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The bankrupt megachurch is to be sold to the Diocese of Orange.GARDEN GROVE – Crystal Cathedral's head pastor spoke optimistically about the future of her iconic megachurch at Sunday morning services, telling a congregation of about 400 that it was not too late to ask God to intervene and stop the church's impending sale to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange. Senior Pastor Sheila Schuller Coleman, the daughter of the church's founder, offered a prayer thanking God for "intentionally delaying" a miracle, and indicated that the bankrupt church would continue to pray and wait for God to reveal His final...

Portland, OR - Black-clad demonstrators gathered in front of the Mars Hill Church in Southeast Portland this morning to protest the church's stance on homosexuality. About 20 protesters lined Southeast Taylor Street carrying flags and shouting obscenities as church-goers left when the service ended. "Shame on you bigots," one woman yelled at worshippers as they left. "Shame on you homophobes. You're not welcome here. You're going to burn in hell." She declined to comment for this story. Brad Salyers came to Mars Hill from Wilsonville Sunday with his wife and two young children. . It was his first visit to...

The Crystal Cathedral, seeking a way to resolve its debt woes, will sell its church and 40-acre campus for $46 million to an Orange County developer, according to the federal bankruptcy plan filed Friday. Greenlaw Partners of Newport Beach will buy the property in Garden Grove, Calif., and plans to build apartments on the land, the Chapter 11 exit plan filed at the federal courthouse in Santa Ana disclosed. The real estate developer will lease the property back to Crystal Cathedral for $212,000 a month and guarantee exclusive lease rights for 15 years, according to the reorganization plan. The church...

On February 9, the Let’s Move! anniversary, the First Lady will deliver a major address focused specifically on the campaign’s efforts to meet the needs of parents. Mrs. Obama will reach out to parents to commend them for the impact they have had on fundamentally shifting the conversation on childhood obesity this year. In a speech hosted by North Point Community Church and Ray of Hope Christian Church at North Point’s congregation in Alpharetta, Georgia, Mrs. Obama will share personal reflections about how she came to this issue, discuss the issues parents deal with, and what has been achieved together.

On 18 October 2010, Southern California's landmark Crystal Cathedral, the prototype of all late 20th Century American Megachurches, filed for bankruptcy. I drove up the following Sunday to get a look at the place while it was still in operation. The Crystal Cathedral proper, a spectacular glass structure designed by Philip Johnson and completed in 1980, dominates a landscaped campus that includes the congregation's original church building, designed by Richard Neutra, Richard Meier's "Welcoming Center", and a variety of other buildings, reflecting pools and religiously themed statuary. A German tourist prevailed on me to take a picture of him and...

Around 2,000 ministers and religious leaders are expected to attend Glenn Beck’s “Divine Destiny” event Friday night ahead of the television and radio personality's more publicized “Restoring Honor” rally on Saturday. Beck will hold Friday’s faith-based event at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington to rally conservatives of different faiths around their shared values, principles and strong belief that faith can play an essential role in reuniting the country. “Whether we care to believe it or not, our country is in our danger’s hour,” says Beck. ”And there’s only one answer.” For the event, Beck spent the past year...

"Everybody sing ee-oo," declaims the clean-cut thirtysomething at the front of the vast auditorium. Ten thousand Californian voices respond. Over a backing of soaring power chords, the soloist launches into an ecstatic, 1980s-style anthem: "If you're alive and you've been redeemed,/Rise and sing, rise and sing." Pastor Rick Warren, America's most im­portant religious leader since Billy Graham, emerges from the wings, wearing jeans and a short-sleeved shirt, a trimmed CEO beard and a little more weight than his doctor might recommend. When he speaks, his words are as warm as the Orange County sunshine: the homily is a practical one,...

GARDEN GROVE, Calif. – The Rev. Robert H. Schuller, founder of Southern California's Crystal Cathedral megachurch and host of the "Hour of Power" televangelism broadcast, announced Sunday he will retire after 55 years in the pulpit and his daughter will take over. The 83-year-old Schuller told his congregation that Sheila Schuller Coleman will become sole lead pastor, after sharing that role with her father for the past year. Coleman previously served as principal of a private Christian school run by the cathedral and head of the Orange County church's family ministries division. She was ordained just a month before she...

