March 16, 2006
Dear Resurrection Family,
As some of you are traveling for Spring Break I wanted to share a few thoughts with you on renewal and rest.
I have a cordless power razor. I can use it for a month, it seems, before the battery begins to run down. As it is running down, the power loss is at first barely perceptible. Within a few days there is a precipitous decline in the razor's effectiveness; and then suddenly, one day, in the middle of a shave, it comes to a grinding halt. It must be plugged in, and left alone for several hours before it's ready to go again. You - your body, mind and spirit - are like this. You need times of renewal and rest. Without this you eventually wear out, burn out and come to a grinding halt.
One of the things I know about myself is that when I am on vacation I have this incessant need to do things! Too often I come back from vacation exhausted because I didn't actually take time to rest, renew and recharge - instead I just started doing non-work related things at the same pace I do my job.
All of which is a way of saying I hope you are taking time for rest and renewal - time for doing what you enjoy, and being with people you enjoy - time with a good book, or a great discussion with friends about things that really matter. Laughter is good, too. I've found winning at cards is a form of recreation I particularly enjoy (though even losing can be fun!). But, an essential part of renewal has to do with our experience of God's presence in our lives. I hope on your vacations and Sabbaths you are taking time to talk to God, to pray and sing and read and reflect upon the life God wishes you to live. All of these things have a way of renewing us. I believe our Sabbath - our Saturday evenings through Sunday evenings - should look like this, with time for worship, prayer, fellowship, reading, rest, and recreation. We all need this. If you are back in town, I hope to see you in worship this weekend.
Okay, enough for the sermon on renewal. Here's what I'll cover in today's e-mail:
1. Lucinda Holmes to Become Senior Pastor at Shawnee UMC
2. This Weekend In Worship: Condemned by the 'Righteous'
3. Report from My Trip to D.C.
4. Excerpts from Don Miller's Blue Like Jazz
1. Lucinda Holmes to Become Senior Pastor at Shawnee UMC
Last week Bishop Scott Jones announced he has asked Pastor Lucinda Holmes to accept the assignment to Shawnee United Methodist Church, as Senior Pastor. Lucinda is completing her fifth year as one of our Executive Directors here at the church. She is currently giving direction to our worship ministries and leading our efforts to support Resurrection members who are pursuing a call to ordained ministry. Lucy has made a lasting impact on our church. Her leadership has helped shape our worship and pastoral care ministries over these last five years. She and her husband Cliff will be missed.
At the same time Lucinda's new appointment will be a great blessing to Shawnee UMC and the community around the church. Shawnee United Methodist is one of the largest congregations in the Kansas East Annual Conference. This historic church is filled with new opportunities as the area near the church continues to grow. Lucinda's love for the church, her creativity in worship, her vision and her leadership will all be a gift to her new congregation. Her last weekend with us will be May 13/14. We will celebrate her ministry on that weekend.
2. This Weekend In Worship: Condemned by the 'Righteous'
This weekend we will continue in our series of sermons on 24 Hours That Changed the World. In this series we are taking an in-depth look at what happened to Jesus during the twenty-four hours culminating in his crucifixion. We began this series with the Last Supper. Last weekend Pastor Yolanda Villa preached on Jesus' agony, betrayal and arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane. This weekend I will be preaching on the trial of Jesus before the Jewish Sanhedrin and Peter's denial of Jesus. I have been grateful to have the time to spend studying, thinking, and reflecting upon this story to a degree I have never done before. We'll see this story has far more to do with our lives today than you can possibly imagine. We'll also see what Jesus said about himself as he was on trial. As a part of this sermon I will take you, via photos and video, to what is believed to be the actual site where Jesus was tried before the Jewish Sanhedrin. If you're coming back from vacation this weekend, why not be back in time for the Sunday evening service at 5:00 pm? Blue jeans or vacation clothes are fine! I hope to see you in worship this weekend.
3. Report from My Trip to D.C.
Last week I spent two days teaching 200 pastors and lay leaders about preaching and evangelism. The conference was held near Alexandria, Virginia and it was a joy to share with these folks a host of ideas and insights from our ministry at the Church of the Resurrection. Many of these pastors and church leaders reported they are already using ideas and resources from our congregation to help them reach out to people in their community. It is exciting to hear of churches using our small group studies, or preaching sermon series based upon the sermons we preach at Resurrection, or delivering coffee mugs to their first time visitors - and experiencing tremendous results. Recently, I received a letter from a pastor who said this year, using one of our resources; worship attendance was up 500 per weekend over the same period last year. One pastor in Virginia told me he was teaching one of our small group studies. When he announced the study, he anticipated 20 people would show up; instead he had over 100! But as important as the resources we provide these churches is the sense of hope and encouragement they find from what God is doing at the Church of the Resurrection. I sensed the pastors and lay leaders at this conference were genuinely inspired and had come to believe there is a future for their churches. I am grateful that, as a church, you allow me and other staff time to be a part of events like this. I limit my speaking at outside conferences to ten each year, typically aiming to speak to pastors and key leaders. Part of our vision is that our congregation will be used by God for the renewal of the mainline church - this is happening already, but I believe we have just begun to scratch the surface of this ministry.
4. Excerpts from Don Miller's Blue Like Jazz
I'm always reading several books. Among those I'll finish this week is Donald Miller's, Blue Like Jazz. Among the chapters I read this week was his chapter on Community. He described how he had always lived on his own, but when he reached his thirties he moved into a house with several other single guys. He described the challenge of suddenly having to live with others. I thought you might enjoy reading an excerpt from this chapter.
Miller writes that, over time, he had come to see his life as something like a movie or play, where he was the star that appeared in every scene. He had come to believe, at a subconscious level, that "life was a story about me." He notes in the play that was his life, "I was in every scene. In fact, I was the only one in every scene...If somebody walked into my scene, it would frustrate me because they were disrupting the general theme of the play, namely my comfort or glory...The most difficult lie I have ever contended with is this: Life is a story about me...no drug is so powerful as the drug of self. No rut in the mind is so deep as the one that says that I am the world, the world belongs to me, all people are characters in my play. There is no addiction so powerful as self-addiction."
I think this is what Jesus had in mind when he told us, "whoever loses his life will find it." I think he intended that we come to understand life is not really about us, first of all, and to the degree that we live as though life were really a play all about us, we never discover the life God intended for us.
Daily we grow as Christians by yielding ourselves to God, by inviting God to do with us what God wishes, and by seeking to bless and love each person we meet. This is my prayer for me, and my prayer for you, as I send this e-mail. That together we might discover the joy of living for God and in ministry to others, and the blessing of living as an "extra" in God's play.
Well, that's all for today. I hope to see you in worship this weekend!
In Christ's Love,
Adam