June 29, 2007
Dear Resurrection Family,
As I send this e-mail our worship team is on the way to Orange County, California where we're spending the next three days on our annual planning retreat. This once a year trip is designed to accomplish two primary objectives: We will spend the bulk of our time looking over the sermon plan I'm proposing for the next 18 months and brainstorming ideas for worship. This allows Kevin Bogan and the traditional music ministry, Lance Winkler and the contemporary music ministry and Francisco Litardo and Kristin Thompson with Saving Grace Video ministry to work with their teams to come up with the best possible music and video elements in an effort to offer worship that helps our congregation to honor God and to grow in your faith. Dan Entwistle will join us this year - he oversees all of our program ministries - and he will look for ways to help us integrate what's happening in worship with the other ministries of the church. Another important dimension of this retreat every year is a kind of continuing education in which we worship at three leading churches and look for ways we can learn from them. This weekend we'll visit Mariners Church in Irvine, Bel Air Presbyterian Church in LA, and Saddleback Church in Lake Forrest. I'll give you a report on our visit, and an opportunity to see photos of each of these churches, next week in the pastor's e-mail.
Here's what's up in today's Pastor's E-mail:
1. Doctoral Students Take Course on Preaching at Resurrection
2. This weekend - A Profile in Courage: Queen Esther
3. Star Article on Cornerstone Commercial Project
4. New Pastor Welcomed This Coming Weekend: Prudence Bertolino
5. Rock band "Kansas" Re-unites, performs at Summer Fest?!
1. Doctoral Students Take Course on Preaching at Resurrection
This week we had 21 Doctoral students from Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington D.C. here for a course on preaching. In addition to my teaching time with them, they spent time observing our worship planning process, met with our worship team, and they received a crash course in shooting video. Each of these pastors in the doctoral program will serve at least five different churches in their careers, and our hope in hosting and teaching this course was that the 100 churches served by these pastors in their ministries might be strengthened as a result of our investment in them. It was a great experience. The pastors were primarily United Methodist but also included several Baptists and African Methodist Episcopal Zion pastors. I mention this as another example of ways in which our church and staff seek to strengthen other churches in fulfillment of our vision of renewing the mainline.
2. This weekend - A Profile in Courage: Queen Esther
While I'm in LA this weekend Pastor Karen Lampe will preach on the story of Queen Esther. Esther's story is one that is filled with courage, and I specifically chose to place her story this weekend just before we celebrate Independence Day as a nation. In each service one of our service men in the congregation will present the flag. My hope is that each of you will find the story of Esther inspires courage in you as well. Next week I'll be back in the pulpit to preach on the "boy-kings" - Joash and Josiah. More on them in next week's e-mail.
3. Star Article on Cornerstone Commercial Project
This week The Kansas City Star ran an article about the Cornerstone development just north of the church. Click on this link to read the article http://www.kansascity.com/business/story/166612.html. This development is independent of the church, but its investors are populated largely by members of the congregation. As the article notes, the project has experienced some real successes, and some disappointments. The efforts and vision of the investors and managers of Cornerstone are experienced each time you drive on 137th or Briar, or park in the parking lot north of the church. I am grateful for the investors and managers of Cornerstone and wanted you to have a chance to read the article.
4. New Pastor Welcomed This Coming Weekend: Prudence Bertolino
This weekend we'll welcome a new pastor to our congregational care team - Prudence Bertolino, who comes to us from New York. She comes to us with outstanding recommendations and tremendous experience in congregational care. She has served on staff of large churches, and pastored her own congregations. You'll have a chance to meet her during worship and in the Narthex following the service. I am excited to have her joining our pastoral staff! Please give her a warm welcome.
5. Rock Band "Kansas" Re-unites, performs at Summer Fest?!
When I was in high school one of my favorite bands was Kansas ("Dust in the Wind" was among their many songs). Years ago they broke up, and several of the guys became Christians (one is now an Anglican priest!). Several of these guys are touring again and coming together to perform at our Summer Fest on July 14! In addition Liverpool - the Beatles tribute band - and Mark Schultz, contemporary Christian artist, will all perform on the lawn for Summer Fest. This is going to be an awesome day of food, fun, and fellowship designed to be a great outreach opportunity to the community and to make it easy for you to invite your friends. You'll find out more about Summer Fest this weekend in worship or on the website: http://www.cor.org/summerfest. It will be AWESOME!
I'm boarding the plane as I send this e-mail (from my mobile phone!) to the office to be sent on to you. Please pray for our worship planning team this weekend, that God will guide us and give us his visions and dreams for the sermons and worship at Church of the Resurrection for the years ahead.
In Christ's Love,
Adam