What is Annual Conference?

Dear Resurrection Family,

As you read this, I am joining our other pastors and lay members to Annual Conference in attending the Great Plains Annual Conference (clergy and lay representatives from all 800+ United Methodist churches across Kansas and Nebraska). I’ll tell you more about what annual conference is at the end of the eNote, but first a word about Memorial Day Weekend worship.

Streaming This Sunday… The Gospel in Film

This weekend we kick off a new sermon series looking for the Gospel of Jesus in major motion pictures released in the last 24 months. Each week our pastors will illustrate the gospel with clips from these films. Pastor Cheryl Jefferson Bell, our Pastor of Community Justice, will kick things off this weekend with the 2019 film Harriet – the story of Harriet Tubman.

Tubman’s story is remarkable. She was nicknamed “Moses” for her work in rescuing slaves and “conducting” them to freedom on the Underground Railroad. Her journey again and again back to the south risking her own arrest, re-enslavement and death in order to help free others was inspired by her faith. She was a Methodist. As Pastor Cheryl preaches this weekend she’ll help us see the connection between Harriet Tubman’s faith and work and our own lives.

If you haven’t seen the film Harriet, I highly recommend it. It’s available on Hulu and Cinemax if you have a subscription, or on Prime Video, Apple TV, Google Play and VUDU for purchase. Here’s a link to the trailer of the movie. I can’t wait to hear Pastor Cheryl’s message.

Invite a friend to join you in worship. Click here for a list of how to join us for worship this weekend including online, on television and in person.

Special Memorial Remembrance in Leawood Prayer Walk After Worship

Many of us have experienced loss over the past year – loss of loved ones, financial losses, loss of relationships and even just a sense of loss of our way of life. Our Congregational Care team has put together special “Stations of Remembrance” for you to experience in our Leawood Prayer Walk located just south of the Sanctuary on Sunday.

After worship, you can spend time individually or with your family in the Prayer Walk honoring and remembering what you’ve been through in the last year. Pastors will be at each station to pray with you and guide you through the walk as you reflect and honor losses in the past year and begin a process of reorientation by remembering your baptism and going forward in hope.

Visiting Memorial Gardens this weekend

As we observe Memorial Day this coming Monday, May 31, our staff have the day off and our church buildings will be closed. But for those with loved ones inurned in the Wesley Memorial Garden on the Leawood Campus, you may access the Memorial Garden in the courtyard of Building C through the South Entrance (the door is labeled South Entrance) from 10 am to 2 pm.

At Leawood, the new Resurrection Memorial Garden on the northeast side of Building A and the Prayer Walk on the south side of Building A will be open during daylight hours. The Memorial Garden at Resurrection Overland Park will also be open during daylight hours. Please maintain appropriate social distancing from others while visiting the gardens.

Beloved Community Revisited Class begins June 9

Last summer we explored what it means to live into the “Beloved Community” that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. envisioned – a society based on justice, equal opportunity, and love of one’s fellow human beings. Beginning June 9, we continue the conversations we started with a deeper dive into issues of race, scripture and what it means to be in relationship with one another.

I hope you’ll be inspired after worship this weekend to join members of our Community Justice team for this 4-week class on Wednesday nights at 6:30 pm where we’ll continue conversations about gaining empathy and embracing our Christian responsibilities within the Beloved Community. The class is offered in-person at Leawood (Building B Foundry) or streamed online. You can sign up here to register.

Save the date: Family Movie Night June 18

We’ll be showing the movie The Mitchells vs. the Machines at each of our locations on Friday, June 18. This 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. The movie has a message for all of us, and it will be fun to gather together to watch it. This Family Movie Night will be a special kick-off to your Father’s Day weekend. Then on Sunday, June 20, Pastor Scott Chrostek will be helping us see the gospel message in the movie, and we’ll celebrate dads with special treats after worship. Go cor.org/events for movie times and details at each location.

Serve Opportunity: Mission Delivery Drivers

Our missions teams continue to expand and meet the needs of the community, and we are looking for drivers to assist in all areas of ministry at all campuses. In addition to our regular events, Backpacks will continue through the summer, Hunger Stoppers team is hard at work, and our FoodMobile will be in place in coming months. We are hoping to identify 15 new Mission Ministry drivers in the next month. No special license is required, but you must be willing to drive a box truck and complete a medical DOT exam (our cost). Please contact michelle.vanpelt@cor.org for more information.

Transitional Housing Apartment Sponsorship Teams Forming

Because of your generosity, Church of the Resurrection is able to sponsor 2-3 families a year as they transition through the Hillcrest Transitional Housing residential program. We are looking for a volunteer team who can help by cleaning and re-furnishing the apartment as families transition (furnishings provided by Flourish Furnishings), providing a welcome home meal for the new family, stocking their fridge/pantry (food provided by Resurrection Overland Park Pantry), and coming along-side the Hillcrest staff and family with occasional check-ins. If you are interested in serving with a team, please email PastorPatrick@cor.org or call him at 816-979-1344.