(CNN) -- Ted Haggard, the megachurch pastor and former National Association of Evangelicals chief whose career was undone by a gay prostitution and drugs scandal in 2006, plans to start a new church. Standing in front of his barn, Haggard and his family announced Wednesday that they are starting a church in Colorado Springs, Colorado called Saint James. The church will not be affiliated with any denomination. It will have its first gathering Sunday at the Haggard home.

She isn't employed by the show and viewers never see her sparring with Simon Cowell. But Leesa Bellesi exerts her own kind of pull on "American Idol," Fox's top-rated singing contest that has a unique if often-unstated link to Christian churches. Bellesi, who runs a Christian nonprofit in Lake Forest with her ex-pastor husband, visits tapings frequently, has befriended numerous finalists and helps wrangle funds and scout temporary housing for families who trek cross-country to see relatives perform on "Idol." Bellesi said that churches form a base for the young singers as they try to win votes and establish fan...

Pastor John Piper began his eight-month leave this past weekend. Now filling the empty pulpit at Bethlehem Baptist Church is Kenny Stokes, who had been on a sabbatical these past several months. Stokes, who previously served as the church's Downtown Campus pastor, was approved unanimously by the elders at the Minneapolis church last week to serve as Interim Pastor for Preaching while Piper is away. The elders determined that continuity, consistency and stability were most important and thus decided to have one primary preacher – rather than a rotation of varied speakers – to serve as the temporary shepherd. "Few...

Churches across the country have rented out sports arenas in anticipation of big crowds for their Easter Sunday services. * Saddleback Church Easter View Full Image (Photo: Saddleback Church) Saddleback Church holds its 2010 Easter services at Angel Stadium in southern California. Related * Christians Urged to Agree on Common Easter Date * Pastor: Radical Love and Resurrection Catapulted Christianity * Use Easter to Break a Growth Barrier * Mars Hill Recaptures Bloody Murder of Christ for Good Friday * Texas Megachurch to Give Out Cars, TVs at Easter Services Rick Warren's Saddleback Church in southern California is preparing to...

Easter at a megachurch in Corpus Christi, Texas, will look like the popular TV game show "The Price Is Right." Sixteen cars, 15 flat-screen televisions, furniture sets and other prizes are lined up at Bay Area Fellowship Church and ready to be claimed by anyone who attends the church's Easter services on Sunday. Though the church of some 7,000 weekly attendees has regularly flexed its creative muscles to draw the unchurched, the upcoming "Ultimate Giveaway" is like no other outreach it has ever attempted. Pastor Bil Cornelius, who made the game show analogy, admits it's a bit "outrageous." But he...

City Council on Wednesday gave a cool response to Mayor Annise Parker's plan to sell the former site of the Compaq Center to Lakewood Church for $7.5 million, the first hint of discord between the newly elected mayor and the 14-member council. The numerous questions — ranging from whether the 606,050-square-foot building was worth far more to why the proposal was not vetted more thoroughly — threw into doubt a sale that Parker needs to close a lingering budget gap before the end of the year. Parker said that if further vetting does not bring council around to the idea,...

Once I had a friend — I’ll call him Bill — who worked out everyday at the gym. When we got together, he liked to flex his bicep and say, “Greg, feel this!” Bill’s muscles were rock hard. Then one day I heard terrible news. Bill had died of a heart attack. Even though he appeared robust and powerful, his heart was diseased. Inwardly, as it turned out, Bill was a weakling. I keep Bill in mind when I think about the church today. Outwardly everything can look promising. A ministry may appear to be going very well. Yet the...

Crystal Cathedral Laying Off Workers, Selling Property, Canceling "Hour of Power" In Some Markets January 29, 2010 The Crystal Cathedral, the Garden Grove megachurch, is laying off workers, selling surplus property and may be pulling its “Hour of Power” television show from eight markets in the wake of a precipitous drop in contributions. [Updated at 7:40 p.m.: An earlier version of this post said the church was pulling its "Hour of Power" TV show from a dozen markets.] The 7,000-member church has also canceled its “Glory of Easter” pageant, a popular reenactment of the life and death of Jesus Christ,...

