also see
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5Xu2OWqoww
SO this was my first time back in
the good ol' Crystal Cathedral since it closed down as the Hour of Power
Crystal Cathedral several years ago ... I was at the very last service with ALL
the Schullers there .. and a lot of the services over the many years in its hey
day . ..
it was an emotional moment seeing it close and another emotional
moment being back inside with all the changes they've made (on the inside only,
still looks same on the outside) .. and it was also a SPIRITUAL moment for me
because even while the Schuller Crystal Cathedral was still going I was also
starting to also attend Catholic church services
.. including the one just down
the street (St. Callistus) which was mostly vietnamese & which would
eventually move over into the arboretum as the Schuller-led congregation moved
into their church building (now called Shepherd's Grove at the corner of Lewis
& Garden Grove blvd, although they may have moved again ..maybe now in
Irvine as a presbyterian church ? )
above: the "new cathedral " includes the "shutters" over all the windows, giving it a more subdued tone, and the gigantic doors no longer open (now covered by the colorful banner)
...i
had NO IDEA that such a transition would be happening a few years later...as I
look back now it seems like some sort of providence that i am/was a common
denominator between the two ..
..especially given my ministry emphasizes GREATER
UNITY in the Body of Christ, especially Protestant-Catholic-Orthodox unity (ie
pro-cath-ordox) . And the verse about a "grain of wheat must die" (
see John 12.24 ) started to come
to mind on a periodic basis.. was this pre-ordained by God for a GREATER
PURPOSE ?!
.. think about it: the "reformation" began because of the
problems in the Catholic church 100's of years ago ... including in the
Netherlands where my ancestors are from... and altho I grew up in the USA it
was also a very Dutch-American community and we were all very familiar with the
history of the Dutch Reformed Church and it's migration into America ...
..originally settling in an area they named "New
Amsterdam" (now of course Manhattan New York City) .. and from there the
Dutch Reformed (which gradually became known as the Reformed Church of America,
RCA) moved eastward ...and formed a larger settlement in the midwest
(especially Iowa & Michigan)..
.. and THEN another SPLIT happened based on
various issues including hymns/psalms ...and this led to the Christian Reformed
Church (CRC) becoming a denomination . Today, both the CRC and RCA are
headquartered in west Michigan and two institutions , Calvin College (CRC)
& Hope College (RCA), represent the two denominations academically .
..Somewhere along the way a baby named Robert Schuller was born on a farm in Iowa
and knew as a youngster that he wanted to be a Christian minister, especially
influenced by his uncle who was a missionary if I recall correctly.
above: new cathedral (August 2019) ,
not a full choir
And
Schuller was a member of the RCA so after high school naturally he went
to Hope College & the associated seminary ("Western") in
Holland Michigan, and would pastor a church in the Chicago area with his lovely
wife Arvella ..and start a family.. and later would head west ..
..and start a
church in a movie theatre drive-in and preach to people sitting in their cars.
..and eventually started the community church at the corner of Lewis &
Chapman with a 12 story tower & the arboretum ...growing rapidly .. even including
an orange swatch of color on the arboretum which puzzled some people (but it
makes sense if it was influenced by the orange of Hope College? it's still
there even after the transition) .
... and the Hour of Power televised worship service began
in the arboretum around 1970 ... which greatly increased it's popularity and
growth.. and ten years later the much larger Crystal Cathedral was dedicated in
1980 ..
..around 1984 my family arrived in southern California ...I was still in
high school .. but was familiar with the church from the TV show which we
watched in the midwest, especially when we were too sick to attend church (our
Christian REformed Church)..
..my family was CRC , not RCA, and my dad was a CRC pastor with an
emphasis on "pastoral care" ..and Bob Schuller wanted him to
lead the care department at the Crystal Cathedral .. so my dad filled an
office on the 10th floor for many years..
..all the while I was going back and
forth from California to the midwest where I attended our CRC denominational
college (Calvin) .. but already the "seed" of the 1984 move was
apparently growing in my ...so I always had allegiance to some of what was
happening at the Crystal Cathedral & Hour of Power ..
above: the new cathedral has wooden pews
(I wish i would have asked for one of the old seats as a memento,
they were pretty worn out )
and
people even used it to identify me around my midwest high school & college
saying "His dad is a pastor at the Crystal Cathedral..I may have
resented such an identification at times..
...my accomplishments speak for
itself: good high school athlete, academic honors in college, worked as a
counselor for troubled individuals, later as a Christian school teacher, and
then as a public school teacher (which I considered to be a Christian mission
without overtly proselytizing) .. and doing formal mission work in the
Philippines and Costa Rica ..
..and finally returning to school for seminary education..
partially once again back at our CRC denomination seminary , but later
finishing at Fuller Seminary. .. I was growing as a Christian.. not a saint,
not perfect, but growing..
..and all the while once back in southern Cal,
regularly attending the Crystal Cathedral as they filmed the Hour of Power live
.. being influenced by the ministry at the Crystal Cathedral, including the
Care & Kindness conferences led by my dad for many years, but also
maybe being a bit "circumspect" about all of it.
To be honest, a lot of my classmates and their CRC families back
in the midwest thought the Crystal Cathedral was too flashy and maybe even too
worldly, even though they only knew "about" it superficially from
afar. Even when a few of my midwest Christian friends came to visit southern
California,
...they would never mention the Crystal Cathedral nor ask to go see
it. It was as if we had to pretend it didn't exist .. kind of strange.. but
that was still high school .. by the year 2000 I was taking all the seminary
classes required for the M.Div degree, including Hebrew & Greek, and also
attending the Crystal Cathedral ..often studying on the 10th floor before the
9am worship service, and then descending downward ...
...always staying in the "background" ..never becoming
a known person around the campus apart from some knowing me as the "son of
..." and during this time I was starting Mustard Seed Ministries .. an
evangelical ministry rather than a church..
.. in fact I just returned from a 2019
summer mission trip across the USA .. with an emphasis on "repentance
& baptism " . My dad has retired as a formal pastor but remains active
doing some forms of pastoral care here & there and still retains his
association with the CRC. And I am now 52-years-old and still doing my best to
try to fulfill the Great Commission ,
.. but as I was sitting in the Crystal Christ Catholic
Cathedral on August 4, 2019 it ALL came together in my heart & mind that a
"kernel of wheat" had to die for this Catholic congregation to begin
and hopefully in a great way, not with the need of being "reformed"
again (albeit the Catholic church at large still has it's various issues as we
all know ),
...but the original intent of the "reformation" was not
necessarily to start a whole new separate Christian church as we now call the
Protestant church, but to "reform" it and bring the Body of Christ
together in a better way for the Glory of God.
..My childhood denomination,as mentioned, is known as the
Christian REformed Church, but it suddenly struck me that maybe it should be
called the "Catholic Reformed Church" . ..
Whatever the case may be the
important thing is unity without compromising integrity as best as we can do
...and it may never be perfect but I hope and pray that this is a step in the
right direction. Thanks for reading.
..Please pray for me and my ministry ... I
will never be "known" or "famous" and that's okay with me
because it's NOT about me, but about God using me, and you, for HIS GLORY ! And pray for the unified body of Christ . Let
us ALL glorify God in all we do, and let us always strive to be a UNIFIED BODY
of CHRIST as originally intended as we endeavor to fulfill the Great Commission !
GOD BLESS YOU.
-most people call me John-