Let me begin by telling you this place is nuts! But still not nearly as impressive as Mariners or Saddleback if you are looking for that wow factor. As your drive past their property the Tower REALLY does look like Sarumon’s tower from the Lord of the Rings movies, which is infinitely ironic since Sarumon was evil. We arrived after theirs service but met a wonderful guide who told us all kinds of details about the Cathedral. Each window has a name by one of the donors and so do each seat. It was approximately $1,000 to buy a window and with 10,000 windows I am sure they did just fine. Our guide also told us about how the entire structure was build without any debt! You can find more info after the bump:
Dr. Shuler was they founding pastor at the Crystal Cathedral. Early in his career he actually met people at a local drive in where he would stand in front of the screen on Sunday morning and preach to people. The first building that they had was quite small and he would actually stand in front of the cars and they had speakers that broadcast the audio of his preaching to the cars. There is also a radio station you could tune your car to in order to hear him in your car. Quite strange that you could receive teaching and worship from the comfort of your own car seats.
His method of reaching the people is very interesting to me since it is identical to the people of today that meet in movie theaters on Sunday mornings. It’s interesting how he was being “relevant” to his times (that topic has plenty of room for debate).
Also, baby Jesus was sculpted out of stainless steel so that whoever looked him in the face would be able to see themself in the reflection. Cool concept but still creepy that Jesus is a silver baby…
Our guide tells us that numbers at the Cathedral have been dwindling as of late. He says that at best they will fill half the seats on Sunday.