Annise Parker, the newly-elected happens-to-be-lesbian mayor of Houston was sworn in Monday and the opening prayer was given by ... Rev. Joel Osteen. Is your head spinning? Osteen heads the nation's most mega of evangelical non-denominational megachurches, Lakewood Church in Houston where about 45,000 people cycle through a revamped sports stadium for services every weekend. Osteen has been all over telling folks (Larry King, Whoopi Goldberg) for years that homosexuality is not "God's best." I presume he means "God's best choice" because otherwise I'm lost in the dropped or implied rest of the sentence. But "God's best" is phrase Osteen...

WELCOME TO 2010! Dear Saddleback Family, You won't want to miss this weekend at Saddleback! It will be history-making and also the first service of our Decade of Destiny. I can't wait to share with you what happened this week. It speaks volumes about YOU, the depth of commitment in this fellowship, and where God is taking us in 2010 - our 30th Anniversary year. I'm simply calling this week's message "The Miracle". In spite of a media culture that thrives on bad news and is typically clueless about how churches actually work, and in spite of hatefulness and insults...

Megachurch Pastor Asks For Urgent Donations Warren wants $900,000 by Jan. 1, says church facing budget crisis Dec . 31, 2009 LAKE FOREST, California - Evangelical pastor Rick Warren appealed to parishioners at his California megachurch Wednesday to help fill a $900,000 deficit by the first of the year. Warren made the appeal in a letter posted on the Saddleback Church Web site. It begins "Dear Saddleback Family, THIS IS AN URGENT LETTER." "With 10 percent of our church family out of work due to the recession, our expenses in caring for our community in 2009 rose dramatically while our...

A Chinese court sentenced the pastor and leaders of a 50,000-member megachurch in northeastern China to prison, rights groups reported Thursday. Pastor Wang Xiaoguang of Linfen Fushan Church in Linfen, northern Shanxi province received three years for “illegal land occupation” and his wife Yang Rongli received a maximum of seven years for “illegal land occupation” and “assembling a crowd to disrupt public order," according to ChinaAid Association. Other church leaders received three- to four-and-a-half-year prison sentences. The sentences are among the most severe for house church leaders in recent years. “To punish an innocent house church leader with seven years...

Enfield (WTNH) - The ACLU of Connecticut is warning the Enfield school board to stop holding graduation ceremonies at a Bloomfield megachurch, claiming the graduates and their families are unconstitutionally being subjected to religious messages.

Apologies for the vanity. I'm looking for FReepers in Dallas, TX to try to regain contact with someone in an Evangelical Church there.They helped me make it through one of the toughest times of my life and promised to email me later, but never did. I never got a chance to properly thank them and tell them my life was truly changed.The only clues I have are that they had in 2006 an assistant pastor whose voice sounded like Al Michaels and they were about 20 minutes away from downtown Dallas.Can someone jog my memory?

One of the largest evangelical churches in the country recently received permission to build a bridge from its campus to a major highway to help ease the flow of traffic on Sundays. North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, Ga., will begin construction on the $5 million bridge in December. The bridge, the senior pastor said, will help draw more unchurched people who would otherwise find it difficult to attend because of the usual parking lot jam. "Those of you who are regular attendees have learned to navigate the congestion without losing your faith in the process," Pastor Andy Stanley wrote...

... Golden State has more of these megachurches -- defined as those with at least 2,000 congregants -- than any other state. California is home to 193, slightly more than Texas with 191, ... survey by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research ... some who study the phenomenon call the Southern California Bible Belt... The megachurches are expanding by adapting to changing times and tastes, scholars say. Many have jettisoned formal rituals such as organs and hymns in favor of Christian rock music and overhead projection screens that display lyrics and prayers. They deliver upbeat biblical messages about applying faith...

California Christians Worship In A Big Way The state has more megachurches than anywhere else in the country, with the majority in the suburbs between Los Angeles and San Diego. Their upbeat approach is luring thousands each weekend. A worshiper gets caught up in the music at Shepherd of the Hills in Porter Ranch, which attracts 8,000 people to its six weekend services. California has 193 megachurches, defined as those with at least 2,000 congregants. By Duke Helfand October 11, 2009 Once again, the Sunday faithful have packed the cavernous sanctuary at Shepherd of the Hills Church in the San...

