Crystal Cathedral shows mega-sized megachurches may be a thing of the past

Reverend Robert Schuller’s sparkling Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove is an attractive property. The church’s bankruptcy spurred a bidding war that includes the Catholic Church and Chapman University.

The Crystal Cathedral is also a parable of caution. For churches, bigger might not always be better.

Reverend Robert Schuller started his Orange County ministry as suburbs began sprawling across the Southland and the car culture revved up.

"I think Robert Schuller came at the perfect time in the late ’50s and early ’60s," says Ben Hubbard. Hubbard is a professor of comparative religion at Cal State Fullerton. "He began by preaching from the top of an old drive-in theater. And he was a very charismatic man, very energetic."

The sermons at the drive-in prompted Schuller to design his Garden Grove Community Church in 1961 with a pulpit that let him preach to worshipers in the pews – and in the parking lot. Hubbard says Schuller’s flock liked a message that reflected the possibilities and prosperity of Orange County.

Here’s a fiercely optimistic Robert Schuller in 1982. "As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. Believe it! And you can achieve it! Nothing is impossible unless you are dominated by negative thoughts."

"People were attracted to him," Hubbard says. "He had a message full of hope. It kind of fit the spirit of Orange County which was growing and developing. After all, Orange County had been a lot of orange groves and farming area like in Irvine, and it just caught on."

His positive message, his drive-in church and his “Hour of Power” TV sermons made Schuller one of the country’s most popular ministers, and led to the Crystal Cathedral. But 30 years have passed since it opened, Reverend Schuller has retired, and his ministry – now a half-century old – is bankrupt.

"It seems to me there’s a hanging on of what was and not a looking forward to what they’re able to do," says Richard Flory. Flory directs USC’s Center for Religion and Civic Culture. He says what brought Schuller’s church from boom to bankruptcy is a mix of mismanagement, poor leadership, new trends in the Protestant community and demographics.

"It may be being the sort of canary in the coal mine," Flory says, "of the first big megachurch, or one of the first big megachurches, down that road to see how you can adapt to changing economic environments, demographic aging shifts."

Flory says the grandeur of a cathedral means less to younger churchgoers. To see what they want, head to Irvine.

Kevin Pike is one of the pastors at Mariners Church. I met him on a foggy morning at the church’s primary site in Irvine.

Mariners Church looks like a college campus with grassy lawns and bulletin boards filled with colored flyers. There’s a daycare center, a book store, a donation center and even a waterfall.

Mariners Church has 10,000 members – the same as Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral. But it’s a big church with a small feel – and Pastor Pike says that’s the idea.

"The smaller church approach seems to work better with the generation that we are trying to reach," Pike says. "And that’s one of the things – you know the Crystal Cathedral, you know one of the problems that every congregation has to deal with is that they just age and they can’t get the next generation in."

Pike says Mariners has added satellite churches in Huntington Beach and Mission Viejo. It’s looking at Tustin or Santa Ana.

"We want those to obviously be smaller than what we have here," Pike says, "and to be more malleable into the community and to sort of fit in."

The Mission Viejo church caters to younger families. A Santa Ana church would have services in Spanish. Pike says the new churches will carry Mariners’ principles – its “DNA.”

"And that’s one of the things we really want to bank on," Pike says, "is that we can use our name and our resources and our branding to jumpstart communities and hopefully have a higher success rate than what we would normally get."

Mariners is the megachurch of the future – strong core values but adaptable to the congregation’s needs. Cal State Fullerton religion professor Ben Hubbard says the Christian world is more evangelical and casual, and the Crystal Cathedral can’t keep up.

"There won’t be any more Crystal Cathedrals around the country, I don’t think," Hubbard says. "This monument to success and to his Christian faith is a thing of the past."

The future of the Crystal Cathedral is still in play. The next hearing on the church’s bankruptcy is September 14.