Weekly Updates from Pastor Adam - Aug. 12, 2022

Dear Resurrection Family,

I am really excited about this weekend’s worship – and the next – and I’ll share a bit about that below; but first, I learned last week that Kansas City Magazine has just come out with their Best of Kansas City 2022 list. In the Best of City Life category, Church of the Resurrection was named Best Place of Worship. I believe these are reader’s choice awards. Thank you to all who make Resurrection a great place to worship. I believe a big part of that is your welcome of people. I had someone reach out to me recently to say, “I started attending Resurrection a few months ago. I have never felt so welcomed and loved like I do at this church.” We strive to have excellent music, meaningful prayer and sermons that connect with daily life, but what makes a church a great place to worship is the love of the people there, and that’s each of you! I’m so grateful to be your pastor!

DON’T MISS THIS WEEKEND IN WORSHIP!

I was 14 years old, a freshman at Blue Valley High School, and I considered myself an atheist, when someone invited me to church and youth group. I found a church and youth group that welcomed me, loved me, encouraged me and mentored me, and it changed my life forever. I came to know Christ, heard a call to be a pastor, and met my wife there.

That church was relatively small – maybe 150 people – but they made a commitment to student ministry. Resurrection wouldn’t be here today were it not for the commitment Faith Chapel made, in that season, to teenagers. 30,000 of you worship here in person, online and by TV each weekend. We give millions of dollars to serve those outside our walls and thousands of you serve Christ and others in your daily lives. 14,000 churches across the US have used materials you developed. But, it started with a small church committed to reaching teenagers.

This weekend we’ll focus on our students and student ministries. Over the last two years during COVID, we’ve been working to strengthen our student ministries. We’ve recruited some of the most amazing youth leaders from across the US to join our team. We’ve reorganized our team so that the youth ministry staff at all locations work together to help create the best ministry possible. I believe our student ministries team, with a combined 100+ years of student ministry experience, is second to none.

This team has been laying the foundation for creating one of the finest student ministries in the country. They’ve set an outreach and discipleship path to help non-religious and nominally religious teens become deeply committed Christians. Over the next year we’ll be looking at upgrading or expanding our student ministries spaces at each location. In this time, when a decreasing number of teens are involved in church, we’re hoping to help reverse that trend, and to help other churches do the same.

This weekend in worship, you are going to get to meet some of our incredible Resurrection students and their leaders as we highlight our student ministries. Our Directors of Student Ministries at each location will be sharing the sermon and some of the stories of how God has been at work in our student ministries. As they do, they’ll take a look at the stories of Barnabas, Paul and Timothy and the importance of passing on the faith generation to generation. It’s going to be inspiring!

If you have teenagers, ask them to join you for worship this weekend, in person if possible, or online or TV. If you have friends who have teens who don’t go to church, invite them to tune in. Click here to find out more about RezLife Student Ministries.

WORSHIP AT ONE OF OUR FIVE LOCATIONS, ONLINE OR TELEVISION

• Leawood location at 7:30 am in Wesley Chapel, 9 am in Sanctuary, and 11 am traditional in Sanctuary and modern in Foundry, or 5 pm in Sanctuary
• Downtown location Saturday at 5 pm or Sunday at 9 or 11 am
• Blue Springs, Olathe (West) and Overland Park locations Sunday at 9 or 11 am
• Online at cor.org/live on Saturday at 5 pm or Sunday at 7:30, 9 and 11 am or 5 pm
• On KMCI Channel 38 television on Sunday at 8 am or 11 am
• On demand on YouTube throughout the week

FALL KICK-OFF, BACK TO CHURCH AND SUNDAY SCHOOL NEXT WEEKEND AUGUST 20-21

Next weekend, August 20-21 is our fall kick-off at all locations. Our theme is HOMECOMING. That weekend our kids will move up a grade in Sunday School. I’ll be back in the pulpit kicking off our fall in worship. We’ll have food and fellowship and fall sign-ups for our programs.

I want to say a word about kids and Sunday School. I was reading this week, studies that have been done on adults who have a deep, lifelong faith. For most of them, that faith was shaped, and the foundation laid when they were children attending worship and Sunday school. It impacted them the rest of their lives. If your kids have not been in Sunday School, KiDSCOR or Youth group for a while, this fall is a great time to get them back and re-engaged. In doing so you are giving them a gift that will shape them and sustain them the rest of their lives.

