The famous mega-church building, the Crystal Cathedral in California, is being sold to meet financial debts that may see the church able to exit bankruptcy. The Crystal Cathedral is the mega-church which was/is pastored by Robert Schueller and his family.
For more visit:
http://www.christianpost.com/news/crystal-cathedral-to-open-bidding-on-church-property-50813/
Her new Christian faith deepens; authorities allow evangelist Luis Palau to address pastors.
HO CHI MINH CITY, March 30 (CDN) — A Protestant prisoner of conscience who had called for democratic freedoms in Vietnam was released earlier this month after serving a three-year sentence for “propagandizing to destroy the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.”
Attorney Le Thi Cong Nhan’s sentence had been reduced by one year after an international outcry over her sentencing. She was released on March 6. Remaining in prison for another year is her colleague, Christian lawyer Nguyen Van Dai.
The 31-year-old Cong Nhan had also supported a labor union that sought to be independent. Now serving an additional three-year house arrest sentence, Cong Nhan said in a surprisingly frank interview with Voice of America’s Vietnamese language broadcast on March 9 that she has no intention of giving up her struggle for a just and free Vietnam and accepts that there may be a further price to pay.
Cong Nhan, arrested in March 2007, received a Vietnamese Bible from a visiting delegation of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom – with official permission from Vietnam’s minister of Public Security – early in her incarceration, but she had to struggle constantly to retain it. Twice she went on a hunger strike when authorities took the Bible away from her.
She had become a Christian shortly before her arrest, and she told Voice of America that while in prison she was able to read the entire Bible.
“In prison the Lord became my closest friend, my teacher, and the one who carried my burdens with me,” she said. “When I was released from prison, I received many words of praise and of love and respect – I became a bit worried about this, as I do not consider myself worthy of such. I believe I must live an even better and more worthy life.”
Her prison experience has confirmed her calling and faith, she said.
“As a direct result of my prison experience, I am more convinced than ever that the path that I have chosen is the right one,” Cong Nhan said. “Before prison I was just like a thin arrow, but now I have become a strong fort.”
Luis Palau Allowed to Speak
While Christians in several parts of Vietnam are still subject to abuse from local officials, the country’s national authorities have continued to allow high-profile Christian events. On March 17, renowned U.S. evangelist Luis Palau was allowed to address more than 400 pastors in a day-long event at the New World Hotel in Ho Chi Minh City.
Palau, who had arrived in Hanoi with his entourage on March 13, had addressed nearly 200 Hanoi area pastors at an evening event at the Hanoi Hilton on March 14. The two events were streamed live on http://www.hoithanh.com, a popular website that reports on Protestant news in Vietnam. Hundreds of Vietnamese in Vietnam and abroad were estimated to have watched the presentations.
The events were deemed significant, if not historic, by Vietnam’s Christian leaders. Very rarely is a prominent foreign Protestant leader allowed to address Vietnamese leaders, especially one from the United States.
The events were significant also in that they brought together leaders from virtually all segments of Vietnam’s fractured and sometimes conflicted Protestant groups, Christian leaders said. The gatherings included leaders of open churches and house churches, registered and unregistered churches, and urban and even ethnic minority groups from Vietnam’s remote mountainous regions.
Two representatives of a Mennonite church headed by activist pastor Nguyen Hong Quang, however, were turned away by police.
Palau and Mike McIntosh, pastor of San Diego mega-church Horizon Christian Fellowship, strongly challenged the Vietnamese church leaders to strive for unity. The assembled pastors were challenged to put aside past conflicts and suspicions for the sake of the Kingdom of God in Vietnam, with Palau saying that unity was a requirement for God’s blessing on their churches and nation.
Some Vietnamese leaders responded by expressing remorse for their divisions and committed to start working toward reconciliation.
Organizers and participants said they hope such short events will lead to larger gains. Though the Luis Palau Association had originally planned for a two-day event for 2,000 pastors, most agreed this was an unprecedented first step toward a bigger goal. With an invitation from all segments of the Protestant community in Vietnam in hand, the Luis Palau Association is prepared to help organize evangelistic festivals in Vietnam in 2011, the centenary of Protestantism in Vietnam.
“There is still a long way to go, but we are seeing miracles piling up,” said one senior Vietnamese leader. “It could happen!”
One prominent overseas Vietnamese leader wondered if Palau’s visit to Vietnam could be compared to Billy Graham’s visit to Moscow during the Soviet Communist era.
Also sharing testimonies during the March 17 event were Rick Colsen, a top Intel executive, and John Dalton, Secretary of the Navy under President Clinton.
Report from Compass Direct News
Crystal Cathedral founder Robert H. Schuller is turning over the leadership of the 10,000-member megachurch to his oldest daughter, reports Charisma News Online.
Schuller, 82, announced on Sunday that Sheila Schuller Coleman, 58, will assume leadership of the entire ministry, effective immediately, the Associated Press (AP) reported.
Coleman, who has been serving as director of family ministries at the Crystal Cathedral, told the Orange County Register she never expected to lead the church. “Our church didn’t even start ordaining women until 1973,” she said. “I’m proud of my dad for doing this, and I hope I can serve as a role model for younger women who want to get things accomplished in this church.”
