Megachurch

Crystal Cathedral Ministries will celebrate Memorial Day Sunday with a veteran of the Navy SEALs and a representative of the New York Police Department. Bobby Schuller, grandson of the ministry's founder, will deliver the sermon.

The Garden Grove, Calif. ministry, known for its long-running "Hour of Power" worship broadcast as well as its iconic glass church building, invited former Navy SEAL, current author and full-time minister Chad Williams to speak to the congregation Sunday.

Williams served tours of duty in the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Iraq, having been one of only 13 from a class of 173 to make it straight through to graduation when trained to be a SEAL. "Williams sank into wild bouts of drinking and fighting off-duty, before accepting Christ," according to a statement from the church. Williams will discuss his testimony shared in the book SEAL of God, published in April. more >>

Texas megachurch pastor Joel Osteen has spoken out on the Alabama state law that makes it a crime for pastors to provide church shelter for illegal immigrants, as residents protest against a new provision to the bill that may force courts to disclose information on undocumented aliens.

"I'm not up to speed on it all, but I think in general you know the Bible tells us to help one another and to help those in need so you know, I think it's a tough position to not be able to welcome people to our churches. You know we don't necessarily know who they are," said Pastor Osteen said in an interview earlier this week with WIAT-TV, while he was visiting Birmingham.

In 2011, Alabama Christian leaders stood up against state officials seeking to enact the "nation's most merciless" anti-immigration law which puts pastors in danger of facing criminal charges for transporting, concealing, harboring or shield an illegal immigrant. The Beason-Hammon Alabama Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act takes aim at people without proper alien registration living in the state. more >>

Crystal Cathedral's newly minted president said Wednesday that the ministry behind the "Hour of Power" might be moving to a Catholic church in their Orange County, Calif., neighborhood, although probably not for another year and a half.

John Charles, president and CEO of the ministry, reportedly said in a meeting of the congregants and the church board that St. Callistus Catholic Church in Garden Grove was the only option the bankrupt ministry could consider moving to when it comes time to relocate, as its campus was sold to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange in February.

Following the famous ministry's bankruptcy filing in Oct. 2010 and subsequent sale, the congregation was given three years from when the escrow closed to find a new venue. more >>

Evangelist Greg Laurie can be seen tracing the steps of the disciple Peter in his upcoming sermon filmed in Jerusalem that will be shown to his church in Southern California and webcast to a global online audience during worship services this Sunday.

"Greg traces Peter's story from the Shepherd's fields to Jerusalem and the site that many believe to be the house of Caiaphas where Jesus was detained on the night of his arrest," said John Collins, executive director of Harvest Ministries, to The Christian Post. Collins along with Harvest's tech team viewed the video from Israel on Thursday.

"On that site, Greg tells the story of Peter's denial before the rooster crowed. more >>

Bobby Schuller, the son of former pastor Robert A. Schuller, spoke to Lawrence Wilkes of The Crystal Cathedral's "Hour of Power" television program to discuss life after leaving the famous ministry founded by his grandfather, and the challenges he faced starting his own church from the ground up.

Schuller is the grandson of the Rev. Robert H. Schuller who started the Crystal Cathedral Ministries as a start-up congregation in a Garden Grove, Calif., drive-in movie theater five decades ago.

Bobby Schuller was active in the church, running Crystal Cathedral's Gathering Community Ministry, but left the famously opulent campus in 2009 with his wife Hannah to begin his own journey into starting a church from the ground up, he told Wilkes. more >>

Senior Pastor Gregg Matte of Houston's First Baptist Church in Texas explained that he felt compelled by God to change his May 13 sermon, originally focused on Mother's Day, to address President Barack Obama's endorsement of same-sex marriage.

"Earlier in the service I prayed and thought that God was going to give me something in the pulpit. And He did, and what happened was that I just couldn't go into the message," Matte explained in a video attached to the sermon on the Houston's First Baptist Church website.

"I just felt like God stopped me. I just felt like there was a wall between me and the message. And at that point I was just like, 'Lord, what are you going to do?" he added. more >>