Knowing the Context

A Few Pictures

The vision at The Church of the Resurrection written in the gathering area.

The gathering area at Church of the Resurrection

Pastors John Shaver and Todd Thomas enjoying some coffee at the coffee house in the gathering area at Church of the Resurrection.

A Road Trip

Sharing in the Lewis Fellowship at Wesley Theological Seminary continues to enhance my pastoral life at Baldwin Community United Methodist Church. 

This trip consisted with many site visits to a variety of worship settings in the Kansas City area. Our first visit was to The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection. The Church of the Resurrection (www.cor.org) is the largest UM Church in The United States. Last year's Christmas Eve services at The Church of the Resurrection topped 22,500 in attendance! We met personally with Adam Hamilton, church founder for two hours. He spent time focusing on the birth of the church leading up to their current setting. Hamilton shared his thoughts on vision. As you can see in the picture, vision is a large part of the church's life. This vision statement is located in large print in their lobby area (the size of a mall!). 

When birthing the church and even today, Adam asked this of the people, "Why do people need Christ? Why do people need the church? Why do people need this church?" He stressed the importance of knowing the answers to these questions. Clergy and laity both need to know why we exist, what is our mission and what is the vision God has laid upon our hearts. We had an opportunity to spend one hour asking Adam questions relating to our personal ministries. 

Our second trip today took us to Jacob's Well (www.jacobswellchurch.org) Tim Keel met with us for approximately two hours. We asked questions and had an opportunity to listen to Tim explain the ten years of ministry there. Jacob's Well is an emergent church. An emergent church is meant to be a space that is honest and authentic to the context the church finds itself within the community. This church grew from a small handful to over 1100 attendees on Sunday.  

God is doing some great work among His people in the communities I witnessed on this trip. I also praise God that the Spirit is alive and moving through the community of faith at Baldwin Community UMC. We are blessed to be going through our purpose, mission and vision planning and I encourage each one of you to be faithfully praying for our church. We are in the midst of an exciting time. 

The Great Escape

Currently, I am between trips. Next week, I will be traveling to Kansas City with the Lewis Fellowship. This past week, I spent three days at the Great Escape, a pastor's retreat at Antiochian Village. This retreat was intended to be a time of renewal, reflection, and a time of learning from Gil Rendle. It was indeed that.

The three days away exhausted me! Constant conversations with my fellow peers, sharing, working, reading... it was intense. However, the most influential time of this retreat came from my time with Allan Brooks. Allan and I serve together in ministry at Baldwin Community. A long time ago, I said, "I'll never be an associate pastor." As the days and months pass by, I am ever thankful I serve in ministry with a staff of gifted individuals. I am grateful to be serving at Baldwin Community for a variety of reasons.

This retreat allowed Allan and myself to grow as a pastoral team in a variety of ways. He and I stuck close as one pastor approached Allan and said, "Are you brothers?" He laughed and said, "No, we just serve together." Today, I thank God for Allan and his leadership, wisdom and most importantly, his friendship.

A Great Witness

Today the kids and I decided to go to the mountains since Jennifer was working. We met my parents, my sisters and their families in Confluence for their annual Pumpkin Festival. We arrived in Confluence during the height of the festivities! We walked down into town and met people we knew from Belle Vernon and a few other spots! Small world indeed! As we walked through town we stopped to try out the food booths (it was a bad day for the waistline)! We had the best pizza in the world, $2.00 pepperoni rolls that were almost 10 inches long! We tried the pumpkin rolls, funnel cakes, pumpkin ice cream, and the chocolate chip cookies! I did say it was a bad day for the waistline.

One of the best moments of the day was watching Wesley Chapel UMC and Confluence UMC at work witnessing to the crowd. Abby went into the Wesley Chapel booth as they offered free face painting. As she walked in, I slowly positioned myself near the edge of the tent. I listened as the women asked Abby, "Do you go to church Abby?" Abby said, "yes." The woman asked Abby which face painting she wanted. Abby pointed to the heart cross with different colors. The woman then told Abby what each color represented and she explained who Jesus was. This woman just witnessed in such a loving and meaningful way to our 4 year old. So simple that Abby understood everything she told her. Abby was so proud of her heart cross on her cheek.

I found it wonderful to see the United Methodist churches in town witnessing to the community to which they are a part of. Thanks Wesley Chapel and Confluence UMC's for a witness well done!