Weekly Update from Pastor Adam - March 24, 2023

March 24, 2023

March 24, 2023

Dear Resurrection Family,

Days are getting warmer, daffodils are blooming, and Easter is coming, just two weeks from this Sunday! I’ll be sharing all our Easter service times as well as Holy Week opportunities in this eNote, but first, here’s where we’re going this weekend.

THIS WEEKEND IN WORSHIP: “THE SOUND OF SILENCE”

In preparation for this weekend’s message, I went to visit John Friend, CEO of Farm to Market Bread Company and watched his people baking bread as I was researching Jesus’ words, “I AM the Bread of Life.” Farm to Market bakes over three million loaves of some of the best bread around, served by many Kansas City area restaurants and sold in many grocery stores. I’d interviewed his dad nearly 30 years ago when the bakery was just getting started for a sermon on this same passage. Later, I listened to one of my favorite childhood songs a dozen times, Simon and Garfunkel’s, The Sound of Silence, while researching the background to the song and why it begins, “Hello darkness my old friend…”. The song and story will be featured in my message this weekend when we talk about Jesus’ words, “I AM the Light of the World.” I’ll play a part of the song in my sermon.

Along the way we’ll come to understand one of the most fascinating set of sayings attributed to Jesus in John’s gospel: The I AM Sayings of Jesus. This is our fourth week in the series on Words that Changed the World: The Message of Jesus. Up to this point we’ve focused on Matthew, Mark and Luke. This weekend we turn to John’s gospel, were we find Jesus, at times, referring to himself simply as “I AM.” He also offers seven “I AM” sayings, “I AM the Bread of Life,” “I AM the Light of the World,” “I AM the Resurrection and the Life,” “I AM the Good Shepherd,” “I AM the Gate for the Sheep,” “I AM the Way, the Truth and the Life,” and “I AM the True Vine.” Don’t forget to bring your Bibles with you to worship this weekend.

I’ll cover two or three of these sayings in this weekend’s message, but you’ll have a chance to read and reflect upon all of them in the daily GPS devotional next week. If you don’t yet receive our daily devotional in your inbox, click here to sign up.

EASTER WORSHIP SERVICES

MAKE YOUR WORSHIP PLANS: Two weeks from now is Easter! This year we’ll have special children and family services on Easter Saturday, April 8, as well as traditional and modern worship services on Sunday. Here is the schedule for our in-person worship. The services that are starred (*) are good choices if you’d like to attend a less crowded service and make room for our visitors at the times that will have the largest number of worshipers. Note: Saturday night is replacing Sunday night on Easter weekend at Leawood.

Saturday, 4/8

Leawood: 10 am, Children’s Interactive Service in Sanctuary A; 5 pm,* Modern Worship in Sanctuary A
West: 3 pm and 5 pm, Family Friendly Services
Overland Park: 10 am, Children’s Interactive Service
Brookside: 10 am, Children’s Interactive Service

Sunday, 4/9

Leawood: 7 am,* 9 am, 11 am, Traditional in Sanctuary A; 9 am* and 11 am, Modern in Foundry (Building B)
Downtown: 9 am and 11 am, Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts
West: 7 am,* 9 am and 11 am
Blue Springs: 9 am and 11 am
Overland Park: 9 am and 11 am
Brookside: 9 am and 11 am

INVITE A FRIEND: Invite a friend to Easter Worship this year! We have an easy way for you to do this. Just share this website with them: resurrection.church/Easter. It will take the directly to a page where they can see all our locations and worship times for Easter services.

VOLUNTEER TO SERVE: Experience the joy of welcoming someone to Easter services this year. Here’s the link to sign up to serve at any of our locations and times.

EASTER EGG-VENTURE APRIL 1!

I’m so excited about next weekend’s big Easter Egg hunt and children’s eggstravaganza, the annual Easter EGG-Venture! It will be Saturday, April 1 from 10 to noon onsite at all of our six Kansas City area locations (Downtown will be on the grounds of the National World War I Museum/Liberty Memorial). Fun for kids will include egg hunts, snacks, crafts and of course – the Easter Bunny! LaVon and I will be at Leawood with our kids and granddaughter – she will be singing in our children’s choir as they present their spring musical, Danny and the Shacks! It will be in the Sanctuary as part of the Leawood Egg-Venture.

Invite friends, family and neighbors to join us! Here is the link for details and the volunteer sign-up.

LENTEN CONCERT SERIES

Resurrection Brookside, Tuesday, March 28, 7 pm, Brookside Sanctuary. Resurrection Brookside organist Logan Hamilton will perform Louis Vierne’s 5th Organ Symphony.
Resurrection Leawood, Wednesday, March 29, 12:15 – 12:45 pm, Leawood Sanctuary and live streamed here. Former Resurrection organists/accompanists Barbara Eichenberger and Ray Smith will share Keyboards in Concert.

HOLY WEEK ACTIVITIES

The week leading up to Easter is a special time for our church, as we reflect on the final week of Jesus’ life on earth and prepare for the celebration of the Resurrection. I hope you’ll take advantage of some of these special opportunities. Details are on the website.

Women’s Lenten Brunch: Join United Women of Faith for a Seder meal and connection on March 30, 10 am – 12:30 pm, Leawood Foundry. Register here.

Palm Sunday: On April 1 and 2, we’ll remember Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem with a traditional children’s palm processional during worship.

Christ’s Passion: His Final Hours: Worship in remembrance of the events of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, April 6 or 7, 7 pm, Leawood Foundry and online. The same service will be held both nights.

Good Friday Service: Worship in person and reflect on the events of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, April 7, 7 pm at West, Downtown, Blue Springs, Overland Park and Brookside.

