Resurrection Organizational Restructuring Moving Forward

Dear Resurrection Family,

It’s Father’s Day weekend! We’ll honor fathers and father figures in worship this weekend. If you’re worshipping in the Kansas City area, bring you father and join us at one of our five locations Sunday at 9 or 11 am, where we’ll have special treats for all the dads in worship! I’ll also be sharing a video interview that I did with my daughters where they shared what it was like growing up as preacher’s kids at Resurrection.

If you can’t join us in person, you can still invite your family to worship with you this Father’s Day. Click here for a list of how to join us for worship this weekend online, on television and in person.

The last half of today’s enote is about our ministry and staff organization restructuring which has been under development over the last year and which goes into effect July 1. Be sure to take a look at this.

This Weekend in Worship: Mitchells vs. the Machines

This weekend we conclude our sermon series Streaming this Sunday by looking at the Gospel message in the movie The Mitchells vs. The Machines. This newly released movie tells the story of a quirky, dysfunctional family whose road trip is upended when they find themselves in the middle of the robot apocalypse and suddenly become humanity’s unlikeliest last hope.

Although a fun, animated family movie, The Mitchells vs. The Machines has a powerful gospel message about hope in unlikely places that Pastor Scott will unpack in his message.

Tonight is Family Movie Night at Resurrection!

Each of our locations will show the movie The Mitchells vs. The Machines tonight – the event begins at 6 pm. At Leawood, we’ll have free hot dogs and popcorn, then at 6:30 we start the movie, a great family film. Go to cor.org/events for movie times and details and to RSVP so we have plenty of food at the location of your choice.

The Mitchells vs. The Machines has a 98% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Click here to watch the official trailer!

Coming Up this week

Check out the opportunities coming up this weekend and in the coming week to connect, serve and learn:

• Serve Saturday, June 19 – Go to cor.org/next for a link to sign up to join in serving in the community Saturday morning.
• Summer Hunger Drive, Saturday, June 19 – Drop off your food donations (here’s a list of needed items) at any of our Kansas City locations between 9 and 11 am. You can also give online to the hunger ministry.
• Candid Conversations on Addiction, Thursday, June 24 – The stigma of addiction is an ongoing barrier to recovery, and significantly contributes to the growing death toll for those who suffer with this disease. Join us in person or online as a panel of families candidly share their journey through addiction. The conversation starts at 7 pm in the Leawood Foundry and will be moderated by 810 WHB Radio’s Frank Boal. After the program, panelists and community resources will be available. Here’s the link to our YouTube channel where it will be streamed live or available for replay.

Resurrection Organizational Restructuring Moving Forward

Over the last year, our Lead Team, Staff Parish Relations Committee and staff have been working with a consultant to evaluate our staff and ministry organizational design. I’ve mentioned it a few times in past enotes, but this month we are rolling out the new structure, and I wanted to give you an overview of the changes. These are all aimed at helping our staff and ministry teams work more closely together to fulfill the long-term vision of the church.

We developed this new structure with four primary goals:

1. Greater clarity in who we are and the decision-making processes.
2. Greater collaboration across locations.
3. Greater quality of every part of our ministry.
4. Greater fruitfulness and effectiveness in fulfilling our mission, including our digital and broadcast platform.

The shift to online and broadcast television during COVID not only tripled our outreach, but also led us to think about how our staff and ministries work more collaboratively across locations and ministry teams.

In this note I’d like to share our executive team and our location/campus pastors.

Our Executive Directors will lead five divisions of our ministry. Rachel Svaty will manage the business operations. Debi Nixon will be responsible for development. Dr. Rev. Anne Gatobu, our former district superintendent, joins our team overseeing our five current locations/campuses in Kansas City and will help work across locations to support our congregational care. Rev. Scott Chrostek is moving from Campus Pastor at Resurrection Downtown to Executive Director of Ministries and Programs. In this role he will oversee the program ministries, including worship, across all five of our locations and online, helping to shape each of our locations. Chris Folmsbee moves into the role of Executive Director of Resurrection Experience, a new organizational division responsible for church-wide outreach, evangelism, member and visitor engagement and experience, digital outreach and creative resource development.

Each of our physical locations will be led by a location pastor and staff. Program staff will continue at each location, but they will also be part of ministry teams working with their peers across locations to collaborate in the design and implementation of their ministry. When you need pastoral care, your location pastors, supported with our church-wide care team, will be caring for you. When you want to serve, or take a class, or just get connected, your location staff team will continue to be your main points of contact.

I shared in April that Rev. Bill Gepford had been appointed by the Bishop to be the Resurrection West location pastor. Rev. Joshua Clough will continue to serve at Overland Park and Rev. Penny Ellwood at Blue Springs. Today I’m excited to announce that Rev. Anne Williams will be the location pastor at Resurrection Downtown, and Rev. Wendy Lyons Chrostek will serve in a newly created position as Leawood’s location pastor. (I will continue to serve as the lead pastor/senior pastor for all of Resurrection, but Wendy will have key responsibilities shepherding our Leawood location.)

Over the next couple of months, most of our staff will remain in positions similar to their current roles, although some will be in a different part of the organization. Others will be shifting to a new positions in the organization. Several are retiring, and I’ll include the retirements in next week’s email. The new structure goes into effect July 1, but we anticipate a three-month transition period. We have a Q&A document you can access and a place to submit your questions here. I’ll be sharing more details with you as we go, but for now, I thought it might be helpful to put some names and faces together with our executive team and location pastors.

Celebrating Juneteenth

This week, with overwhelming bipartisan support, Congress approved a new national holiday called Juneteenth. As most of you know, on June 19, 1865, Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, announcing to the 250,000 slaves still held in Texas, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, that they were now free. Juneteenth has been celebrated for generations of African Americans as the end of slavery. Click here to read an article from the Kansas City Star that includes ways you can be a part of Juneteenth celebrations here in Kansas City.

Praying for you, Church of the Resurrection, as I write this note. And with you, I’m looking forward to worship this weekend as we consider the Gospel in the film, The Mitchells vs. The Machines!

Adam