Weekly eNote from Senior Pastor Adam HamiltoSenior Pastor Adam Hamilton of The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas, United States
Dear Resurrection Family,Some years ago Robert Putnam wrote a book called Bowling Alonebased upon sociological research he had done. He noted that membership in civic clubs was down, and that while the number of people bowling was up, more people were bowling alone rather than in leagues. His point was that we were losing our connections and in danger of losing communities because we were cocooning – staying in-doors, not connecting with other people. First television and now the digital age seems to be increasing the amount of time people spend in-doors, by themselves or only with their immediate family.
Last weekend our campus pastors kicked off our new sermon series,Next Door: The Art of Neighboring. I think this is a very important sermon series. It calls us to take Jesus’ command literally when he told us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. We were created as human beings for community, to be in relationship with other people. We are happier, healthier, live longer and handle adversity better when we have and when we are good neighbors. The same is true when we are actively involved in a church family and involved in small groups. Relationships matter.
As I was thinking about Scott’s sermon I was thinking that Christians should be the best possible neighbors. And I thought of the impact our church could have on our city if we took this seriously. There are over 8,000 households at Resurrection. Our pastors at each campus and in Vibe last weekend urged us to get to know and be a neighbor to the people who live right around us. Even if you just considered the four neighbors who live across, on either side and behind you, that’s 32,000 households our members could be good neighbors to – getting to know and being good neighbors for!
LaVon and I were at the lake this week, where I’ve been writing. We worshiped online. So did our neighbor three houses down, and they invited us to dinner. We’ve known them a long time, but have never broken bread together before this sermon. It was a blessing to spend time with them and LaVon and I left grateful for the time getting to know our neighbors better! Don’t miss worship this weekend as we continue to learn the art of neighboring!
On Wednesday of this week my Aunt Celia Bell Yoder died. She was 100 and was lucid nearly to the end. She’s worshiped with us at Resurrection a number of times including this last fall. I’ve shared stories about her in my sermons and books. Her faith, and faithfulness, played a key role in my own faith. I’d seen her and prayed with her last week. While I was there her eyes lit up as she talked about heaven. On Wednesday of this week a choir from Mid America Nazarene University was going room to room in her care facility singing. When they came to her room and sang, she drew her last breath. What a great way to pass! I’m heading down to OklahomaSunday for the visitation and to preach her service Monday Morning. After that I’m away most of the rest of the week working on our upcoming fall sermon series on Moses.
One of the most important ways of growing in your faith is being in a small group Bible study. The single best group Bible study I’ve ever participated in is Disciple Bible Study. I’ve taken and helped lead this on multiple occasions. There’s something rich about connecting with 12 to 15 other people in reading through the Bible together, looking at its major themes, and discussing how the Bible relates to our lives. Disciple I is now a 24 week overview of scripture. You can find out more about Disciple, or sign up by clicking this link,www.cor.org/disciple.
Thank you to all of you who have been purchasing school supplies or school uniforms for children at our partner schools! As the school supplies and uniforms are coming in, our next focus is on our backpack ministry – this is where, every Friday, our members deliver to our partner schools sacks with nutritious snacks for those children on the free or reduced lunch program to take home.
We started our work in this area years ago when we learned from the schools that children were coming to school on Monday hungry, not having had enough to eat at home over the weekends. We felt God calling us to do something about this. This last school year you provided, weekend snack-sacks on Fridays to an average of 1,459 children. I wonder if you’d like to join LaVon and me in sponsoring one of these children for the school year. It costs $200 for an entire school-year’s worth of snack sacks. If you are interested in helping with this ministry, click here, www.cor.org/backpacks.
On the global mission front, in June and July we’ve had teams serving in Malawi, Honduras and South Africa. Their names and photos are at the end of this eNote. Did you know that you can read the blogs from our Global Impact teams atglobalimpact.blogs.cor.org?
Tomorrow I will once again be joining Randy Miller for a thirty-minute conversation on the radio at 1:00 pm. on KCMO Radio 710 AM and KCMO Radio 103.7 FM. Tune in and share this with a friend. I’ve enjoyed having conversations with Randy and see this as a chance to connect with folks who may not have a church home.
On the Resurrection Leawood building front, I had the chance to walk through the prayer walk that is under construction between the south parking lots. This has been in the works for years, but was postponed until the new sanctuary was under construction. The prayer walk will consist of a series of landscaped stations – patterned after the Catholic Stations of the Cross – where you can stop to pray and meditate upon the life of Jesus. Each station will represent events from the life of Christ. It is designed for individual and small group use and will include art commissioned from local artists. It was exciting to see this coming together and I believe it will be not only beautiful, but a powerful devotional tool for anyone who wants to use it. Here are a couple of pictures of the progress to date and the schematic design. The art work will be the last thing to be installed.
Rapid progress is being made in the new sanctuary as the ceiling, dry wall and plaster is being completed over the next few weeks. Twenty-one of the 160 panels from the stained glass window will be installed in the next month as well. These are being installed so that the artists can review the panels in location. The rest of the window will be installed in January and February. In September, after the scaffolding is down, we’ll have a weekend for Resurrection members to tour the sanctuary and to write your prayers and names on the floor of the new sanctuary before the final layer of concrete is installed. More on that in a couple of weeks.
I have to get back to writing. I’m looking forward to this weekend’s sermon on neighboring as our campus pastors continue to teach us the art of neighboring!
In Christ’s Love,
Adam
Global Impact Serve Teams June - July 2016
Malawi Serve Team, June 9-19
(Click on image to enlarge)
Joe Burwinkle
Lisa Heath
Julie Hefner
Brian Mieczkowski
Brooklynn Mieczkowski
Ngoc-Lan Thi Nguyen-Knoff
Richard Randolph
Dorothy Washington
Mary Beth Wiggins
Honduras Serve Team, June 26-July 4
(Click on image to enlarge)
Libby Cranor
Cheryl McMorris
Jennifer O’Hara
JoEllyn Payne
Ashlyn Reece
Sheree Reece
Duncan Rice
Randy Rice
Abby White
Jill White
Shari Wilkins
Tom Wilkins
South Africa Serve Team, July 15-25
(Click on image to enlarge)Kaci Adams
Marian Baca
Judith Knorr
Darian Lassiter
Devon Lassiter
Morgan Martin
Brian Ratzlaff
Shrilyn Roben
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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