bruce-church (https://bruce-church.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "So California - When Will WELS Try This?":
Some history on the Hour of Power's decline:
The Hour of Power was seen across Europe as late as 1994, but the show was dropped when European govts and Russia decided to make TV cuts. He claimed 10 million viewers there:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/03/11/state/n115330D81.DTL
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2012/03/times-change-for-hour-of-power-crystal-cathedral/1#.T2_xviKtNUw
OC's Crystal Cathedral congregation to relocate
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/03/11/state/n115330D81.DTL
1994:
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1994-10-15/news/9410150627_1_schuller-super-channel-cotton
Schuller's worldwide audience was more than halved when Europe's Super Channel and Russia's government-financed Channel 1 dropped him this year. NBC acquired a controlling interest in Super Channel and overhauled its programming, costing Schuller about 200,000 viewers. Government money woes forced Channel 1 to cut programming, costing between 10 million and 15 million viewers.
GJ - I always learn from Bruce Church's comments. Doubtless the free ride from low-cost TV broadcasting was a great boon to Schuller in the early years. I also understand the neighborhood changed and his local members moved farther away. What seemed so unusual at the time became hidebound after all his disciples kept taking Church Growth a few steps beyond his starting point.
I can no longer find the Internet evidence for Schuller and Mary Kay getting Napoleon Hill Foundation Awards, which tied both of them into Asian polytheistic thinking. Schuller and Cho saw things the same way, and Cho was kicked out of the Assemblies of God for his paganism. A little research will show how that has slopped over into the Lutheran Church, thanks to heedless leaders who call themselves "conservative" and "confessional."
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| Schuller won an award from the Napoleon Hill Foundation for promoting Hill's philosophy. So did Mary Kay. |
The final bishops of the LCA and ALC had the same problem with watching everything fall apart. They launched ELCA with gay and feminist quotas, only to bemoan the results of their own policies a few years later. David Preus and James Crumley came to regret the merger they promoted, but the merger followed the policies they established and endorsed.
