Resurrection UMC to Collaborate with West Ohio Conference, Church

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Great Plains Conference | Aug 14, 2024

The distance between Leawood, Kansas, and Mason, Ohio — a 600-plus mile drive, crossing several conference lines and one jurisdictional border — may seem a bit shorter after a first-of-its-kind partnership between the Great Plains and West Ohio conferences.

Mason, a city of 35,000 that’s 20 miles northwest of Cincinnati, will be the home of a new affiliate location of Resurrection, a United Methodist Church, scheduled to open in fall 2025.

Like the eight campuses of the UMC in the Kansas City metro area, Resurrection Mason will feature video sermons by Rev. Adam Hamilton, founding senior pastor of the church, and its branding.

“Resurrection’s been invited to come in and help create the kind of experience Resurrection provides here in Kansas City,” said Chris Folmsbee, executive director of Resurrection Experience. “This is what you might call a little amped-up in our vision to strengthen churches. It’s a great opportunity for us to come alongside and really help West Ohio with the launch and the ongoing development of what we believe is a great way to help churches across the country.”

Rev. Jenn Lucas, a district superintendent in the West Ohio Conference, will leave her cabinet position at the end of the year to serve as a church start pastor for Resurrection’s new affiliate location, which will be based in the building of a church that closed in December 2023.

Lucas said the conversation started when Hamilton, a best-selling author, was on a book tour in Ohio in January, including a stop at the former Mason UMC.

“Adam started, as Adam does, asking questions about the church,” she said. “I was able to tell a little bit of the story and share about the community. That kind of began the conversation of what it would look like.”

With the blessing of West Ohio Bishop Gregory Palmer — who is retiring at the end of August — and Great Plains Bishop David Wilson, the collaboration proceeded.

“Bishop Palmer has created an incredible culture of church planting and fresh expressions in West Ohio. We think this could be a model for other annual conferences as well,” Hamilton said in a statement. “The church will be a Resurrection location, but a West Ohio congregation, funded by West Ohio Annual Conference, but sharing Resurrection’s DNA, messages and partnering with our staff and programming.”

In a letter announcing the agreement, Bishop Palmer wrote, “This marks a significant step in maximizing the strength and resources between conferences, ushering us into a new era of church planting.”

Both Folmsbee and Lucas call the partnership a collaboration.

“There’s not a whole lot of details that have been hammered out,” Folmsbee said. “There’s been some great conversations, but at this stage we’ll help them like we help literally hundreds of churches by providing ongoing resources, support and encouragement.”

Although this is the furthest extent of a collaboration so far, Folmsbee said Resurrection has “helped a lot of churches informally.” One example is Resurrection’s ShareChurch resources platform.

“If the opportunity arises for conversations with other churches, we’ll let the bishops have those conversations at the conference level,” he said.

Folmsbee said the collaboration is far bigger than Resurrection, the denomination’s largest congregation.

“This opportunity is about utilizing our entire connectional system to really look at possible innovative ways to launch new churches and renew existing churches,” Folmsbee said.

Lucas, beginning her third year as a district superintendent, already has a familiarity with Resurrection and Hamilton. In 2011, she was part of a young pastors’ network that spent a week both at the Leawood church and Ginghamsburg Church, the largest-attendance West Ohio church once led by Rev. Dr. Mike Slaughter, another church pioneer and bestselling author.

During her time as a pastor, including churches in Perrysburg, West Chester and Montgomery, Ohio, she took teams of church members to Resurrection’s Leadership Institute.

Lucas was also a church planter for a different United Methodist Church in Mason, which chartered in 2013 and later closed.

Lucas said Mason UMC at one time moved to the site of the new partnership to accommodate church growth.

“Unfortunately, their lifespan, though faithful and a great church community, they did have to close,” she said.

New building additions were made in the past 15-20 years, she said, and the sanctuary has a seating capacity of 500.

“It’s a huge space, and it’s right in the crossroads of Mason,” Lucas said. “If you go to schools, shopping, the highway, it is right on the main thoroughfare.”

Mason schools are some of the largest in Ohio, and the city was recently named one of the top places to live in Ohio, Lucas said, adding that recent Olympic swimming medalist Carson Foster calls the city home.

Lucas said Mason fits well with Resurrection’s mission.

“Resurrection is clear about their mission and purpose. They have a culture of leading and sharing resources with other churches,” she said. “They’re all about making sure we’re building strong United Methodist churches. This was like, ‘Wow, could we do this across conference boundaries?’

“It was not planned, it was very organic,” Lucas added. “I was willing to have the conversations.”

Resurrection Mason would keep its place in its current conference.

“It’s a West Ohio church, but it’s certainly in collaboration with and walking alongside through the support and resources and networking and opportunities and coaching of Resurrection,” Lucas said.

The announcement of the collaboration comes as Resurrection is in full expansion mode.

The former United Methodist Church in Spring Hill, Kansas, on the Johnson-Miami county line, will have its first preview services as Resurrection Spring Hill on Aug. 18 before a launch Sept. 8.

Resurrection Liberty, on the campus of William Jewell College in Missouri, is scheduled to launch in early December.

And plans for a campus in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, are progressing with a target of opening in the first half of 2025, although a meeting location has not yet been selected, Folmsbee said.

“Our staff is charged up, and we’re having a ball,” he said.

David Burke serves as a content specialist for the Great Plains Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church.