Christmas Eve at Adam's House

The real estate development company was a creation of necessity, says Steve Eginoire, a church member, shareholder and one of six board members for COR Development -- a separate entity from Church of the Resurrection. At the rate the church was growing, it became clear in 1998 that it needed more room -- and COR Development would help.

Hamilton and his family made a long road trip that year to visit 26 large churches across the country. They gaped at the glass dome of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Dallas; admired the brand-new, $78 million, 776,000-square-foot campus of Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky; and made a pilgrimage to Saddleback Valley Community Church in Lake Forest, California, which packs in around 16,000 people every weekend.

With their huge sanctuaries and acres of parking, the churches were more like sports arenas than neighborhood parishes. Such an edifice would not fit on the 20 acres then owned by Church of the Resurrection.

Though a Zip Gas, Primrose preschool, a Town and Country Bank and a few small office buildings were being built just north of the church property, vacant land remained to the west. The only problem was the price. The 135th Street corridor had become the next promised land, just fifteen blocks south of commercial mecca Town Center Plaza.

"Two things were apparent," Eginoire says. "One, the church couldn't afford it. And two, we still needed the land."

Eginoire and other church members created a limited liability corporation to buy the most expensive piece of land, a 45-acre developer's dream at the southeast corner of 135th and Nall, right next to the church property. On part of it, they would build restaurants, offices and high-dollar clothing stores -- making sure to lease these spaces to businesses that would be good church neighbors. "There won't be a Hooters," Eginoire says. (Even better, the stores' parking spaces would be available on Sunday mornings.) They would donate the rest of the land to the church. They needed $11.2 million, so they sold public shares in COR Development -- but it was a targeted public. Almost all of the 400 investors were Church of the Resurrection members.

Last month, the Leawood City Council signed off on COR Development's project; it should break ground early next year. The shopping center project, however, didn't stir up nearly as much attention as the church expansion.

Eginoire knows the size of the proposed church is disturbing to some people.

"The common question everybody asks is, why do you need something so big?" Eginoire says. "Church of the Resurrection is not about size ... Church of the Resurrection is about reaching people for Christ. As long as there are people out there who are lost, we feel a compelling need to make sure we have room to accommodate them and their families.

"Adam, he never woke up one day and said, 'You know, I'm going to create the biggest church in Kansas City or the biggest church in the United States. That never happened."

Hamilton says he tries hard not to think of it himself, for fear of getting caught up in numbers.

He prefers to concentrate on the product.

The Church of the Resurrection service is a carefully assembled blend of music, prayer and Bible readings.

The goal is to be "seamless," like a television show, says Music Director Travis Overstreet. "I hate to say that," he admits.

Whether the accompaniment is electric guitar and drums or the cherubic children's choir, each service builds to Hamilton's sermon. Hamilton plans the topics a full two years in advance. Each one is a combination of personal stories, whether from his own youth or anecdotes about his daughters; slices from the Bible; current events; and experiences from the lives of people in his congregation.

He delivers them in waves, coming across alternately as a college professor making bullet points and a fast-talking teen whose voice rises at the good parts.

On Sunday mornings, Hamilton arrives at the church at 7:15, hair still wet from his shower, his baby face freshly shaved. He lives fifteen minutes south of the church in a "country" home on 13 acres. He and his wife have become small-time real estate developers in their own right, subdividing and selling their 103-acre rural property.

During the drive to church, Hamilton prays. This morning, his words take special note of a father whose fifteen-year-old girl has died of a brain aneurysm. In a church with 11,000 members, death is a constant. If it's not a member of the church, it's one of their parents or friends who has died.

In the minutes before the early service, Hamilton makes sure his notes are at the pulpit, then lowers himself to the kneeler for another prayer. With a brass quartet tuning in the background, he prays again for the family of the girl who died. Then he prays for the people who help put on the services: church staff, musicians, custodians, cameramen.