July 6,2007
Dear Resurrection Family,
I hope this e-mail finds you doing well! I'm looking forward to being back in the pulpit this weekend - I'll tell you about the sermon below - I have really been inspired and challenged as I've studied the scriptures in preparation for this weekend's sermon. Here's what I'll cover in today's e-mail:
1. Report from Worship Team Retreat to California - Insights, Plans and Photos
2. This Weekend in Worship
3. Attention Architects, Artists, Set Designers and Carpenters
4. Don't Miss This: Report from the Youth Choir Tour and Youth Orchestra Tour
5. Summer Fest Only One Week Away!
1. Report from Worship Team Retreat to California - Insights, Plans and Photos
Last Friday members of our worship team and I flew to southern California for our annual worship planning retreat. The primary aim of this retreat is to plan and brainstorm worship services built around the sermon themes for the next 18 months. In addition we have sessions focused on the meaning of worship and how we strengthen and improve the worship we offer here at the church. To help challenge our thinking in this area we attend worship at three different churches and then reflect upon what we experienced.
I'm excited about the sermon and worship themes we have planned for the next year and a half. I'll tell you more about this in another e-mail. In this note I wanted to share with you a few thoughts about the various churches we visited.
On Saturday night we visited the Mariners Church (www.marinerschurch.org). They are a church about our size in a Sanctuary that is about our same size. Their worship is similar to our evening worship. The most important take-away for me at this church was the great sets and backdrops they had, designed and built by their own members, and tied into their sermons. I hope to see us develop a team of people who are able to do this at our church. This fall, for our sermons entitled, "The Voyage" we'll use the metaphor of a journey aboard an ocean liner, heading on an adventure to the deep waters as a way of talking about the Christian life. For this series I hope to construct the bow of an ocean liner, and a lighthouse, on the chancel. I think this can be done without a great deal of cost, with volunteers, and it will have a significant impact upon our entire worship experience. If you are interested in being a part of this team, see article 3 below.
On Sunday morning we worshiped at Bel Air Presbyterian Church (www.belairpres.org). This church would be more akin to our morning worship experience. They had a traditional, simple yet beautiful architectural style. A youth choir from Dallas sang. the message was well prepared and thoughtful. I think our team came away from this worship experience reminded of how beautiful and sacred traditional worship can be, and reminded of the importance of sacred architecture. While our current Sanctuary is designed to be multi-use and to actually become a gymnasium in the future, our permanent Sanctuary (you can see the model of our permanent Sanctuary, to be built in 2012 or 2013, by the south entrance to the Sanctuary in the narthex) will have natural light, and an architectural style that will draw upon elements of historic church architecture.
On Sunday evening we attended Saddleback Church (www.saddleback.com) where Rick Warren is the Senior Pastor. Rick was out of the pulpit for his study leave. The church meets in a multipurpose room that is about the size of our Sanctuary. What was most impressive to me was their children's wing - each floor had a different theme - the jungle or the ocean - with live reptiles and beautiful saltwater fish lining the walls. Their children's multipurpose rooms were designed a bit more like our Student Center. It was interesting to contrast the Saddleback service with the Bel Air service from the morning and to discuss among our team members which felt more "worshipful."
Overall our visits to these churches reminded us of the importance of offering excellent and meaningful traditional and contemporary worship. Both have their place and I would suggest that it might be good for each of you, from time to time, to worship at our services that are the opposite of those at which you normally worship. If you usually worship in the evening, worship at the morning traditional services from time to time; and if you are a morning worshiper, try the evening services from time to time.
Our worship team came back filled with ideas and plans for worship over the next 18 months, and renewed and energized by our time away. If you would like to see photos of the churches we visited, go to our website.
2. This Weekend in Worship
This weekend I'll share with you three short stories about the three boy-kings: Joash, who became king at age 7, Manasseh, who became king at age 12, and Josiah, who became king at age 8. Joash was nearly killed by his own grandmother, Manasseh offered his own children as human sacrifices to the god Molech, and Josiah rediscovered the Law of Moses, lost for decades, in the temple in Jerusalem. But more than this, their stories are stories of a king's tragic loss of faith, another king hitting bottom and finding faith, and of a king who had such deep faith that, even as a young adult, he changed his world. I have been inspired and moved in studying the scriptures and preparing this message - I look forward to sharing it with you this weekend. This would be a great sermon to bring an unchurched friend to.
