Pastor Jeske's Blog
2/18/2009 - Glass Houses
You shouldn’t throw stones at people who live in glass houses. I take no joy in observing the tribulations of Rev. Robert Schuller and his famous Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California. [GJ - At Concordia U. in Mequon, he pointed out that he was the last surviving Lutheran on TV, one of the rare times Jeske has admitted being Lutheran.]
It isn’t really a cathedral, a term which is properly used for the official church residence of a bishop in a hierarchical church body like the Episcopal Church or Catholic Church. What it is is a daring architectural tour de force, taking advantage of Orange County’s legendary persistent sunshine. Schuller had told the architect, Philip Johnson, “Make it all glass!” And he did. The huge campus with its “Tower of Hope” has become an O.C. tourist destination.
The church is also home to Rev. Schuller’s Hour of Power television program, which he began at Billy Graham’s urging in 1970. Alas, the program is now mired in controversy after the elder Schuller recently forced out his chosen heir, his son Robert Anthony. The son allegedly was departing from the “possibility thinking” philosophy of the father. A string of guest speakers now appears on the show, since the elder Schuller at age 82 apparently is not up to the stress of televised messages. The word is that the church is deep in debt, tens of millions of dollars, and has begun selling off large portions of its huge campus.
The very qualities that enable some individual ministers to ramp up their ministries to global scale—drive, intensity, focus, salesmanship, ego—can also cripple the business when transition time comes. Television is an intensely personal medium and no transition is easy. There is now nothing left of Rex Humbard’s suburban Akron “Cathedral of Tomorrow” and huge TV ministry from the 1970s.
Some day Time of Grace will move on without me and will become, I hope, an even better program. I promise you that I will not hang on past my time and sabotage the succession. My personal goal will be a succession like the “Tonight Show,” in which Jack Paar, then Johnny Carson, then Jay Leno, and now Conan O’Brien, have kept the show vital and alive.
Today's Grace Moment
4/13/09: Grace Is Undeserved
In my favorite “Dennis the Menace” comic strip, Dennis is walking away from the Wilsons’ house with his mouth full of chocolate chip cookies. His little friend Margaret is telling him, “Dennis, Mrs. Wilson didn’t give you those cookies because you’re nice. She gave them to you because she’s nice.”
Ever wonder why God should like you? There’s something the Bible wants you to know about God: it says in Psalm 103, “He does not treat us as our sins deserve, or repay us according to our iniquities.” God’s grace to you and to me is undeserved—he gives us forgiveness just because he’s nice.
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1/19/2009 - Change
Another blue mailbox disappeared from my neighborhood this week.
No, I don’t think it was stolen by vandals. My guess it was stolen, er, removed by the United States Postal Service. In their own quiet way they were sending a message to those of us who live around here that we weren’t mailing enough first-class letters to make the stop worthwhile for the carriers. I wouldn’t mind it so much but it’s the fourth to go away; there’s only one left anywhere close to my house.
I’d call this a change I don’t believe in. And yet I feel the USPS’ pain—e-mail and cell phone texting have certainly made writing letters almost an old-fashioned nostalgia exercise. Online banking and automatic withdrawals mean fewer and fewer people pay their bills with a first-class stamp.
The pace of societal change is accelerated by the internet in ways nobody ever anticipated. Who would have thought that online news would threaten to put newspapers out of business? Our hometown daily, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, has watched its paid circulation shrivel, while at the same time its (free) online readership has exploded.
Sagging demand for many kinds of goods and services is causing business contraction. When it affects other people you call them layoffs. When it hits your family it’s called a disaster. I know, of course, that this has been going on for millennia. Think of all the leather harness and saddle makers and livery stables who were put out of business by the automobile.
Those of us who work in the church better be ready to bend and change with the times. Not the message—the Gospel of Christ is non-negotiable. But I am speaking about our ways of gathering and organizing people and bringing them that great message.
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Anonymouse has left a new comment on your post ""Mine Is the Glory" - Jeske":
The fact that Time of Grace reaches more people with the Word than the entire WELS on any given Sunday must make you crazy. I suppose you could upgrade your equipment and get a sponsor or two and double your Bethany Lutheran worship non-experience from two to four.
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GJ - The Pope reaches more people than Jeske, but he isn't Lutheran either.
