Effective Church Communications

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, cutting questions, that would expose what a disgrace he was to the Christian faith. I was a reader of the Wittenberg Door, a sort of counter-culture Christian magazine of the 1970's, that had recently done an article on the financial excesses of the building of the Crystal Cathedral, with the numbers on how many hungry kids each pane of glass would feed and similar statistics. The guy 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.

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. 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 figured he was almost done. I was highly irritated and impatient when I saw the line out the door, around the block . This was going to take hours I groushed; Schuller must be tired, he'd been at it all day I thought, but  it didn't seem like he was going to send them away.

For almost three hours I watched him sign books. His daughter was helping him, she would open the book and pass it to him. He would pause, look up 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 older.

Again and again the older 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, but 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 their pastor. It was obvious, he took that responsibility very seriously.

I was trying very hard not to dissolve in tears. 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 that is what the people need in Southern California--I'm their pastor. I do what I need to do to reach them for Jesus."

I think it would be a sad ministry mistake if that church (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. But if they do, I hope they tell their homebound folks about Robert Schuller. He's still on TV, and I'm certain, still ready to be their pastor.