church of the resurrection
This past week I got to represent GBHEM at the Leadership Institute in Kansas City. It’s an annual conference hosted by Church of the Resurrection, the largest United Methodist Church in the US. Some of my highlights:
- meeting up with other young pastors through our UMC Young Clergy network for an afternoon of sharing, dreaming and discernment
- sharing about GBHEM and the young clergy project at the Friday lunch
- spending time with four pastors from my Alaska Conference
- getting my first rental car 🙂
- visiting their youth group on Wednesday night
Leadership Lessons
- Send every single decision through the framework of MVP (Mission – Why are we here? Vision – Where are we going? Plan – How are we getting there?)
- We like change as long as we’ve initiated it
- Set high expectations for your church that we’ll meet God in worship
- Give people space to do business with God during the worship service – too often we do all the talking
- The closer you get to Christ, the farther you feel from him
- If you’re a leader, you will be criticized
- Facts are our friends…even if we don’t like them
- A good organizational mission is brief, clear, inspires, gives clear direction and provides limitations
- Every sermon has 5 goals: inform, inspire & motivate, invite, practical & relevant and Biblical
- Be expectant!
- Define for your people what it looks like to be a committed Christian
The #1 thing their senior pastor, Adam Hamilton, does so well is give intentionality to everything they do. He doesn’t just say it once or twice but drives the point home over and over in different ways. Every single person in the church of 12,000 knows why exist and what their purpose is as a faith community.
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