South Leawood Megachurch preaching urban rebirth and anti-sprawl

[LenexatoKCMO]

I suppose this could go in a lot of different parts of the forum but I suppose it is ultimately about DT more than anything.

Mary Sanchez has a column this week about Church or the Resurrection, the king of KC megachurchs, and its new program to combat sprawl (which they apparently are branding as an offense against god).  They are apparently going so far as to actually drive members to live in the core.  Pretty eye opening stuff. 

I suspected God didn?t like sprawl, wasteful as it can be to divinely created resources.

Apparently, he?s fed up enough with ours that he sent an A-team for a downtown marketing push. Leawood?s megachurch, the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection, is building a presence in Kansas City?s downtown.

Set aside whatever religious persuasion you may have, this is an effort worth following.

Resurrection is at 137th and Roe, the hinterlands of suburbia. Yet its membership has been hearing a message counter to the one that helped create the suburbs, the out-migration that ferments sprawl.

Consider moving back to the city, the Rev. Adam Hamilton is telling his flock. Empty-nesters are especially targeted, as they no longer need the suburban school systems that drew them to southern Johnson County in the first place. http://www.kansascity.com/276/story/1509302.html

[omenapt]

Oh goodie, there is hope of unloading my house in Volker after all!

[loftguy]

Well, there was a time, not too long ago, that I really thought it was going to take an act of G-d to change the direction of downtown.

The Grand Avenue Temple is a unique and neglected structure.  This move should help insure the future of the facility.

[KCMax]

Interesting. A have a few friends that go there. They've always been quite impressed by the social agenda of the church - more helping the poor than anti-gays, anti-abortion.