Weekly eNote from Senior Pastor Adam Hamilton for Friday, 28 October 2016 from The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas, United StatesFriday, October 28, 2016
Dear Resurrection Family,
This will be an abbreviated email as LaVon and I are on vacation this week with our daughters, their guys, and our granddaughter, and Stella wants Papa to walk with her on the beach! At the bottom of this note I’m going to mention the six keys to the Good Life from my sermons over the last three weeks.
This weekend at the Leawood Campus, Pastor Darryl Burton will be preaching on Hope and Forgiveness. Darryl was wrongly convicted of murder in 1984 and spent the next 24 years in prison. He was eventually exonerated of the crime and released. He recently graduated with his Master of Divinity degree from Saint Paul School of Theology and is serving on our Congregational Care Team. Darryl has shared his story across the country and even in other parts of the world. This weekend, he’ll be sharing it with you. Darryl’s witness will inspire and bless you.
I want to thank all of you who returned your commitment cards to date in our “Step Up” annual stewardship campaign. You did step up, and I’m so proud of, and grateful for, your commitments. Resurrection West started a week early, while Leawood, Downtown and Blue Springs had their first commitment Sundays this last weekend. Commitments come in over several weeks. Both the total number of commitments returned so far, and the average amount of each commitment were up. The average commitment to the annual stewardship campaign varies by campus – $4,312 at Leawood, $3,970 at West, $4,197 Downtown, and $3,293 at Blue Springs. (This does not include building fund pledges, but is solely our annual commitments that make possible the ministry of the church.) Though our number of commitment cards received is up about 8%, we’ve received a little less than half of the total commitments we anticipate receiving. If you have not yet turned in your commitment, please click on this link to fill out your commitment card online, or you can return it in worship this weekend.
This weekend is All Saints weekend (All Saints Day is November 1). The day before that is All Hallow’s (saints) Eve – Halloween. This holy day goes back to 609 when Pope Boniface IV consecrated the Pantheon in Rome to the memory of the saints. On this day (and for us, the weekend before it) we remember those who have died and gone before us into Christ’s eternal kingdom. The hymn, “For All the Saints,” is one of my favorites and captures the essence of All Saints Day. Boniface likely chose this date to take the place of various pagan festivals of the dead held around that time which sought to appease the spirits of the dead. Christians on this weekend, and on All Saints Day, pause to give thanks for, and to pray for, our loved ones who have died and gone before us.
Each of our campus pastors preached a different series of sermons on The Good Life. My sermons at Leawood focused on six keys to experience The Good Life. I’ve had people ask if I could include all six keys in my enote, so here they are:
- Frequently express thanks for all that you have. (Grateful people are happier people.)
- Pursue a purpose bigger than yourself. (The purpose-driven life really is more fulfilling.)
- Live beneath your means. (This eliminates stress and creates financial margin.)
- Practice Generosity towards God and others. (It is more blessed to give than to receive.)
- Invest in people and relationships. (Relationships contribute more to happiness than possessions.)
- Daily trust in, and seek to grow in love with, God.
In Christ’s love,
Adam Hamilton
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The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection
13720 Roe Avenue
13720 Roe Avenue
Leawood, Kansas 66224, United States
913.897.0120
913.897.0120
www.cor.org
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