Good Friday Stop, Drop and Pray: Use an online prayer guide to spend time in prayer from wherever you are on Friday, April 7.

GLOBAL IMPACT OPPORTUNITIES

From disaster relief, to serve trips, to education sponsorships and community development, Resurrection has a number of ways we work with our global ministry partners, local churches and organizations, to empower and equip communities and local church leaders. I want to highlight a new opportunity and give you some updates on the work you are doing to change the world.

Education Sponsorships: As part of our Vision 2030, over the next seven years we are hoping to help close the opportunity gap for children and families living in poverty, focusing on our local and global partner schools. We are really excited about a new opportunity to come alongside more than 1,400 children and families and support education in Uganda, Malawi, South Africa and Honduras. You can commit $39 a month to sponsor a classroom in one of our global partner schools and provide education that can literally change the trajectory of a child and their family. Over the years you’ll also have an opportunity to write notes, or even visit these students on a global serve trip. I’m going to share a video about this in worship this weekend, but you can also check it out here.

Serve Trips: We still have openings for 2023 Global Serve Trips to Malawi, Sept. 14-26, and South Africa, Oct. 5-16. Here is the webpage.

Update on Disaster Response:

· Several of you have asked about the Cyclone Freddy that recently struck Malawi, we sent funds to our partners in Malawi for recovery after a devastating cyclone hit the country and caused widespread flooding. The latest count has over 100,000 people displaced (some count at many as 500,000). We have a full-time Resurrection staff member there and will continue to see what more we can do to come alongside the United Methodist Churches in supporting and caring for communities.

· Earlier this year we sent funds to Turkey and Syria through our UMC partners to support the recovery efforts after the devastating earthquake in that area. The death toll in Turkey is now up to 50,000 and another 7,200 in Syria.

· As the war in Ukraine continues into its second year, we continue to provide support to the United Methodist Church of Ukraine as they respond to the needs of the people around them, providing lodging, generators, and food. We are continuing to work with several other organizations including a mobile cardiac clinic for children that goes from Kyiv to the southern border in the middle of the country, and the Open Door Counseling clinic in Kyiv, and the International Institute of Postgraduate Education in Ukraine who are providing counseling resources and support for children dealing with the trauma of war. The mobile emergency room you provided through Heart to Heart, near the front lines of the war in Ukraine, is being used extensively to treat people there.

You can contribute to the disaster response fund at any time. This allows us to respond quickly when disasters happen in the United States and around the world. Access the disaster response fund link by clicking here.

81 YOUNG ADULTS JOIN NEW COLLEGE BIBLE STUDY!

We had 81 college students join us this last Tuesday night as we kicked off a three-week Bible study on the Gospel of Luke. We had 50 at Resurrection Leawood and 31 join us by Zoom from college. We also had a great group of table discussion leaders including a couple of Johnson County Community College professors! We’ll meet again this Tuesday night from 7 to 8:30 pm with pizza. It’s not too late to join us – sign up for either in-person or Zoom by clicking here. Our hope is that this might be a group that continues beyond these three weeks, and that we can offer some opportunities for fellowship and study this summer as well!

VESPERS TUESDAY, MARCH 28

Join me for Vespers this Tuesday, March 21, at 7:30 pm CST on my Pastor Adam Hamilton Facebook page where I’ll have you join me live for 30 minutes as I share with our college students about the gospel of Luke. If you can’t join us then, you can always watch the replay on my FB page or on our YouTube channel after Tuesday.

SEVENDAYS KINDNESS WALK

As many of you may remember, on Palm Sunday in 2014, Dr. William Corporon, his grandson Reat Underwood, and Terri LaManno were tragically killed. Out of this tragedy SevenDays®: Make a Ripple, Change the World was started. On Sunday, April 16 at 4 pm the annual Kindness Walk will take place, starting at our Leawood Location. Many of you have been a part of this annual walk in year’s past, and I’d love to encourage you to walk again this year. The walk advocates for kindness and understanding in place of hate. Reat and Bill were a part of Resurrection, as is their family. To guarantee a t-shirt, you must register by March 31. For more information and to register, click here.

SPOTS STILL AVAILABLE ON JOURNEYS OF PAUL MEDITERRANEAN CRUISE

Join LaVon and me and over 200 Resurrection members and staff this October as we travel in the footsteps of Paul via ship in the Mediterranean/Aegean Sea. The cruise ship will be all United Methodists from across the country. We’ll visit some amazing places starting out in Istanbul, Turkey, then on to Philippi, Thessalonica, Meteora, Ephesus in Turkey, a day of play in Santorini and two days in Athens and Corinth. For more information, click here to contact my assistant, Stephanie Hubers. Cabins are limited, and most types of cabins are still available. This will be a really remarkable journey with great food, great fellowship, and a terrific chance to grow deeper in your understanding of scripture!

I’m looking forward to great weekend of worship.

In Christ’s love,

Adam

P.S. Make sure you check out all the exciting things that are happening at Resurrection during the season of Lent at resurrection.church/next.

Adam Hamilton

Resurrection Senior Pastor

Reverend Adam Hamilton is the senior pastor of Church of the Resurrection and the author of 22 books. He has been married to LaVon since 1982, and she has been a critical partner in every dimension of Adam’s work. They have two daughters and one granddaughter.

Adam’s writings are known for helping readers make sense of challenging theological questions, exploring the significance of the biblical stories, and equipping Christian leaders to be more effective in their work. He earned his MDiv from Perkins School of Theology and graduated with honors from Oral Roberts University with a degree in Pastoral Ministry.

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