FALL SMALL GROUPS AND DISCIPLE BIBLE STUDIES

Small groups are launching this fall at all our locations and online. We have a new format and curriculum for groups, and this is the perfect time to check it out. You’ll meet new people, form faithful friendships, and be part of a small group community. Go to the website to learn more, find a group that works for you, and sign up before August 31! If you’re looking to meet in person, we’ll have multiple groups meeting at our physical locations on Wednesday nights, with childcare provided.

If you are interested in taking a deeper look into scripture, check out Disciple Bible Study. These studies are enriching, informational, transformational, faith deepening and offer time to develop deep lasting friendships as you study, reflect and pray together as a group. Learn more about Disciple Bible Study here.

CELEBRATING A SUMMER OF SERVICE!

I thought you might like to hear some of the many ways our church has made this a summer of service, transforming our community and the world. Click on any of the links to learn how you can serve with these ministries.

• Serve Trips: 82 youth and adults served in St. Louis and Tuskegee; 40 youth and volunteers spent a week serving in Kansas City; 48 people served internationally on teams in Honduras, Malawi and Costa Rica.
• Food Drive: Our summer drive brought in 8,500 lbs. of food and $65,388.58 to help feed our neighbors in Kansas City.
• Bookmobile: 3,400 books were distributed to over 1,200 students.
• School Support: Five schools in Lawrence got freshly painted staff lounges to bless and encourage teachers.
• Partner School Support Drive: 1,646 bags of school supplies and donations of $49,926.13 will ensure students in our partner schools and foster care will start the school year off with the supplies and clothing they need.
• Serve Saturdays: On the third Saturday of each month, we average about 180 people serving out in the community. If you haven’t had the opportunity to join a Serve Saturday, we have our next one coming up August 20. Just go to this website to see the upcoming projects, select one and sign up!
• Refugee Ministry: 200 individuals have helped set up 35 homes, co-sponsored four major community events and hosted monthly care, share and grow meetings for volunteers.
• Community Justice: Volunteers from Resurrection and St. James sponsored our first Juneteenth Celebration/Commemoration which was a tremendous success with 450 participants. We also kicked off our Civic Engagement Ministry which provided information about voting in preparation for the upcoming election, partnering with the League of Women Voters.

TUESDAY NIGHT VESPERS THIS WEEK

At Tuesday Night Vespers on Facebook Live (reposted later on YouTube), each week I’m discussing some of the questions you submitted for a possible series of sermons next year on If I Could Ask God Three Questions. Last Tuesday, I took a question sixteen of you asked: Will my pets be in heaven? I spent the first half of Vespers talking about Luke’s gospel, and the second half responding to this question about animals in heaven. If you are interested, you can watch it at Pastor Adam Hamilton on Facebook or on the Vespers YouTube page. Join me this Tuesday night at 7:30 pm CT live on Facebook, or you can catch the replay as we look at more of your questions.

HEALING HOUSE CELEBRATES 20 YEARS OF TRANSFORMING LIVES

Healing House of Kansas City, founded by Bobbi Jo Reed, has been providing recovery housing and support services for substance use disorder since 2002. On Saturday, November 12, Healing House will have an anniversary celebration in the Resurrection Foundry. I know many in our congregation have supported Healing House over the years with your prayers, gifts and service. If you would like to join in the celebration, here is the link to details where you can buy tickets, tables and sponsorships. I love this ministry, and many of the Healing House community are members of our congregation.

I’ve spent each day this week working on completing the final revisions of my upcoming book (January 2023) entitled, Luke: Jesus and the Outsiders, Outcasts, and Outlaws. Surrounded by commentaries on my table at the lake, or on the screened in porch, I’ve been working until late into the night. For me this is a labor of love. It was in reading Luke as a teenager, having just started going to church, that I fell in love with Jesus and committed my life to him. And what I loved about Jesus was his concern for the nobodies – at that time, I felt like a nobody. Luke emphasizes this in his gospel. It is the underlying theme of almost everything. In Luke, Jesus comes to lift up the lowly and to call his disciples to do the same.

There will be several thousand churches that will be using this book and study during Lent next year, and tens of thousands reading it. My hope and prayer is that people who read this book will encounter Jesus in Luke’s gospel in the same way I did when I was 14 and decided to follow him.

Our Staff Parish Committee, years ago, decided to allow me several weeks a year to write books like this one, arising out of sermon series I’ve shared with you, in the hope that they would help others to know Christ, strengthen other churches, and help readers become deeply committed Christians. Thank you, Resurrection, for this time away. I look forward to returning to the pulpit next weekend!

In Christ’s love,
Adam