Oct 6 2007

I write this email from Leawood, Kansas, home of the United Methodist Church Of the Resurrection, the largest UMC in the U.S. A church plant themselves in 1990, they currently average around 8,000 people in worship each weekend. (See a couple of pictures by visiting our website: www.cityonahillumc.org, and clicking on the COR announcment from the home page.)

I am here at there annual Leadership Institute and this year have my wife, Crystal, with me as well as Scott and Teresa Cook, Jimmy Smith, Jackie Stauder and Dianna Orth. I'm so thankful for their willingness to come to this dynamic church and be trained for all of our benefit. I also want to express my thanks to all of you who have traveled with me in the past, either here to COR or to some other church for leadership training. I'm so excited about what everyone is learning and have experienced during this trip. I know the entire church will be blessed by it and we'll seek to pass on some of our learned insites in the days and weeks ahead.

First, I appologize for the lateness of this e-note. I try to send it out late on Thursday so it can be waiting for you in your mail box on Friday morning, however, this trip has come with several technical difficulties... I'll resolve much of this next year as I'll seek to buy a lap top to take with me on trips like this.

Second, Rev. Ed Archer, our associate pastor will again be leading a brief class before worship on our "DNA." COAH DNA will give you a better look at who we are as a church and we're we are going. It's also a wonderful opportunity to ask your specific questions. Join Ed at 9am this Sunday!

Third, we begin a new series of sermons this Sunday called, conVERSION. This is a series to take you deeper in your faith. With the last series, "MythBusters," we were going for an "attention grabbing" sense for both yet-to-be and already followers of Jesus. This series is meant to take us deeper in our pursuit of following Christ. Read more about this our current sermon series at www.cityonahillumc.org our NEW WEBSITE!!! You're going to find a wealth of information as well as a fantastic sermon library among other great new features!

I'm thrilled that the NEW www.cityonahillumc.org is finally up and running. And while part of it is still in need of some work (as the case will probably always be) I think you find it the best resource for accessing information about our church and keeping yourself up to date with what is happening.

Besides this, please visit all our pages in the hunt to find your picture!!! In all seriousness, we have tried to place pics on nearly every page in order to give the site a better more realistic feel of who we are. This will be a continued feature so if your picture isn't on the site currently, you never know when it might be...

If you have comments, ideas, questions or corrections to be made about the site please email our web designer John Graham at cyberteam@cityonahillumc.org

I have much more to share but it will have to wait till next week's e-note which will arrive early, I promise!

I'm delighted to be your pastor and proud of the work and growth in Christ that I see in so many of you!