The evangelical movement's eye-popping numbers (new megachurches are opening as mainline churches shrink), cultural power (think The Purpose Driven Life or crossover hits from Christian radio), and political success (George W. Bush, Mike Huckabee, Tim Pawlenty, etc.) makes it easy to forget that evangelical Christianity is very much a countercultural phenomenon. Even as it adapts to the contemporary American cultural landscape—look at Rick Warren's Hawaiian shirts or the number of megachurches that now boast coffee shops—the American evangelical movement nonetheless defines itself as separate from the rest of the country. "Religions that grow are the ones that are hard-core in...

MIAMI – Hundreds of congregants have left a pioneering megachurch in Florida to form their own congregation because they were unhappy with leadership at the church that's seen as a bedrock of the religious right. The action by the unhappy members at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church was the culmination of a feud between loyalists to an evangelical luminary, the Rev. D. James Kennedy, and his replacement as pastor, the Rev. Tullian Tchividjian, a grandson of the Rev. Billy Graham.

A megachurch in Glendale, Ariz., unanimously voted Sunday to cut ties with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and will be joining the smaller Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ. At a congregational meeting following worship, Community Church of Joy voted 129-0 to terminate its affiliation with ELCA as the church’s vision, values and mission are no longer aligned with the nation’s largest Lutheran denomination, according to the Rev. Walter P. Kallestad, senior pastor of the congregation. "There is such a different direction that the ELCA has chosen, a path they're traveling on, and we really believe that it just...

"What if church wasn't just a building, but thousands of doors?" asks a new website launched by the United Methodist Church. "Each of them opening up to a different concept or experience of church. . . . Would you come?" After watching its membership drop nearly 25 percent in recent decades, the United Methodist Church, which is still the nation's largest mainline Protestant denomination, thinks it knows the answer. So it's pouring $20 million into a new marketing campaign, including the website, television advertisements, even street teams in some cities, to rebrand the church from stale destination to "24-7 experience."...

FORT WORTH, Texas—Authorities say they are investigating a natural gas explosion at the Fort Worth, Texas, home of megachurch pastor T.D. Jakes. Fort Worth fire spokesman Lt. Kent Worley says the blast Sunday in the sunroom of the home appears to have been an accident. Authorities say no one was injured and there was no fire. The sunroom was heavily damaged. Worley says the room had a gas-fed pool heater and a large gas-fed barbecue grill.

Evangelical megachurches across San Diego, Calif., are joining Catholics on Sunday to make a public outcry against abortion in their first ever joint pro-life rally. The demonstration, which will take place after the multiple worship services that typically take place at megachurches, is being held on the same day President Barack Obama will take the stage at the University of Notre Dame to deliver the commencement speech. While the San Diego rally is fundamentally a pro-life rally, the undertone of the event is "a statement to the president that the killing of babies must come to an end," Pastor Jim...

Call it a collision between church and state. For more than two years, residents of the East Hempfield neighborhood "The Meadows" have fought plans to build a 26,000-square-foot church at the edge of their quiet, upscale development. In more than a dozen late-night meetings, residents claimed the proposal, by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, meant that traffic in their neighborhood was going to spike, and that the church was simply out of character with the surrounding community. In February, the residents lost a round when the township supervisors voted unanimously to give preliminary approval to the church...

Mark Driscoll, the pastor of Seattle-based Mars Hill Church, will preach at the famed Crystal Cathedral in Southern California Sunday, June 14, and will appear on the “Hour of Power.” Crystal Cathedral is home to the Rev. Robert Schuller and his successful television ministry but has seen some decline in size and influence in recent years. Financial difficulties have caused the church to lay off staff and sell office space. Mars Hill, on the other hand, is among America’s booming churches. Driscoll preaches a “masculine” form of Calvinist theology that emphasizes the toughness of Jesus and Christianity. He also regularly...

