June 2, 2006
Dear Resurrection Family,
As you read this, our pastors, lay delegates, and I are attending the Kansas East Annual Conference held at Baker University in Baldwin City. Annual Conference is a wonderful tradition in United Methodism in which all of the pastors from the geographic area (in our case, the eastern third of Kansas) and lay delegates (elected by the local church - one per each pastor assigned to the church), gather together to worship, study, hear reports and conduct the business of the church. The worship and study has been the best I've experienced in 19 years of attending Conference. The Conference ends on Saturday with the ordination of new clergy, several of which are Resurrection members being ordained or commissioned for ministry, Stephanie Gagen, Ken Baker, and JoAnn Defrain. We'll also have lively debate over a variety of issues. Please pause and pray for wisdom for the Annual Conference, and for the renewal of our churches. Thank you!
Here's what I'll cover in today's e-mail:
1. This Weekend: Sermon on Marriage - LaVon to Assist Me in Preaching
2. My Summer Sabbatical: What, When and Why
3. Hope from Horror: An Invitation to Help Girl Molested by Monsters
4. Help Needed from Parents of Upcoming Seniors
5. Update on Myrna and 3:30 pm Prayer Service This Weekend
1. This Weekend: Sermon on Marriage - LaVon to Assist Me in Preaching
This weekend we'll conclude the I and Thou sermon series by focusing on Marriage. For the first time LaVon is going to join me in the pulpit in each worship service as we reflect together on marriage and what it takes to sustain marriage. We'll be considering what the scriptures teach us about marriage, and share both humor and serious reflections about I and Thou in the marital relationship. I saved this sermon for the end as this coming Monday is our 24th wedding anniversary, and the preparing of this message gave us both a chance to focus on the meaning and ministry of marriage. I believe you'll be encouraged, inspired and challenged by this weekend's message. This would also be a great message to invite your unchurched friends to attend - it will bless and encourage them as well. As you'll note in the next announcement down, this will be my last time to preach for the summer.
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2. My Summer Sabbatical: What, When and Why
Each summer I take four to six weeks away from the church - two weeks are usually vacation, two weeks are sermon planning and research, and two weeks are for reading and study. Our congregation allows that once every seven years a pastor can apply for a longer Sabbatical. My last Sabbatical was in 1998, when I spent the summer visiting and studying the leading churches in the country. This summer, in addition to the two weeks vacation and two weeks focused on sermon outlining, I'll be taking six weeks focused primarily on completing a book I've been working on tentatively titled, Christianity for Thinking People, or something like this. In it I'll lay out the kind of questions thinking people ask that keep them from faith, and offering what I hope will be helpful and compelling responses. In addition, I will work on a significant revision to my 2002 book, Leading Beyond the Walls. This book describes how and why we do what we do here at the church. A lot has changed in four years. Once the revisions are made to this book we will prepare presentations based upon this book, and then train presenters - lay people in our church with excellent leadership training skills - to present this material to District conferences and training events across the country as a part of our efforts to renew mainline churches. My aim is to have both of these projects completed and to the publisher by August 15.
As a part of this time away I will have the opportunity to do a significant amount of reading. So much of what I do throughout the year is reading and research for my sermons - but during my summer leave I will typically read six books aimed at strengthening our church, fostering my own creativity, and challenging my thinking.
Finally, I'll have the chance to worship in a host of different settings in various places while away - to actually worship without having to lead worship - and to sit with my family in worship. I'll worship at three large and very different churches in Houston on June 10-11. I'll head up to Willow Creek in Chicago one weekend to experience worship in their new sanctuary. I'll worship at the Riverside Church in New York. While in Kansas City I will worship here in our church in at least one service each weekend. I'll also worship at Mason Memorial UMC in Kansas City, Kansas, and several other area churches. I'll lead worship here on July 8 and 9 when we have our summer festival, and I'll lead worship, along with Pastor Molly, for our trial run at the Resurrection West Campus on July 16.
