Rev. Cole-Whittaker to Pull Out of Church, End TV Show

The Rev. Terry Cole-Whittaker, the media-wise minister who preaches prosperity to the Me Generation, has announced that she is ending her weekly television sermons and will pull out of her La Jolla-based church after an Easter Sunday service.

Cole-Whittaker told her congregation on Sunday that it is time “to go within myself, to be in nature and to be happy and to do what I want to do. I have always done what I wanted to do.”

Reverend Terry, as the stylish, upbeat evangelist calls herself, said she would probably move to Hawaii or to the mountains. She said she has taped her last four television programs and called them “perfection.”

“I no longer will be giving church services. The Terry Cole Whittaker Ministries will (continue to be) a legal entity as the government allows and in that I will do retreats . . . where we will travel to different high-energy places,” she said, according to a tape of the service.

Supporters and observers attributed Cole-Whittaker’s withdrawal to “burnout” and a longtime follower who asked not to be named suggested that financial problems with the ministry might have contributed to Cole-Whittaker’s decision to leave.

Although Cole-Whittaker, 45, has told her largely young, female and upwardly mobile following that prosperity is a divine right, a close friend of Cole-Whittaker’s said the minister developed “a dissatisfaction with materialism” during a recent trip to India.

“One thing she saw in India was that people can be happy without Rolls-Royces,” said the friend, who asked not to be named.

In addition to Sunday preaching, Cole-Whittaker has conducted a variety of courses including “Mastery in Wealth” and “Dress to Win.” Her book, “How to Have More in a Have-Not World,” sells for $50 for an autographed copy.

TCW Ministries officials would not return telephone calls Monday.

Susan Reynolds of Solters/Roskin/Friedkin, a Los Angeles public relations firm representing Cole-Whittaker, said: “The April 7 Easter Service at Golden Hall in San Diego will be the last service she will lead. Rev. Cole-Whittaker is preparing to embark on a retreat. She will continue to lead seminars, special events, and group retreats upon her return to San Diego.”

“The Rev. Cole-Whittaker TV ministry . . . will continue to air on stations throughout the country. Ministers within the organization will continue to lead Sunday services.”

Asked about the contradiction with Cole-Whittaker’s statement Sunday, Reynolds said, “As of today it’s going to continue to air. How long, I don’t know.”

A receptionist at TWC Ministries, the umbrella group for the church, television show, seminars and other Cole-Whittaker endeavors, said officials were in meetings to decide the future of the ministry.

“At this time all information is subject to change. Everything is still in the process of transformation,” said the receptionist, who declined to be identified. “I doubt they will be back today.”

Cole-Whittaker said Sunday that associate ministers would take over the church branches in San Diego, Los Angeles and other cities. She said a small ministry office probably would be kept open in San Diego to distribute tapes and books.

A longtime Cole-Whittaker follower said the minister’s withdrawal “seems to be precipitated by financial problems.”

Steve Casey, spokesman for the San Diego County district attorney, said he was not aware of any criminal investigations into the church.

“I don’t believe anybody has complained to us about anything that has anything to do with her,” Casey said.

The San Diego Tribune on Monday quoted ministry spokesman R.J. Davis as saying that the organization was $400,000 in debt. Cole-Whittaker has said publicly that she raised more than $6 million last year, but spent more.

Nann Miller, of Nann Miller Enterprises, a public relations firm that represented the ministry until its contract expired Friday, said, “there was a tremendous overhead” in the organization. She said Cole-Whittaker had told her the television ministry “was not making it.”

Miller said the church owes her firm for five or six months’ back pay, but declined to specify an amount.

“I don’t think her staff knew this was coming. I think it was burnout,” she said.

Helen Rowe, a San Diego attorney who worked for the ministry for six weeks in 1983, said the organization always has been “on shaky ground.”

“There is a pressure to expand and yet the foundation has always been unstable and insecure,” Rowe said. “It has always been expand, retract and regroup, expand, retract and regroup . . . I understand that it is in worse shape than ever before.”

Rowe said she made recommendations for changing the organization that were ignored, and she quit.

She described Cole-Whittaker as a “witty, charming woman of considerable personal skills when she is on,” but added that Cole-Whittaker has no business or administrative skills. She said the minister is charismatic and “sings like a bird.”

Cole-Whittaker, who has been likened to the Doris Day of evangelists for her blonde, bubbly style, preached positive thinking rather than hammering away at guilt and sin. She told her followers to think positively, look for the good message in any disaster, and to create heaven on Earth.

The four-times-divorced minister lives in La Jolla and has attracted many show business followers. She was introduced to Hollywood last fall through a party thrown for her by Gavin MacLeod of the “Love Boat” TV show.

Her Sunday sermons in San Diego have drawn as many as 2,000 people a week and as many as 1 million more watched her on polished television programs broadcast by 19 stations and shown by hundreds of cable outlets.

Times staff writer Russell Chandler contributed to this report.