ATLANTA — An evangelical pastor whose leadership of an Atlanta-area megachurch ended in a sex scandal has died. Atlanta Medical Center said Archbishop Earl Paulk, who was in his 80s, died early Sunday. The hospital could not release a cause of death. Paulk had been in bad health for the past couple of years after a battle with cancer. A phone listing for Paulk's family could not immediately be found. Paulk co-founded the Cathedral at Chapel Hill in Decatur and helped grow it to a peak membership of about 10,000 in the early 1990s. A lawsuit by a female employee...

Saddleback Church's Warren calls on believers to make history Church expects to bring 3,000 new believers into its flock Saturday. LAKE FOREST – In what Saddleback Church Pastor Rick Warren calls historical, the church hopes to bring 3,000 new members into its flock on Saturday. "I'm not sleeping much. I'm too excited," the megachurch's pastor wrote in an e-mail to his congregation this week. "THIS SATURDAY, March 28, will be THE GREATEST DAY in Saddleback's history. OVER 2,000 people have already signed up to become members of our church family on a single day." Citing the Bible, Warren challenges prospective...

Before a backdrop of soaring stained glass and the 6,000 gleaming pipes of a Ruffatti pipe organ, Tullian Tchividjian on March 15 preached one of the pivotal sermons of his life. Tchividjian, 36, pastor of New City Presbyterian Church in Margate, Fla., was preaching 12 miles down the road in Fort Lauderdale. The occasion: Tchividjian's nomination to succeed D. James Kennedy as senior pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church. There had been some dissent in the congregation over who would fill Kennedy's sizable shoes. Kennedy founded the church in 1959 and pastored it for 47 years. In 1974, he launched...

Companies that specialize in church mortgages report that foreclosures and delinquencies for congregations are on the rise as the tough economic times start to make their impact at the offering plate. Metropolitan Baptist Church was bursting out of its home. From a group of freed slaves in Civil War-era Washington, Metropolitan Baptist had grown into a modern-day megachurch and community service powerhouse. In 2006, construction began on the congregation's dream complex in Largo, Md. - a $30 million campus with a 3,000-seat church, an education center and an 1,100-car parking lot.

Washington - A widely-known megachurch founded by an architect of the religious right and seen as a national political force selected a grandson of Billy Graham on Sunday as its new leader. The overwhelming vote by congregants at Coral Ridge Presbyterian in Fort Lauderdale to appoint the Rev. Tullian Tchividjian could represent a softening of the message spread by the Rev. D. James Kennedy, who was pastor at the church until his death in September 2007. Kennedy's preaching against homosexuality and abortion made him one of evangelical Christianity's most divisive figures, and he worked to inject his faith in all...

GARDEN GROVE, Calif. – A man shot and killed himself in front of a cross inside televangelist Robert H. Schuller's Crystal Cathedral on Wednesday as a nearby volunteer told a group of visitors about the church's suicide-prevention program, police and church officials said. The man handed a note and his driver's license to two ushers, walked to the cross and then shot himself in the head as he appeared to be praying, Senior Pastor Juan Carlos Ortiz said. The Orange County coroner's office identified the man as Steve Smick, 48. Church spokesman Mike Nason said there was no record of...

The son of Potter’s House Bishop T.D. Jakes turned himself in to the Dallas County Jail on Thursday on an indecent exposure charge stemming from an incident at a southern Dallas park last month. Jermaine Jakes, 29, posted $1,000 bail and was released Thursday morning, according to jail records. Jakes is accused of exposing himself in front of an undercover Dallas police vice detective at Kiest Park, near West Kiest Boulevard and South Hampton Road, on the night of Jan. 3, police said. T.D. Jakes is founder of the Potter’s House, a 30,000-member mega-church in the Mountain Creek area.

The Associated Press is reporting that after a year of accolades that followed her shooting of a gunman who killed two teenage sisters at her church, concealed handgun license-holder Jeanne Assam remains "low key" and says she thinks of the family of gunman Matthew Murray. From the story: “He didn’t start off to be mixed up and confused. He started off to be a good person but he went down a wrong path,” Assam said during a news conference after a church service Sunday. A former police officer, Assam said that now she is hoping to join the Colorado Springs...