3. Attention Architects, Artists, Set Designers and Carpenters
Can you help us design and build the bow of an ocean liner on the chancel in our Sanctuary? A lighthouse to light the way from the choir loft? A corral and barn where the pastors sit? These are just a few of the things we'd like to do for two or three of the sermon series in the coming year, but we need your help. We're looking for architects, artists, set designers, painters and carpenters who might volunteer and coordinate other volunteers in developing sets for several important series of messages over the next 18 months. You can use the gifts God has given you, and have the joy of knowing that you've helped us lead our entire congregation in worship and to a deeper knowledge of God. If you would be willing to be a part of this team, please contact Francisco Litardo.
4. Don't Miss This: Report from the Youth Choir Tour and Youth Orchestra Tour
This summer our youth are involved in a number of incredible mission projects. Our student ministries is sponsoring five different mission trips this summer with two teams of middle school students spending a week at Grand Avenue Temple working with homeless people and other inner city projects here in Kansas City. Another team is going to St. Louis to do the same. We have one team of youth going to the Gulf Coast for continuing Katrina reconstruction projects, and another is going to Ciudad Espana, Honduras to teach Vacation Bible School and to work on the church we're building there. We had
76 youth in the orchestra and handbells who performed an outdoor concert for the workers and residents of Greensburg, Kansas, then performed at a homeless shelter in Albuquerque, New Mexico before making their way to the Navajo Nation and working with Window Rock UMC there, doing yard work, construction and clearing before performing in concert. This was followed by a journey to Colorado, playing for a Veterans Home and performing with our adult choir at Estes Park. In the midst of all of the performances the kids also got to take a break and whitewater raft and visit ancient Pueblo ruins. When the kids got off the bus they were so excited - their faith had grown and they had let Christ's light shine through them. Our youth choir took a large number of teens on a mission tour as well, beginning in Oklahoma City where they performed at the Survivor Tree the National Memorial where the Federal Building was destroyed. They went to Roswell, New Mexico and sang for the United Methodist Church there and worked with their youth choir in a clinic. From their they sang in nursing homes and rescue missions and even at the Cadet Chapel at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. They had a most profound experience singing and ministering to the residents of the Denver Rescue Mission and the Tennyson Center for Children and the Crossing Family Shelter. On the way home the group sang at Countryside UMC in Topeka. I read the testimonials of some of the youth after they returned - it was a profound experience for so many of them. In so many ways, Church of the Resurrection, you are involved in being salt and light to our world. These kinds of mission trips not only bring hope and encouragement to others, but they also profoundly shape the heart and faith of each participant; which is why I have challenged each of you to take one week of vacation to be a part of a mission team at least once in the next five years. Have you signed up yet? You can find out more about our mission team opportunities by clicking on this link.
5. Summer Fest Only One Week Away!
I hope you're getting ready for our second annual Summer Fest - it is going to be awesome! Great food, great fellowship, great music, great fun, a car show, a rummage sale, the Beatles, the reformed rock group Kansas, Mark Schultz, outdoor worship on the lawn, a dunk tank to dunk your favorite pastors and staff, and tons more. Plan to invite your neighbors to join us on Saturday, July 14!
I arrived back from lunch today to find a Leawood fire truck and ambulance outside our building, and a large group of children outside. Alarmed, I jumped out of the car to find out if there was an emergency. I learned that this was just another Friday at Camp Sunflower, our every Friday camp for our Matthew's Ministry - our ministry for kids with disabilities. The fire department had come out to connect with these kids and to teach them about emergency services; one more way that you are ministering to people and sharing God's love.
I am proud of you, Church of the Resurrection, and grateful for all the ways you share the love of Christ with others.
See you this weekend in worship!
Adam