Report from the Christian Telegraph
Some prominent evangelicals who are backing the “hate crimes” bill awaiting a vote in the Senate are making a concerted effort to get evangelicals to abandon their traditionally conservative voting habits, report Jim Brown and Jody Brown, OneNewsNow.
The homosexual activist group Human Rights Campaign held a “Clergy Call” rally last week on Capitol Hill to urge passage of legislation that would add “gender identity” and “sexual orientation” to the list of protected categories under federal hate crimes law. HRC distributed statements from some influential evangelicals who support the bill, including Mercer University Christian ethicist David Gushee and Florida mega-church pastor Joel Hunter.
Pastor Hunter says he “strongly endorse[s]” S. 909* because it “protects both the rights of conservative religious people to voice passionately their interpretations of their scriptures and protects their fellow citizens from physical attack.”
Mark Tooley, president of the Washington-based Institute on Religion & Democracy (IRD), says such statements from figures like Hunter and Gushee are finding fertile ground — particularly among a new, younger generation of evangelicals.
“Clearly [these clergy] are a part of an evangelical left crowd who are strategically attempting to shift evangelicals away from conservative social issues to liberal economic and foreign policy [issues] — and in this case, in the case of hate crimes legislation, social issues as well,” he states.
In a statement released on Monday, Tooley argues that increasingly, the evangelical left is “indistinguishable from the secular left.”
“Christians of all traditions are called to transform the culture — not conform to it,” he says in reference to Romans 12:2. “But the evangelical left repeats arguments from The New York Times’ editorial page and seems to think such cultural conformity will win applause. History shows that accommodationist Christians are ultimately irrelevant Christians.”
The IRD president believes it is the responsibility of conservative evangelicals to reach out to young evangelicals who are identifying with the religious left, and point out to them that certain Christian traditions merit their support because they contain “intellectual and spiritual substance.”
Also participating in the HRC “Clergy Call” were liberal evangelist Tony Campolo and United Methodist trans-gendered pastor Drew Phoenix.
Report from the Christian Telegraph
Some believe the United States is on the verge of a major collapse of the evangelical church. That’s according to an article published by Michael Spencer in the Christian Science Monitor. He says this breakdown could also be the beginning of the marginalization of Christians as a whole in a country founded on the Judeo-Christian Ethic, reports MNN.
Warren Smith, author of the new book, Lovers Quarrel with the Evangelical Church, agrees. He says the reason it may collapse is because it’s forgotten about the true foundations of the faith. Smith says one pastor of the largest mega-church in the U.S. avoids the basics. “He doesn’t like to focus on sin. He doesn’t like to focus on the bloody cross, on the crucifixion of Jesus, on the need that we have as humans to have our sins atoned for. He likes to focus on the positive, on the upbeat.”
Spencer agrees as he outlines reasons why the evangelical church is on the verge of collapse. He says, “Evangelicals have failed to pass on to our young people an orthodox form of faith that can take root and survive the secular onslaught. Ironically the billions of dollar we’ve spent on youth ministries, Christian music, publishing, and media has produced a culture of young Christians who know next to nothing about their faith.”
Many churches have followed that pattern which is why, Smith says, “It has become a church that really focuses on therapy rather than redemption.”
As a result, Smith says the evangelical church in decline. “There are all kinds of data that says we actually have fewer Christians today than we did 50 years ago.”
Smith says it’s because evangelicals have gotten away from their calling. “It’s not to make decisions, not to make converts, not to get people to raise hands at an evangelistic rally or a youth rally, but rather to make disciples and ‘teach all things I’ve commanded.’ That’s what the Great Commission really says. That’s what we’ve forgotten.”
There are more mega churches in the United States than ever before, but Smith says it’s not because there are more Christians. He says the data suggests that more Christians are flocking to mega churches and abandoning small churches.
The sad thing is, says Smith, “Mega churches provide an opportunity for people to come and be spectators rather than come and be participants or engage in true disciple-building activity.”
When Christians fail to participate, “They’re less apt to share their faith, less apt, for example, to believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus. They’re less likely to believe that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God,” says Smith.
Smith became convicted of where he was spiritually when he realized he had been attending a church for 15 years and didn’t know how to communicate the Gospel to his kids. He says, “If you are going to a church that hasn’t, after three or four or five years, prepared you for leadership by its teaching and providing opportunities for leadership, then I would suggest there is something flawed about that church.”
There is good news, says Smith. “God is faithful. God is sovereign. God is not going to let the gates of hell prevail against His church, and we can experience the joy of being a part of that.”
As we get back to God Word, Smith says, we’ll have the desire to make disciples through church planting and other means, we’ll want to be involved in our community, and we’ll instruct our children to be followers of Christ.
Report from the Christian Telegraph
Let me point out that this clip is not a real depiction of any particular mega-church pastor or leader. It is a satirical representation of a mega-church pastor only.
This clip seems fairly close to the mark if you ask me.
Random Thoughts 