Ex-evangelical leader Ted Haggard, who fell from grace after the exposure of his sex and drug scandal two years ago, recently opened up about the dark secret from his past that likely led to his downfall as an adult. He spoke at Open Bible Fellowship Church, a small congregation in Morrison, Ill., on Nov. 2 – the second anniversary of his resignation as president of the 30 million-member National Association of Evangelicals. The church’s pastor, Chris Byrd, is a long-time friend of Haggard of over 30 years. “The first thing I want you to know is I sinned,� Haggard told...

DALLAS (AP) - The pastor of a mega-church says he will challenge married congregants during his sermon Sunday to have sex for seven straight days _ and he plans to practice what he preaches. "We're going to give it a try," said the Rev. Ed Young, who has four children with his wife of 26 years. Young, 47, said he believes society promotes promiscuity and he wants to reclaim sex for married couples. Sex should be a nurturing, spiritual act that strengthens marriages, he said. "God says sex should be between a married man and a woman," Young said. "I...

Crystal Cathedral founder Rev. Robert H. Schuller has removed his son as preacher on the church's weekly "Hour of Power" syndicated TV broadcast. Schuller said in a statement read to some 450 congregants Saturday by church president Jim Coleman that he and his son, Robert A. Schuller, "have different ideas as to the direction and the vision for this ministry." "For this lack of shared vision and the jeopardy in which this is placing this entire ministry, it has become necessary for Robert and me to part ways," Schuller said.

In his e-mail to his church members he writes: "For 5,000 years, every culture and every religion - not just Christianity - has defined marriage as a contract between men and women,” Warren wrote. “There is no reason to change the universal, historical definition of marriage to appease 2% of our population.” On the Saddleback site there is video of him discussing the issue, here.

Pastor Who Opposes Abortion to Deliver DNC's Closing Prayer By Krissah Williams Sen. Barack Obama's team will continue its aggressive outreach to evangelical voters at the Democratic National Convention next week. Making a prime-time appearance Thursday night will be Joel C. Hunter, a Florida megachurch pastor who will deliver the convention's closing prayer following Obama's speech accepting the Democratic presidential nomination. Hunter is a registered Republican, opposes abortion and, at one point, had been chosen to lead the Christian Coalition. He has not endorsed Obama and says he agreed to give the benediction because has was asked to do so....

... A Southern Baptist minister who breaks the conservative mold. Touted by some as the likely successor to Billy Graham. On Saturday, pastor Rick Warren, author of "The Purpose-Driven Life," will do what no one else has yet accomplished: bring the presumptive GOP and Democratic presidential nominees onto the same stage to discuss their views. It's a sign of religion's importance in the 2008 presidential campaign. The event, back-to-back one-hour interviews at Mr. Warren's California megachurch, will be broadcast live on CNN and streamed on the Web. It also represents the emergence of a new style of evangelical leadership on...

When John McCain and Barack Obama appear on the same stage Saturday at the sprawling religious campus of Orange County's Saddleback Church, their presence will vividly underline the reach that has made Pastor Rick Warren among the most significant evangelists of his generation. ~snip~ But Warren's willingness to soft-pedal political issues once central to U.S. evangelicals, such as opposition to abortion, has opened him to criticism that he has strayed from his calling to spread the Gospel. It's likely that both fans and critics will be watching closely when Warren plays host to the two presidential contenders at his church...

Mosques are multiplying across the country and their inspiration may come as a bit of a surprise – Christian megachurches. Similar to many megachurches, new mosques are popping up as extension campuses to a main mosque with the stated goal of making it more convenient for Muslims in an area to worship. These extended mosque sites are sometimes referred to as “mosque chains” and tend to be adopted by more progressive Muslim congregations. "Because of how streamlined we are, you can get off the highway from anywhere and find a mosque that is well-maintained, well-structured and that will always be...

Presidential hopefuls John McCain and Barack Obama will speak Aug. 16 at Saddleback Church in what is expected to be the only joint campaign event for the candidates before the national conventions. The Lake Forest megachurch’s pastor, Rick Warren, will moderate the joint appearance, which will take place on the eve of the two national party conventions. After a brief appearance together, the two candidates will separately spend an hour talking with Warren.