Tags: Crystal Cathedral, Garden Grove, Robert H. Schuller, Robert Schuller
Crystal Cathedral Files For Bankruptcy Posted on May 7th, 2012
This latest piece of news is a story about a wonderful man who created an edifice that came tumbling down, as part of the economic fallout in the United States. The Crystal Cathedral, a mega-church in Garden Grove California, founded by television evangelist Robert H. Schuller in 1995, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in October last year, to restructure its staggering debt. Let this be a lesson for us all. I believe that based on circumstances, what we have created in the name of God or Spirit can be destroyed or dissolved at any time. The Crystal Cathedral, in its heyday held multiple services attended by thousands, with pageants and performances of epic proportions. Who didn’t want to attend a service at the Crystal Cathedral, just to hear Pastor Schuller one of the great orators of our time, deliver the sermon? This is what can happen when one person is “holding the focus” for a huge organization. When that person dies or retires, sometimes, the momentum behind the edifice is simply not there. And this is what happened to the Crystal Cathedral, which was recently sold to the Catholic Church for 57 million dollars. Family members, who were groomed to take over, did not have the magic of the original founder who held the vision for the church. Attendance dropped. Ticket sales were down. Sad but true. Make what you can of your life, spread the word, transform others, but don’t create an edifice that cannot continue without you.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2011/11/bankrupt-crystal-cathedral-sold-to-catholics-for-57m/