Weekly eNote from Senior Pastor Adam Hamilton for Friday, 22 May 2015 from The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection of Leawood, Kansas, United States
Dear Resurrection Family,
I hope you are doing well as we begin this Memorial Day Weekend! If you are in town, you’ll not want to miss worship this weekend. We have a very special guest at Leawood’s Sunday 9, 10:45 and 5 pm services. Bishop Sundo Kim is a living legend. He’s been called the John Wesley or Billy Graham of Korea. Bishop Kim began his career as a doctor, and served as a field surgeon during the Korean War. Later, he came to America to attend seminary and then returned to South Korea to lead the Kwang Lim Methodist Church to grow from 200 people to over 75,000 during his 30 years as its senior pastor.
Bishop Kim, like our church, has a heart to spread Christianity and renew the Methodist Church around the world. Under his leadership, Kwang Lim Methodist Church has started seminaries in former Communist countries, launched mission churches around the world, funded significant works in Africa, and provided support for theological education in America. He’s written numerous books, six of which have been published in English. Though 85 years old he did not hesitate when we invited him to preach (though noted that he likely only had the strength to preach three services). He’s also in town to preach the commencement address at Saint Paul School of Theology today. You won’t want to miss him, and I’ll give you one more reason on Sunday for being glad to have the chance to hear him, but it’s a surprise.
Our other congregational care pastors and campus pastors will preach all other services, and they are excited to share their messages with you, and for you to have a chance to get to know them. Remember, this is also Family Worship Weekend. We’ll have nurseries for little ones, but no children, youth or adult Sunday School.
I want to thank all who gave blood this week. We had 410 donors give 424 pints of blood, just in time for Memorial Day Weekend when accidents lead to a drain on blood supplies. We also had 76 people sign up for the Bone Marrow Registry. Thank you, also, to the 100+ volunteers who served at the blood drive.
Last week you likely heard about the Pew Center Survey that found young adults increasingly non-religious across the US. Last year my friend Mike Slaughter, pastor of one of the largest UM churches in the US, interviewed me for his new book Rebel Gospel and we spoke about the question of young adults turning away from the church. Click on this link to watch a 5-minute clip from our interview and please consider sharing this on your own social media.
I want to thank all of you who began praying this last week for pastors and churches to whom I’ll be speaking the first three weeks of June – the pastors and United Methodist Churches of Iowa, West Michigan and Florida Annual Conferences. I’ve been praying each morning for one pastor from each of these conferences. Don’t forget to send your notes to these pastors – I sent mine yesterday.
The Leawood Campus will serve as the host for the National Worship Leader Conference, June 22- 25. We will have over 1100 worship leaders from across the US and from many different denominations. Come and be a part of the hospitality team to welcome and serve these guests. We’ll need meal and beverage servers, greeters, ushers, directional hosts, registration hosts, help selling CD’s and more while guests are here, and help with preparing materials for guests the week prior. Day and evening positions are available. This is a great opportunity for students to get some community service hours and for kids and parents to serve together. As an added bonus, all volunteers will be able to attend the evening concerts for free. This year’s concerts are featuring: Third Day, Israel Houghton, Zealand, Aaron Shust and more (for information about who is coming, click here). To sign up to volunteer,click here.
Last Sunday night a news story ran about our new sanctuary. On Monday a couple of radio stations picked up the story. The focus was on the cost of our new sanctuary. It is understandable that the amount seems exorbitant, particularly with little context or frame of reference. It is difficult to convey the case for the building in a sound bite. Here are a few things I keep in mind when people ask me about the cost of the new building:
1. We’ve always planned on building a permanent sanctuary. Our current sanctuary was designed to become our fellowship hall in the future. What we’re building is not something unusual for a church – a fellowship hall, kitchen, dedicated mission space, adult classrooms, space for our special needs ministry, a narthex and sanctuary.
We’re the only church I know with no kitchen. We have a fellowship hall that is also our student center and is half the size we need. Our nurseries and children’s classes are three city blocks from our adult classrooms and in another building – a real problem for many of our programs. Our sanctuary was designed to become a fellowship hall and has no natural light, half of the seats are too far from the chancel, and it feels “too big” to many younger adults (the new sanctuary is 35% smaller thanks to the balcony).
2. The criticism this week was focused on the cost. The cost of the sanctuary alone is about $65 million. An amount we raised in our three-year commitments in the capital campaign. The narthex, mission space, parking lots, connecting corridor, playground, engineering and architectural fees and prayer walk were another $15 million for a total of $80 million. The remaining $10 million of the $90 million figure cited is the renovations of our current sanctuary – creating 26 adult classrooms in the mezzanine, converting the main floor into a fellowship hall and Vibe worship space, adding a kitchen and dedicated Matthew’s Ministry space for our special needs ministry.
3. The specific concern I’ve heard articulated by critics is how we could justify spending this money when there are people in need in Kansas City. As a congregation, and as a pastor, this was a question we wrestled with. Here are a couple of things that helped this not only make sense to me, but convinced me that this building will help us give far more to those in need than we would give if we did not build it:
Building this building will significantly increase our ability to effectively serve our congregation and the community. Addressing the building challenges and providing the right space for the long-term health of the church increases both the number of people serving outside our walls and the amount of money they will give.
I asked our CFO to calculate, based upon the last ten years of giving, what we will give in missions to serve the poor and those outside the walls of our church in Kansas City and around the world in the years ahead. In the next 20 years we’ll give over $200 million – twice the cost of the building. In the next 50 years that number grows to $1.2 billion – 14 times the cost of the buildings. And over the next 100 years that number grows to $5.6 billion – 60 times what we’re spending on these buildings.
Then the question we asked is, what would happen to our long-term vitality, and our missions giving if we did not build these buildings. We believe doing nothing would compromise our ability to connect with future generations. This would result in giving less to serving others over the next 100 years. How much less? It’s hard to say, but we projected 20% less. The cost of doing nothing would result in giving $1.2 billion less to serve those outside the walls of our church over the next century.
There’s a lot more to the case for the building. But I’m convinced that this building is an important part of our church’s future, and that after it is built people will not see it as extravagant, but they will see it as a valuable asset in our community. Key to this is we continue to be committed, as we are today, to serving the community and those in need outside the walls of our church. You already do more and give more to those outside our church than any other church I know.
People will criticize and that’s okay. But I believe 100 years from now those who are members of this church in 2115, as well as the entire Kansas City community, will be grateful for this building and the ministry made possible because of it. This church will have touched the lives of hundreds of thousands of people over the next century.
Don’t miss worship this weekend if you are in town, and if you are out of town, join us online. I believe you’ll be glad you did.
Have a happy and safe Memorial Day as we remember those who have given their lives to serve our nation, and as we remember our loved ones who have passed to God’s heavenly kingdom.
In Christ’s love,
Adam
The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection
13720 Roe Avenue
Leawood, Kansas 66224
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