According to The Christian Post, last Sunday the Crystal Cathedral welcomed Kay Warren to the pulpit, author of Choose Joy: Because Happiness Isn’t Enough and wife of megachurch pastor Rick Warren. Warren said she struggled with “low level depression” most of her life and had trouble finding joy. Her search for joy led her to a Bible study where she learned she was not the only one struggling that way. Warren told the congregation that “we get confused over what’s the difference between happiness and joy … We tend to use those interchangeably, but they are not at all, my brothers and sisters. Happiness is all about what’s happening externally … (finding joy is about) connecting the internal to the eternal.”
“Like following two parallel rails on a railroad track, the journey of life includes both joy and sorrow running inseparably,” Warren writes in her book. “To focus on joy is a choice. Joy is more than a feeling. It starts with a new way of thinking that changes how we respond to trials in our lives.”
Several hundred people came to hear Warren’s sermon, which was taped for the church’s “Hour of Power” broadcast. Warren’s speaking engagement comes in the midst of a transition period for the church, as the founder of the ministry, Robert H. Schuller, and his wife recently resigned from the board and the senior pastor, Sheila Schuller Coleman, announced she was starting her own church in the local area. Dr. Lawrence Wilkes is serving as interim pastor and introduced Warren’s sermon.
