Friday, December 30, 2016Dear Resurrection Family,
Just a quick year-end note with a couple of important announcements.
First, this weekend we’ll have a reduced worship schedule given it is New Year’s weekend. Those at the campuses, please check your campus pastor’s e-note. At Leawood we’ll have a 5 p.m. service Saturday night for New Year’s Eve. On New Year’s Day we’ll have 10:45 a.m. Sanctuary and Vibe services and 5 p.m. Sanctuary service. Join us for New Year’s Eve or sleep in on New Year’s morning and join us for worship at 10:45 or 5!
Second, thank you to each of you who give to make possible the church’s ministry both within and outside the walls of the church. Your giving makes a difference here, literally impacting the lives of tens of thousands of people in Kansas City, across the country and around the world. Your gifts translate into ministry and mission in dramatic ways. Thank you!
And thank you to all who gave generously in our Christmas Eve offering – our Finance Office is processing both Christmas Eve and Year End gifts including stock transfers, etc. which means I won’t have the final numbers until next week. We’ll announce the total on the weekend of January 8. You can still participate in the Christmas Eve offering which will impact kids aging out of foster care, families putting their lives, homes and communities back together in Haiti, children who’ve been traumatized in Aleppo and several other projects benefitting children in poverty. To give today electronically, go to http://cor.org/giving.
I have this note from Kelly Williams in our Finance Department regarding year-end donations:
Year-End Contributions – To be deductible in 2016, contributions must be physically received at Resurrection (Leawood Campus Bldg. C) by 5 pm, Friday, Dec. 30, placed in the offering plate during worship on Saturday, Dec. 31 or mailed with a postmark of Dec. 31, 2016, or earlier. You may also donate online through Pushpay no later than 11:59 pm CDT, Saturday, Dec. 31. PLEASE NOTE: If you give through RezAccess or PayPal—these choices of giving end on December 31, 2016 and all gifts given through these methods will stop. Please use our new option Pushpay, which is accessible at http://cor.org/giving for all future gifts.
We had another great Christmas Eve this year with 33,824 people in attendance. We were up slightly in physical attendance, an down a bit in online attendance (we had 33,829 in physical attendance, and 1,685 attended online). I want to thank the nearly 1,000 people who volunteered and served to make it possible – ushers, greeters, parking lot greeters, nursery workers, those preparing the candles outside, those giving out candles inside, musicians, vocalists, members of the tech teams running lights, sound, video, cameras and the online services, as well as the security team, the CART folks ensuring people not feeling well were cared for, our CCM’s and those who prepared and those who delivered coffee mugs to our first time visitors.
Today and tomorrow as I spend time in prayer I’m working to recount the blessings from this past year and giving thanks to God for them. I’m seeking to remember the lessons I learned, or should have learned, and the ways I grew or God shaped me. I’m thinking about the ways I still need to grow, the mistakes I made and the ways that I missed the mark, so that next year I might become more the person God wants me to be. And I’m looking ahead, praying for the coming year – praying for the President Elect and his cabinet, for our nation, for you as a congregation, and for my family.
I’d leave you with the prayer that Methodists have typically prayed at the beginning of the New Year, but which I encourage you to pray regularly;
The Covenant Prayer
I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee,
Exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O Glorious and blessed God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
Thou art mine, and I am thine. So be it.
And the covenant, which I have made on earth,
Let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.
Happy New Year Resurrection! It’s going to be an exciting adventure around here in 2017!Adam
-------
The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection
13720 Roe Avenue
Leawood, Kansas 66224, United States
913.897.0120
913.897.0120
www.cor.org
-------
-------
No comments:
Post a Comment