of the Bible that you would particularly hope to hear a sermon or sermon series on in the coming year?
5. Are there theological questions, or ethical or moral issues about which you would hope to hear a sermon series?
6. Are there personal issues – emotional, relational, or pastoral issues that you would like to hear addressed in a sermon series in the coming year?
7. I’m considering revisiting a sermon series I preached twelve years ago called, Christianity and World Religions. We'd look at what various religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism and New Age spirituality) believe and, in each sermon, explore where they are similar to Christianity and where Christianity offers a different understanding of God and truth. Would you see this as a helpful series of messages?

Again, please email your answers and ideas to sue.thompson@cor.org.
Do you tend to attend the same service and sit in the same section? Looking out over our congregation from the pulpit, I would guess that many of you do. Do you know the people in your section? Do you greet them each weekend? Could you? I know that God is calling some of you to use your natural warmth and hospitality to make Resurrection a place where people feel welcomed and connected. The process is pretty simple, in fact it can be summed up in just three words: Notice, Greet, Connect. If this sounds like something you might do, you could be a section greeter. To learn more about section greeters, contact Stephanie.Hubers@cor.org.
We have a couple of fun annual events coming up on the Leawood campus.

• Saturday, July 9 is the Resurrection Car Show. We’ll have more than 100 awesome cars on display in our parking lot from 9 am to 1 pm; bring a friend and stop by. Here’s the website if you want to register your car for display or judging.
• The Rummage Sale is coming up July 15 and 16 and there are lots of ways for you to participate from donating the treasures in your basement, to volunteering, to shopping, and you’ll help raise thousands of dollars for missions locally and globally. Donations can be dropped off July 12 and 13 from 8 am to 8 pm. To see a list of items and volunteer, click here.

This summer is filled with Resurrection folks serving in our community and around the world! This week 677 volunteers served 2,548 hours at Bless the School at Garfield Elementary School. By painting, cleaning and building a playground you are not only providing a fresh learning environment for the 525 students and 60 staff members, you are also saying to these children that they are so important to our community that people they don’t even know believe in them and want them to succeed. Also this week, more than 200 volunteers with Schools Furnishing Hope, received and distributed 4,558 furniture items that were donated from the Blue Valley School District and then repurposed for 16 local educational organizations. LaVon and I were painting on Tuesday night and were in awe of the new playgrounds Resurrection members made possible, and with the work hundreds of you had already done on the school by the time we arrived to paint. I am so proud of you! Here are a few pics:
Check out a couple of photos from Bless the School. Click on the photo to enlarge.

We’ve also had teams out on mission trips throughout the summer and, we are already beginning to plan for 2017. Sites in Denver, Dallas, New York City, Ohio, and rural Missouri are under consideration. We need your help as we organize trips that will offer you a meaningful mission and service experience. Could you take a couple of minutes and fill out a short mission trip survey? This will help our mission team organize trips that will offer you a meaningful mission and service experience. Click here for the survey link.
Remember if you are travelling you can always join us for worship at rezonline.org. The Leawood services at 10:45 am and 5 pm on Sundays are live streamed, but just last week we were able to expand the number of times during the week that the worship services are replayed. Go to rezonline.org to see the schedule.
In two weeks I’ll be preaching another two-part sermon series, this one timed to coincide with Theatre in the Park’s presentation of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. We’ll have music from the musical, and I’ll walk you through this very important story found in Genesis and what it teaches us about ourselves and about God. We have a Resurrection Night at Shawnee Mission Park’s Theatre in the Park on Friday, July 22, for Leawood, Blue Springs and West and Saturday, July 23 for Downtown. If you’ve never been you’ll want to be there – its inexpensive, a great family activity, and the shows are awesome. You’ll bring your own food and drinks as well as chairs or blankets. I’m really excited about this show and a night at Theatre in the Park with you!
Finally, I wanted to update you on the fall 2017 Educational Opportunities Journeys of Paul Cruise I’m leading. We have 224 people signed up so far. It is going to be a truly remarkable journey. We fly into Rome and travel by sea visiting four Mediterranean Islands, and the magnificent ruins at Ephesus, Athens, Corinth and Rome as well as those at Pompeii. I’ll deliver four lectures on Paul’s life on board the ship and Lance Winkler will lead worship. Guides will take you through the various archaeological sites and you’ll have free days to explore on your own. Do you have any interest in this journey? Here’s the three-minute video promo for the trip. This will likely be the only time I’ll lead a trip like this for the foreseeable future. Contact EO at the number at the end of the video, or my assistant, Sue Thompson, for more information.
Okay, that’s a bit of news from the Church of the Resurrection today. I look forward to seeing you in worship this weekend!
In Christ’s Love,
Adam
The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection
13720 Roe Avenue

Leawood, Kansas 66224, United States
913.897.0120

www.cor.org
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