Interview With Robert Schuller

Beliefenet has an interview with the Rev. Robert Schuller, Pastor of the "Chrystal Cathedral" and one of the founders of the so-called "Mega-Church Movement". One thing Schuller said deeply disturbed me.

First, he says that the church needs to be like a supermarket, I'm sure I'm not the only one for whom this brings up images of the money-changers in the temple. But what disturbs me more is Schuller's description of how it should be like a supermarket:

"Whatever people want to buy, they can get it in the shopping center. It’s one-stop shopping. Churches should be that way. They can get a Sunday morning church service, but they can also have a ministry to singles, a ministry to young people, a ministry to music people, a ministry to people who have specialized hurts. "

Now I have nothing at all against youth ministries or young adult ministries, and I hope a church would have ministries to people with specialised hurts (otherwise known as pastoral care) but Schuller seems to regard such things as on a level with the Sunday mourning service. It isn't. The joining together of the church, on the sabath, for worship and to listen to preaching is not presented in the New Testament as a optional extra for Christians but as a basic thing commanded of us all.

This is a good example of the kind of thinking that has become very prominent in Evangelical circles, the church as a company with a product to sell, if the consumers don't like that product, we can chage it to fit their needs. On this basis, Christ would have to have been a fairly unsuccessful evangelist, when His message was rejected He didn't sit around looking for ways to make it easier to accept.