As many of you know Rev. Adam Hamilton, the senior pastor of Church of the Resurrection (COR), was just elected to the U.S. Senate from the state of Kansas. The church he founded and leads is the largest United Methodist congregation in the United States. Adam’s congregational leadership has been an example for so many pastors across the country for decades, including me.When we started The Gather...  Read More

CoreGroup Guide | Afterlife - Part 2Written by Melissa Ross and Christopher BurfordWelcomeHello friends and welcome to the second week of our series called Afterlife: What Comes Next. In this series, we are looking at what the Bible says about God's plans for us when our time on Earth is done. In our first week, we looked at different descriptions of what paradise could be, from anything like the ...  Read More

CoreGroup Guide | Afterlife - Part 1Written by Melissa Ross and Christopher BurfordFrom Pastor CharityToday we begin a new sermon series called Afterlife: What Comes Next. Over the next few weeks we’ll talk about topics that we don’t usually talk about out loud. This is a great opportunity to keep showing up for your CoreGroup! During this series we’ll also be highlighting the Shared Practice of P...  Read More

I love Halloween. Though I love preaching, Halloween doesn’t demand a lot from pastors. I get to sit in my driveway, get a fire going in the firepit, say hi to friends and neighbors, meet some new ones, and give out full size candy bars. I love seeing the look on kids’ faces when I tell them they can take one!A couple of weeks ago I was talking to my mail carrier and asked him if he was ready for ...  Read More

CoreGroup Guide | Debunked - Part 4Written by Jenny Huffman, Denee Bowers, and Aimee WehmeierWelcomeWhether you’ve been reading the Bible your whole life, or just started recently, you may have noticed some pretty wild things in there – A talking donkey, a parting of the sea, a person turned into a pillar of salt, visions from God that read more like nightmares, even Jesus himself telling us to pl...  Read More

CoreGroup Guide | Debunked - Part 3Written by Jenny Huffman, Denee Bowers, and Aimee WehmeierWelcomeChristian Cliche Red Flag: When people only use the phrase in no good very bad situations.This week’s saying, Everything Happens for a Reason, is a perfect example of the sort of thing we say when we don’t know what else to say. It sounds true-enough and comforting-enough, even if we haven’t the fai...  Read More