{"id":36358,"date":"2017-04-23T16:18:39","date_gmt":"2017-04-23T21:18:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/?p=36358"},"modified":"2017-04-25T18:11:10","modified_gmt":"2017-04-25T23:11:10","slug":"is-this-the-most-significant-local-church-building-project-in-a-generation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2017\/04\/23\/is-this-the-most-significant-local-church-building-project-in-a-generation\/","title":{"rendered":"Is This The Most Significant Local Church Building Project in a Generation?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Today, April 23rd, marks the end of a period of celebration marking the completion of the new sanctuary and church building for the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas.<\/p>\n

How is the church marking this date? With the debut of a new oratorio<\/a> commissioned to tell the stories of the figures in the 93-foot-wide and 35-foot-tall stained glass window, by some counts the world’s largest, (sorry, St. John’s) that serves as the defining feature of the space. Beginning with Adam and Eve and going up through contemporaries such as Billy Graham and Martin Luther King, the oratorio, like the window, which inspires it and uses modern techniques and design to tell the story of salvation from creation until the 21st century, represents the huge scale and conscious engagement with contemporary culture which this project embodies. A brief documentary about the window, and the pioneering technique used to make it, is available here. <\/a><\/p>\n

Not since the Chrystal Cathedral has a local church completed such a project, with architectural design and huge assembly size both taking precedence. However, this project is in a league of its on in that it takes into account the massive leaps made in liturgical reform and ecumenical convergence with its emphases on sacramental architecture, renewed liturgical worship, and evangelism.<\/p>\n