Crystal Cathedral megachurch files for bankruptcy
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101018/ap_on_re_us/us_crystal_cathedral
By AMY TAXIN, Associated Press Writer Amy Taxin, Associated Press Writer 31 mins ago
GARDEN GROVE, Calif. – Crystal Cathedral, the megachurch birthplace of the televangelist show "Hour of Power," filed for bankruptcy Monday in Southern California after struggling to emerge from debt that exceeds $43 million.
In addition to a $36 million mortgage, the Orange County-based church owes $7.5 million to several hundred vendors for services ranging from advertising to the use of live animals in Easter and Christmas services.
The church had been negotiating a repayment plan with vendors, but several filed lawsuits seeking quicker payment, which prompted a coalition formed by creditors to fall apart.
"Tough times never last, every storm comes to an end. Right now, people need to hear that message more than ever," Sheila Schuller Coleman, the Cathedral's senior pastor and daughter of the founder, told reporters outside the worship hall decked with a soaring glass spire.
"Everybody is hurting today. We are no exception," she said.
The church, founded in the mid-1950s by the Rev. Robert H. Schuller Sr., has already ordered major layoffs, cut the number of stations airing the "Hour of Power" and sold property to stay afloat.
In addition, the 10,000-member church canceled this year's "Glory of Easter" pageant, which attracts thousands of visitors and is a regional holiday staple.
The church was founded at a drive-in theater and attracted congregants with its sermons on the power of positive thinking. Its worship hall opened in 1970 and remains an architectural wonder and tourist destination.
The "Hour of Power" telecast, filmed in the cathedral's main sanctuary, at one point attracted 1.3 million viewers in 156 countries.
Church leaders said the Crystal Cathedral's Sunday services and weekly-telecast "Hour of Power" will continue while in bankruptcy.
Other megachurches have also suffered from the downturn and reduced charitable giving.
Crystal Cathedral saw revenue drop roughly 30 percent in 2009 and simply couldn't slash expenses quickly enough to avoid accruing the debt, said Jim Penner, a church pastor and executive producer of the "Hour of Power."
Vendors owed money by the church formed a committee in April and agreed to a moratorium to negotiate a repayment plan with the Crystal Cathedral. But after several filed lawsuits and obtained writs of attachment to try to collect their cash, it was difficult to keep the group together, Penner said.
Now, the church is avoiding credit entirely and spends only the roughly $2 million it receives each month in donations and revenue, Penner said. The church still hopes to pay all of the vendors back in full, he said.
"What we're doing now is we're trying to walk what we preach, we're paying cash for things as we go," he said.
Landmark OC Megachurch Declares Bankruptcy
http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/joannabrooks/3590/landmark_oc_megachurch_declares_bankruptcy_/
Joanna Brooks
October 20, 2010, 8:56AM
The Rev. Robert Schueller’s Crystal Cathedral, a landmark of 1980s televangelist glitz and home of the world famous Hour of Power, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, citing a $36 million mortgage and $7 million in other debts.
Schueller, who grew up an Iowa farmboy, began his ministry in Orange County, California, in 1955, convening his first services at the Orange Drive-in Theater. In 1957, Schueller invited pop psychologist Vincent Norman Peale to speak, minting the brand of accentuate-the-positive-preaching that propelled him to the heights of his success in the 1980s.
In those years, they bussed Orange County public school kids like me on field trips to the Crystal Cathedral, so we could gaze up in wonder at row-upon-row of glass ceiling panes, each one of them bearing a little metal plaque inscribed with the name of a donor. But times have changed in the OC, and the money, youth (at least the white youth) and positivity have all moved south, away from the Cathedral and right into the heart of Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church territory. Nor has there been a successful transition from Schueller to a next generation of Cathedral leadership.
In the last year, church revenues have dropped 30%, 140 employees have been laid off, and its opulent Easter pageant (which once drew hundreds of thousands) was cancelled. Considering the fact that they still haven’t paid the lady who loaned them the camels for last year’s Christmas pageant, it’s safe to say that the Cathedral may cancel the 2010 Glory of Christmas production as well.
Is it any wonder that some of the most progressive, sustainable developments in 21st-century Southern California religion are now happening without conventional church or synagogue real estate? I’m thinking, for example, about the IKAR Jewish community of Los Angeles, which convenes services and social gatherings in an eclectic mix of spaces from spas to parks to community centers across town. I’ve even heard that my home denomination, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is experimenting with a modular meeting house designed to grow (and collapse) to meet the growing (or shrinking) needs of populations around the world.