Resurrection Building Hours

As we move back in to in-person worship and programs at all of our Kansas City locations, I wanted to remind you of our regular building hours. Many of our staff are continuing to work remotely through the summer, so please make arrangements in advance to meet with them at the church.

Resurrection Leawood:

• Monday – Thursday: Main exterior doors open 9 am – 9 pm (Sanctuary and Chapel open for prayer and reflection)
• Friday: Building C is open 9 am – 4 pm. Buildings A and B are closed, except by arrangement with a ministry area. (Sanctuary closed for online/television worship recording)
• Saturday – Sunday: Buildings are open around worship times, otherwise only by arrangement with a ministry area.

Resurrection Blue Springs, Downtown, Overland Park and West:

• Monday – Thursday: 9 am – 4 pm
• Saturday – Sunday: Buildings are open around worship times, otherwise only by arrangement with a ministry area.

Celebrating Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage

May has been Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum have all joined in paying tribute to the generations of Asian and Pacific Islanders who have enriched America’s history and are instrumental in its future success. Check out the result of their efforts on this website. You might also be interested in learning about two pioneering Koreans who were important in Methodist history. Here’s the link.

Sabbatical Starts This Weekend

I begin my sabbatical leave this weekend, but I’ll remain connected with you each week. I’m recording short interviews with interesting people that will be shared in worship, and I’ll also be in worship as a worshiper. I’m continuing my Tuesday night Vespers on Facebook Live at 7:30 pm (CT), where I’ll be sharing with you from wherever I happen to be that week (from Stilwell next week, then Joshua Tree the next Tuesday).

I’m grateful to our church for allowing me this time away to refresh and renew as I study, pray, plan and dream about where God is leading our church over the coming years. During this time I’ll also be writing a book about The Lord’s Prayer, outlining sermons, exploring the idea of launching a national podcast and more.

I’m excited about what we have planned for Resurrection this summer – fun fellowship activities, opportunities to serve the community, and insightful sermons preached by gifted Resurrection pastors and special guests. I look forward to worshipping with you online from wherever I am each weekend.

What is Annual Conference?

I thought I’d end with a word about how the United Methodist Church is organized. The idea of Christian Conferencing goes back to Wesley and the early Methodists – it meant Christians coming together to pray, discuss, and discern God’s will together while encouraging and building one another up. This was one of the “means of grace” by which Christians received the grace of God and grew in their faith.

When Methodists organized and sought to make decisions, they did so by means of conferencing. To this day we speak of our gatherings for making key decisions as conferences. Every local church holds a Church or Charge Conference to vote on officers for the year, recommend candidates for ordained ministry, approve the budget, new building plans and more. A district worth of churches (usually 40 to 80 churches) may have a District Conference from time to time to vote on matters pertaining to the district. An Annual Conference is both the name given to all churches in a larger geographic area and the annual meeting. (We are a part of the Great Plains Annual Conference made up of all of the UM churches in Kansas and Nebraska; our two campuses in Missouri are also a part of the Missouri Annual Conference.) The Annual Conference is also the name given to the annual meeting of all the clergy in the Conference and an equal number of laity from all the churches in that region.

Annual Conference meets for a few days each year for worship, to approve and ordain new candidates for ministry (we will be hosting the ordination service at our Leawood location on June 12 – this is usually held during the regular meeting of Annual Conference but is being held separately this year), to discuss, debate and discern the policies, ministries and budget of the Annual Conference and to share meaningful fellowship among clergy and lay delegates. That’s what’s happening as you read this note. Again this year, due to COVID, the Annual Conference is meeting virtually, though many of our clergy and lay delegates are gathered together at the Leawood location to participate in the Zoom sessions.

There is also a Jurisdictional Conference that meets every four years to elect bishops for the jurisdiction and to approve policies, ministries and budgets for the Jurisdiction. (A Jurisdiction is a region made up of multiple annual conferences and multiple states – we are part of the South Central Jurisdiction that includes all United Methodist Churches from Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas, New Mexico and Louisiana). Finally, there is the General Conference, made up of delegates from all annual conferences around the world – split evenly between clergy and laity. The General Conference approves policies, ministries and budgets for the entire United Methodist Church. It meets every four years. It is this body that will meet in 2022 and will determine the denomination’s position on how we read scripture regarding same-gender marriage and the full inclusion of LGBTQ persons.

Please pray for our Annual Conference as we meet to participate in Christian Conferencing!

I hope you enjoy time with family this holiday weekend. My family and I look forward to being in worship at Resurrection, virtually, this weekend!

Adam