Methodist

“We all came in different ships, but we’re all in the same boat now.” -Martin Luther King Jr.

The one word to best describe my experience as I watched the live service from Church of the Resurrection Leawood this morning would be, diversity.

This morning I sat here at my kitchen table, lap top open as I started scrolling through my 30 religions list. Which one should I watch this morning?

Now, I’ll be honest, this particular Methodist church, I so badly wanted to visit in person. This church is Huge! As my roommate walked out to the living area/ kitchen area (it’s a small apartment), she asked which church I was visiting/watching this morning. I described this church as the mega church that, depending on where you look from, you can see from miles away.

I remember when I first saw this church building, I had no idea what denomination it was. I mean, it’s huge, kind of Scientology building huge! The Scientology building in Kansas City is huge and most people who know nothing of Scientology know where that building is. Both of these buildings are quite eye catching and when described of it’s general location, most people can at least recall seeing the building before.

My roommate’s reaction was exactly this. She was like, “O…yes that huge building! Right across from Pinstripes bowling. What type of church is that?” So I go on to describe that upon earlier research I discovered that this building holds multiple sanctuaries. They offer like a million different service options on weekends, well maybe not quite a million, but allot of service options.

And upon even further research this morning, I came across more information on the building itself. There are approximately 20,000 limestone blocks that make up just part of the exterior building, representing the 20,000 current Resurrection members. There are seven stainless steel roof panels or “sails” that rise toward the heavens, a reminder of the seven days of creation, the seven days of Holy Week. Again, this building is quite a sight. Maybe when the current epidemic has passed, I will be able to go on a tour of the building. O, yes, did I mention that they offer tours five days a week.

I click into their live service, one minute late and the band and musicians are already half way through a song. I look over to the right side of my screen and there it shows that I am listening to a Modern Worship service. (they also offer a Traditional Worship service) Wow, this band has it all! They had the strings, a drummer, a keyboardist, a piano, electric guitars, a flute player and a handful of singers.

Right away I noticed that not only were the instruments diverse but so was the group of people leading worship. They were young, old, women, men, tall, short, light skinned, tan skinned, dark skinned. It was truly one big melting pot of people. I loved it! And for the first time on this journey, I thought to myself, I could have easily walked into this church and not felt like I stood out.

Now, at this point I should explain a little about myself and my past experiences. I was born in Guatemala, hence I am Hispanic. I have long black hair, brown skin, brown eyes, 5 foot 2 inches and fairly petite. As mentioned before in earlier blog posts, I grew up in a very small, very white town. To say that I stuck out like a sore thumb would be a bit of an under statement. I lived in a small predominately white town until I was almost 23. It was then that I made a break for it.

I am used to being the one that stands out for my looks and not in a, “O look at me and o-lala” kind of way but more of a, “Well she’s clearly different looking” kind of way. I am used to people coming up to me and asking where I am from. I am used to people looking at me and thinking that I am Asian. (I take no offense to this and it happens allot. I think it’s in the eyes.) The point is, I find comfort being in a highly diverse community. I feel incredibly more comfortable living in a city like Overland Park with a population of around 200,000 and counting. I can walk around Target or show up at a yoga class and I don’t stand out as the only person who isn’t white. It’s a great feeling!

I didn’t much feel like I stood out at the Atheist gathering, maybe because they were so open, accepting and welcoming that I didn’t think about standing out by the color of my skin. The Baptist church was mostly white but had a little diversity. The Mennonite church was all white except for one girl I noticed handing out attendance sheets. She looked like she may have been Asian. And the other churches I have visited online, well I can’t say for sure since I didn’t see the congregation, but all the leaders were fair skinned. Of course that doesn’t mean that they didn’t have a diverse congregation, maybe they did, maybe they didn’t, maybe I will never know. It really doesn’t matter if they did or didn’t, I wouldn’t have held anything against them if the congregations did lack some diversity. But all this going to say that this morning I did notice allot of diversity and I loved it!

There were many different reverends and pastors in today’s service. The service was a huge collage of all their different locations. There was Pastor Grant, Reverend Scott, Reverend Penny, Reverend Clough and Reverend Hamilton. The first pastor entered the video and said a prayer over the congregation. As she prayed the screen turned to a picture of Jesus in a stained glass window. I really liked this touch as my focus could either be on God, which wasn’t that the point during prayer, or I could rather close my eyes and not worry about missing anything on the screen for those few moments.

