Author and UMC pastor Adam Hamilton has offered to come speak to Riverchase UMC as part of our discernment process and I wanted to pass this info along.

A few weeks ago, I had a chance to talk with Adam one-on-one for close to an hour via Zoom. Adam is the pastor of the largest UMC congregation (30,000+ members) in the U.S. — Church of the Ressurection in Leawood, Kansas.

He’s written over 30 books on a wide range of topics and if you’ve been in a small group study for any length of time at RUMC, you’ve probably studied one of his books.

Adam took time to ask about Riverchase UMC and where we were with discernment and a little history about the church. I appreciated the time that he gave me that day and we had some great discussions about the issues the United Methodist Church was dealing with.

In our conversation, Adam mentioned that he would be more than happy to come to speak at Riverchase UMC as part of the discernment process if that was something that we thought would be beneficial. He’s spoken at 45 UMC annual conferences around the country.

He has fantastic video about why his church is going to be staying in the United Methodist Church posted on his YouTube channel.

(Also note in the video when he turns the camera around just how few people are on their Church Council, aka “Board of Stewards, for a church with a membership of over 30,000 — that’s efficiency).

After I got off of our Zoom call, I sent a letter to our senior pastor, lay leader, and Board of Stewards chair letting them know of the offer. This was prior to the Discernment Team being formed and, rightly so, I was informed that the Discernment Team would be making collective decisions about which speakers might be brought in to hear various points of view.

Would You Like to Hear Adam Hamilton Speak at Our Church?

Adam’s popularity as a writer and UMC pastor would suit Riverchase UMC well as a speaker and would likely draw a large crowd to listen to his perspectives and to have questions answered by the audience.

Of note: I have already had conversations with folks who said that if there were expenses involved, they’d be more than happy to help defray the costs on behalf of the church, so we needn’t consider that an issue.

These aren’t the kinds of opportunities that come up often, and I am encouraging all of you to reach out to the RUMC Discernment Team via email if you feel that this would be something that you and our church would benefit from during the discernment process and be sure to let your Sunday School classes know to reach out as well.

You can email the RUMC Discernment Team at discernment@riverchaseumc.org. Let them know your thoughts about why you feel like this might be a good information-sharing opportunity for our church.

Adam Hamilton photo by Kathleen Barry, UM News. Used with permission.