Leawood, Kansas, United Methodist Church of the Resurrection Main Campus with Pastor Adam Hamilton for Wednesday, 16 April 2014

Leawood, Kansas, United Methodist Church of the Resurrection Main Campus with Pastor Adam Hamilton for Wednesday, 16 April 2014
Dear Resurrection Family,
This is a heavy week for our congregation and community. As you know by now, two of the three persons killed at the Jewish Community Center last Sunday were active members of Resurrection. Dr. Bill Corporon and his 14-year-old grandson Reat Underwood (Losen) were active members of Resurrection, along with their families. The third victim, Terri LaManno, was  the aunt of one of our staff, Kevin Euston. Services for Terri will be held at her home church tomorrow. Services for Bill and Reat will be here at Leawood at 3 pm on Friday. The service will be live streamed at www.rezonline.org. Please keep these families in your prayers.
Members of Westboro Baptist Church are planning to picket at the funeral. They will be across the street. I am asking that you please ignore them. They want attention, hope for engagement and would love the media to take notice of them. I'm hoping members of the media will ignore them as well.
On a completely unrelated topic, I'd like to address a concern several of you have raised in the last couple of days. Saint Paul School of Theology sponsors a lecture series each year that includes the Cleaver Lecture on Religion and Public Life. This year's speaker is the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright Jr., pastor emeritus at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. You'll likely remember Dr. Wright as a controversial figure who was a lightning rod during the 2008 presidential elections.
Dr. Wright was invited to deliver this lecture before Saint Paul moved to Resurrection. The lecture is not funded by Resurrection. Resurrection is not a sponsor. We were not consulted on the invitation. The lecture is not being held at Resurrection (it is hosted by St. James United Methodist Church in Kansas City, Missouri). The seminary invites its guest lecturers to join the students and faculty in chapel on the day of their lecture giving students and faculty a chance to hear the lecturer and to engage them in dialogue following chapel. This chapel service is held at Resurrection where all classes are held.
When Saint Paul was welcomed last fall to the classrooms and facilities of Resurrection's campus (a privilege for which it pays its share of expenses), the seminary and the church remained separate organizations. Academic freedom is a condition to accreditation of any academic institution, and academic freedom for Saint Paul's faculty was preserved. Saint Paul was already committed to hosting the Cleaver Lecture and its speakers and subject matter do not imply endorsement by the church.
To reiterate, Resurrection is not sponsoring this event, endorsing the event, funding the event, hosting the lecture or officially a part of the event in any way. If you have any further questions about this, please direct them to Dan Entwistle, our Managing Executive Director at the church. You can reach him at dan.entwistle@cor.org.
Finally, we're expecting a larger than normal Easter crowd this weekend. Our community is longing for an Easter message of hope after the events of this last week. The message will remind us that Christ's resurrection promises that the "worst thing is never the last thing," and that evil and death will not have the final word.
For best seating and parking, and to make room for all of our guests this weekend, I'd like to encourage you to join us Saturday night at 7, Sunday morning "sunrise" at 7 am, 9:45 am at the Overland Park Convention Center, or Sunday night at 5 pm.
Based on last year's numbers, the most crowded services will be Saturday at 5 and Sunday at 9 and 11 in the Sanctuary. If you want to worship at these times please consider the beautiful services in the East Building where you'll hear my same message via video and have awesome live music - traditional in the Wesley Chapel and modern in the Student Center. For a complete list of service times, locations and music, please click on this link. If you can help us usher this weekend, please click on this link.
Please continue to pray for the Corporon and Losen families as we prepare for the services for their loved ones on Friday, and for the LaManno family as Terri's life is celebrated tomorrow.
In Christ's Love,
Adam