This church must always offer online services because they had such a hands on menu to the right of the screen. This clearly wasn’t their first time as they would say. I filled out my attendance card from an easy click of a button. There was also an icon to click if you needed to put in a prayer request or get more information about the church. Everything was nicely laid out and easy to navigate.

After a reading of Psalms 145:1-8, they had a solo from a nice gentleman. The music was very Disney like. Even the man’s voice was Disney like. I felt like the whole song could have been easily placed in the movie Aladdin. If Aladdin had had some sort of religious tie to God, of course. “And joyfully sing, and joyfully sing, and joyfully sing. I will exalt my God, my King!” Maybe this song could have been played when Aladdin enters the town as Prince Ali. (Could anyone else picture this or is it just me?)

After the wonderful solo, Reverend Hamilton came to the screen. He wasn’t able to be there in person at the church with everyone else because he had been sick last week and was following protocol by staying at home and quarantining. But the good news was that he said he was feeling allot better, almost 100% again!

He preached from the gospel of Luke. He retold the story of Mary and Martha and Jesus. It was Mary who sat at Jesus’s feet listening to him speak while Martha was running around in the background trying to get the meal ready for everyone. Martha finally asking Jesus to get her sister, Mary, to help her with the meal preparations. Jesus, acknowledging Martha’s concerns but then telling her that it was Mary who was fully benefiting from sitting at his feet. It was Mary who was choosing to listen to him and receive more of a blessing than Martha, who was running around and stressing over the meal.

There were a few points that Reverend Hamilton drew from these versus. One, that we all are either Type A or Type B personalities. That the Type A, the Martha’s, need the Type B, the Mary’s, and vise versa. We all need to have a little of both because both personality types are needed. Second, we as humans are not wired to multi task. We need to choose one thing to pay attention to it and give it our all. He spoke of his friend, restaurant owner of Nick and Jake’s who puts an emphasis on setting down the phones and engaging with those at the table. He offers little baskets at each table so that people can set their phones inside and focus on who they are sitting with rather than the latest message on their phones. He says, we must disconnect to reconnect. Love it!

The third point Reverend Hamilton points out is that we can all be a little more like Mary during this coronavirus. That this time of quarantining can be used engage with God. Overland Park and surrounding areas are officially enforcing a city wide shut down starting this Tuesday morning. Reverend Hamilton even offered the advice to say a prayer while we wash our hands, since we are all already spending half our day at the sink anyways. Soaps…bubbles…and Jesus. I could really pull out so much symbolism from that but I will spare you. You’re welcome!

Reverend Hamilton ended his sermon putting the emphasis on what the congregation can be doing to help those in need during this coronavirus time. He read some really heart felt stories of people who were coming together as a family and re-embracing time together without all the usual interruptions of a normal week. He read an email from a woman in the congregation who reached out to share how she had been blessed during these last few weeks. She was a waitress at a Deny’s restaurant but like most restaurants they had to close down. She always served a bible study group of men on Saturday mornings and received a call this week from one of the men who said that the whole group wanted to send her multiple week’s worth of tips. They just wanted to make sure she was okay and being taken care of. Yes, I may have shed some tears after hearing this story. There are some really awesome people out there!

The service ended with prayer, a time for giving and a worship song. The song was called, “There’s a Peace I’ve Come to Know.”

Reverend Hamilton said something that really stuck out to me, he said that we are all shaped the most through adverse times. He said usually no one wants to go back and relive those hard times in their lives but when we look back we can all see how much we grew from it. Hard times change us all, they change us for the good or the bad. Maybe it depends on your perspective on those times but never the less, they change us all.

I look back at my middle school years when I was constantly picked on and pointed out for looking different. I would never go back and relive those times but I am sure a hell of allot stronger because of that time. I also have the utmost empathy on anyone being discriminated or bullied. I don’t want anyone to feel left out because I know how that feels.

I didn’t expect to feel as uplifted and encouraged by today’s service as I ended up feeling. It was so refreshing to hear encouraging stories about good people helping others. That so many people are being forced in a way to slow down and reengage with their families and to hear the positive ways people are being effected. That people are putting toilet paper in front of neighbor’s doors who may not be able to get out and shop for that themselves. That there are good people out there that are making such powerful impacts through simple acts of kindness.

“Helping one person might not change the whole world, but it could change the world for one person.” -anonymous