Recently I heard about a church that wanted to discontinue its television ministry. Though they acknowledged it was watched primarily by the elderly and shut-in, they did not feel it was cost-effective any longer. They wanted to direct all the funds to their internet ministry. The situation prompted me to remember....
More than a lifetime ago for my nephew who is grown, married, and has a son of his own, I was religion reporter for the Colorado Springs SUN newspaper. In this Vatican of America, home to over 100 Christian organizations, reporting on religion involved much more than retelling stories about the variety of pies at the local church supper. Sometimes I got to interview interesting people in the Christian world and one week my assignment was to interview Robert Schuller.
I was ready for it, with what in my mind were insightful questions that would confirm my pre-determined opinion and expose what a disgrace he was to the Christian faith. I had earlier come to that conclusion as a reader of the Wittenberg Door, a sort of counter-culture Christian magazine of the 1970's, that had recently featured an article on the financial excesses of the building of the Crystal Cathedral. Social justice for the poor was important to me and the article detailed how many hungry kids each pane of glass would feed and similar statistics on the equivalent mission's work that each part of the structure could fund.
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I felt so self-righteous as I drove to the interview. Schuller started his church in a drive-in theater for goodness sakes. What kind of a pastor was that, I thought in the passionate judgementalism that comes from inexperience in real-world evangelism and the arrogant, ignorant authority of youth.
My editor told me I had to go to a bookstore where he was signing books and I could interview him when he was finished with the book signing. I got there and was directed to a chair near his book signing table and told I could wait there until he was finished. I'd called ahead, he had been signing books for hours already, it was late in the day, and I timed my arrival for what I assumed would be close to the time he'd finish. I was highly irritated and impatient when I saw the line out the door and around the block of people waiting to see him. This was going to take hours I grumbled, not quite quietly. Schuller must be tired, he'd been at it all day. I thought maybe he'd close it up. He had every right to big, mega-star preacher that he was.
He didn't. For almost three hours more I watched him sign books. His daughter was helping him. She would open the book and pass it to him. He didn't simply sign the book and push it to the waiting person. While his daughter got the new book, opened it and passed it over, he was totally focused on the people coming to him. For each one, he would pause, look at the person, ask their name, chat a bit, sign the book. This is going to take forever at this rate, I realized.
Most of the people were not well-dressed. Many were senior citizens.
Again and again people would say, "You are my pastor, I don't know what I would do without you."
"I can't get to church," another would say, "But you encourage me."
Schuller would tell them it was his privilege to be their pastor. Sometimes he would stand up and give an elderly lady a hug. More than a few wanted their picture taken with him and he gladly obliged.
He never rushed anyone. He would hold a trembling, older hand and pray. He prayed as if there was no one else in the room, except for that person in front of the book-signing table and the Lord. A large Latino family came up to the table and the father said something I couldn't hear to Schuller. Schuller stood up, walked around the table, laid his hands on the heads of the children and prayed. He was blessing the children. He was their pastor. He took that responsibility very seriously.
I was trying very hard not to dissolve in tears. My assumptions melted. When it finally came time for our interview, I babbled and could only ask in a rather inane way why he did some of the seemingly outrageous things he did. He laughed and said, "People don't understand, I'm very conservative at heart, but the drive-in theater, the Crystal Cathedral, is what the people need in Southern California. I'm their pastor. I do what I need to do to reach them for Jesus."
That's what we are all trying to do I realized then and now, simply trying to reach people for Jesus whether it's with a crystal cathedral or streaming video and podcasts. And though I'm all for technology (this is a blog after all), I think it would be a sad ministry mistake if the church that asked about about dropping their TV ministry (or any other church so enamored with current technology it forgets the older folks who don't even know the meaning of the term podcast) does drop its TV program. Yes, the web is a lot cheaper, a lot less trouble, but there are lots of folks who can't afford a computer with high speed access.
Sadly, cost-cutting probably means some churches will drop TV ministries. They will make self-justifying noises about how they will perhaps help the older folks, the poorer folks learn how to use the computer. May they will follow up and do it, maybe not.
But if they drop their TV service, I hope they tell their home-bound folks about Robert Schuller. He's still on TV, and I'm certain, still ready to be their pastor.
