New Co-Pastor is Hired for Crystal Cathedral

The Rev. Robert H. Schuller has hired a Presbyterian minister from Seattle to be co-pastor of the Crystal Cathedral.

Schuller will remain as head of the ministry, but in June he will turn over the day-to-day operation to the Rev. Bruce Larson, pastor of Seattle’s 3,600-member University Presbyterian Church.

“I am strictly the No. 2 man (at the Crystal Cathedral),” Larson, 64, said in a telephone interview. “I am there to assist Bob to help build and bless that congregation.”

Schuller, 63, will spend most of his time to running his television ministry and will continue to conduct Sunday services for broadcast on his “Hour of Power” television show, church officials said.

“There are two very separate tracks that meet at the Crystal Cathedral--the world track with the ‘Hour of Power’ show, and the local track,” Larson said. “The Orange County congregation will be my primary concern.”

In the past, several ministers have served in similar co-pastoral roles, Schuller assistant Chester Tolson said. Herman Ridder, who retired in 1988, was the last co-pastor of the 35-year-old congregation in Garden Grove.

Church officials expressed the hope that Larson will be as popular in Orange County as he is in Seattle.

The University Presbyterian Church membership has doubled since Larson became pastor there in 1980. In addition, annual donations have increased to $5 million from $600,000 in 1980.

Larson’s pastoral duties will include coordinating and developing small groups, Tolson said, to allow the large congregation to feel more involved with the church and sermons.

“The Crystal Cathedral is so large in numbers that if we create small groups, like Larson has done in Seattle, the congregation will feel more comfortable,” Tolson said.

Current membership at the Crystal Cathedral is estimated at 6,000, Tolson said.