Leadership Institute at Church of the Resurrection

At the end of September I had the opportunity to attend Leadership Institute at Church of the Resurrection with five others from Chain of Lakes Church. This was one of the largest groups from Chain of Lakes that have attended this conference. Leadership Institute is a conference shared by Church of the Resurrection (COR) in Kansas City. COR is the largest Methodist church in the United States. The church started from scratch in 1990 and today has become a very large congregation  with six campuses in the Kansas City area. Unlike many large churches, COR’s theology is unapologetically main-line. They care passionately about personal faith AND social engagement. They are welcoming to the LBTBQ+ community. 

I’ve been attending Leadership Institute for many years. I’ve actually lost track of how many times I’ve gone to this conference—maybe twenty. I started attending when I served my previous church in Plainview. Many years ago I stopped attending by myself. Now I always bring a group of people from the church I’m serving. The six of us who attended grew in our friendships with each other. 

Kansas City has a special place in my heart as my family lived in inner-City Kansas City for three summers and a school year in the early 1970’s. While living in Kansas City my eyes were opened to the reality of poverty and the obligation of those who are not poor to help. 

Leadership Institute is made up of lectures and smaller seminars.  One of my favorite seminars was one led by Tom Langhofer on the Recovery ministry that COR is doing. Each Thursday night COR offers a meal and then a talk on some aspect of Recovery. They then break out into different recovery groups. The talks can be downloaded and shared. We’ve talked at Chain of Lakes about sharing some type of recovery ministry with the wider community. Hiring Charlie Clark to be our Minister of Health and Healing will help. After this workshop I talked with Tom about their ministry, and what we want to do at Chain of Lakes. As a reflection of their generosity, he said we could download all of their talk without charge and show them to anyone who wants to gather. He also followed up two days letter with an email.

His personal response to me is one reason that Church of the Resurrection does so well. 

Each time I attend Leadership Institute I give everyone from Chain of Lakes a tour of the neighborhood where I used to live. The summer of second grade, my Dad took our family to work for Cross Lines, a social service organization in Kansas City. We lived in a huge house called, “fading grey” with other people. It was my first experience at Communal Living. I always drive by the house and share stories about “fading grey.” We moved to Kansas City for fifteen months when my Dad took a sabbatical from teaching. Within half a mile were two places that were called “the projects.” I drove our group through these areas. We found the church where my Dad ran a day-camp for the community. I still remember knocking on doors with him asking people to go to the day-camp. 

I was delighted that Carey Nieuwhof shared a presentation and then led a breakout group. I have read many of his books and listen to his podcast. In his   presentation he talked about managing energy and not   our time. He encouraged us to identify the times in the   day when we are at our best and then do our most  i important work during those times. Makes sense to me.  He challenged everyone present to think about how a   local congregation can share a digital ministry. He said   that successful congregations in the future will see   themselves as digital organizations in a physical location. 

Once again Church of the Resurrection provided an   outstanding conference. They provide hope for anyone in   the church who has given their lives to the church.