Each week I'll send my pastor's e-mail and update you on where I am and what I'm up to so you can follow along if you are interested. I'll offer suggestions for books I've found meaningful, and maybe even share a few photos of places I've visited. Please pray for me next week as I begin working on sermons that will cover the period from August 2006 through September 2007. The following week I'll work on sermons from 2007 to 2008.
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3. Hope from Horror: An Invitation to Help Girl Molested by Monsters
Last week, with you, I read with horror and shock the story of Dena Riley and Richard Davis' brutal murder of an area woman, and of their sexual assault of the 5-year-old girl they kidnapped. Sunday afternoon I couldn't stop thinking about this girl, and the terrible things she has experienced. I thought of my own daughters, and the 5 year old girls in our own congregation. I began to wonder what could be done to help this little girl - what could we do to offer the possibility of hope for her in the future. It appeared from photos of her neighbors that she may come from a low-income family. And as I was thinking about this, I felt God placed something on my heart: What if we were to set up a scholarship fund for this little girl, that would be available to pay for secondary education after she were to finish high school? What if this fund itself became a testimony to her that there were people in the world who cared, who loved, and that would offer her a chance at life? I announced this on Sunday evening at the end of worship. LaVon and I would seed the fund with $500 and I invited others to contribute whatever they liked if they felt led. We have received $9,300 so far. This fund will be set up through our Church of the Resurrection Foundation who will determine how best to help this girl. If you would like to help with this fund (I think if we could raise at least $20,000, set aside in a trust for the next 12 years, there would be enough to provide for a good part of this girls' tuition at an in-state school), please write "child scholarship fund" in the memo line of the check and make the check payable to the Church of the Resurrection Foundation. You can mail these to the church or bring your offering to worship this weekend. Thank you to each of you who have contributed so far!
4. Help Needed from Parents of Upcoming Seniors
We are beginning the planning for the 2007 Baccalaureate Service for graduating seniors and I would like to develop a team of lay parents of graduating seniors to help us take this service to the next level. We need parents and any persons connected with Kansas City area high schools. The Baccalaureate is intended to be a citywide event for area seniors and their parents. It is co-sponsored by the Blue Valley Ministerial Association. If you would like to help us make this a terrific event, please e-mail my assistant, Sue Thompson.
5. Update on Myrna and 3:30 pm Prayer Service This Weekend
Last week I announced one of our members will soon be deported by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Thank you to all who e-mailed to offer help and support. This Sunday at 3:30 pm Pastor Karen Lampe will lead a prayer service for Myrna in the Wesley Chapel. She will lead those present in prayer for the Dick family and for wisdom for our President and Congress as they work on trying to discern a just and fair solution to the issues related to immigration.
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Conclusion
On Wednesday night, when Conference began, Dr. Felix Burrows, the new pastor at Mason Memorial United Methodist Church, preached from Ezekiel 37:1-14 - the story of the Valley of Dry Bones in which the prophet had a vision of an entire valley of bones, and at the command of God, the bones began to rattle, and then began to come together, and soon flesh appeared on them and they came to life - a vast army. The story is a powerful one pointing to the triumph of hope and God's ability to bring life and hope out of the darkest situations. The vision was given to Ezekiel while the Jewish people were living in exile in Babylon - they were, as a nation, like these dry bones in the valley. The vision was meant to remind the people that God is the God of the hopeless cause. He is the God of the Resurrection.
I wonder if you have a situation in your life right now that seems discouraging or maybe even hopeless? This story, this prophetic word from Ezekiel, is a reminder that God is able to restore, to deliver, to heal, to help and to renew.
At Annual Conference Dr. Burrows was preaching this text about the United Methodist Church - that the dry bones of this denomination can and will live again. And this ties in to the third part of our vision as a congregation - the renewal of the mainline church. Part of our role at the Church of the Resurrection is to stand in the footsteps of Ezekiel, prophesying to the bones of the mainline church that there is hope for their churches and encouraging them to live again. This week at Conference, I could hear the bones rattling!
See you in worship!
Adam