Giant Sunday School : Rev. Schuller Reveals His Latest Vision in Marking 39th Year of His Ministry

The Rev. Robert H. Schuller, whose services from the Crystal Cathedral are watched by millions worldwide, used the 39th anniversary celebration of the founding of his ministry Sunday to announce his latest vision: building the largest Sunday school in California.

“You will help me,” Schuller told more than 3,000 worshipers as he stood beside his 20-foot-tall image on a huge Sony TV screen. “We’re going after the next generation. And their kids. . . . We’ve got to get the kids whose parents don’t want religion.” Schuller--one of the world’s most popular televangelists, whose “Hour of Power” is broadcast to 20 million people worldwide--declined to provide any details of the school plan or of a real estate deal at which he also hinted. Schuller cited “powerful, secret and sensitive negotiations” that may not be concluded for two or three months.

He added, however, that he had restructured his ministry a week ago because of his frequent public appearances outside California. Schuller said he had named Charles Todd, the church’s chief counsel and an ordained minister, chief operating officer--a change that had not been widely known outside the church.

The school plan, however, came as a surprise even to Crystal Cathedral staffers, who said they know none of the specifics.

“He has his eye on the year 2000,” said one staff member. “He likes to think far ahead.”

Church spokesman Mike Nason, the person most responsible for the church’s growth into a high-tech broadcast facility, said Schuller has been considering the school effort for some time and will formally present it soon.

“He believes that getting to the youth is the answer to many of our society’s problems,” Nason said. “I can’t tell you anything more about it.”

Nason added that the sensitive negotiations Schuller referred to are not related to his school plan. “I know about that, but I can’t reveal anything,” he said.

Schuller also used Sunday’s anniversary to recall the unusual origins of his church, which opened at the Orange Drive-in Theater in 1955, a few months ahead of Disneyland and just down the road.

As Schuller recalled the hardships he endured in the early days of his ministry, hundreds of worshipers remained parked in the church’s specially maintained “drive-in” section, arranged in rows as if they were in the parking lot of the original theater, listening to the pastor over a special station on their car radios.

Inside, Charlton Heston read a portion of the Easter story from a Bible printed in 1653, which, the actor noted, carries “extra weight” because of its antiquity.

Altogether, more than 7,500 people attended three morning worship services, church officials said.

In a brief ceremony in the sunlit plaza between the morning’s second and third services, Howard Kelly, chairman of the celebration, introduced several people who had attended the first worship service at the old drive-in. Among them was Wally Zirkle, who had placed the letters on the theater marquee and served coffee in the snack bar.

A small plane circled overhead, towing a banner that read: “Launching 40th Year at Crystal Cathedral.”

Melodyland, another evangelical church, and several other nearby churches are moving or have already left the area, Schuller noted. “But we will remain here as the strongest church,” he said. “We will succeed because we are a team, and the quarterback is Jesus Christ.”

He recalled how he purchased a trailer to carry church equipment from his home to the drive-in for $20, only to find out it wasn’t registered. Its wheels were welded to its axles, Schuller said, so he always prayed that he wouldn’t have a flat tire.

And he told the story of a rancher who, just out of the hospital after a cancer operation, bailed Schuller out by providing $3,000 to purchase land at the Crystal Cathedral site just four hours before the deal would have fallen out of escrow.

Schuller also spoke of a period in the late 1950s when, he said, there was a “conspiracy” to remove him as head of the church. At that time, he said, “my will to die was greater than my will to live.”

The televangelist was referring to complaints from a contingent of worshipers and church leaders in 1958 that his services weren’t based enough on Scripture.

There have been other controversies as well. After the Crystal Cathedral was built, state officials complained that Schuller’s long list of big-name concert performers smacked too much of a commercial venture and stripped the church of its property-tax exemption. In the end, Schuller paid only part of the back taxes the state sought.

Schuller also fielded complaints about his family members occupying key positions in the ministry. He dismissed most of these as the “work of the devil.”

Schuller underwent brain surgery after hitting his head on the roof of a car in Amsterdam during a trip to Europe in 1991. The incident sparked speculation and debate about the church’s line of succession.

“I will be chairman for the next 10 years,” the 68-year-old Schuller said Sunday, “unless God takes me away.”

A church official said later that Schuller’s reference to 10 years did not mean he would automatically step down at that time. “There’s no specific contract,” the spokesman said. “It was just a figure of speech.”

At the plaza celebration, Schuller’s wife, Arvella, joked that there were many more people at this Palm Sunday event than at the first worship service 39 years earlier. “And I hope a bigger offering,” quipped Schuller.

Arvella Schuller played the same Conn organ used at the drive-in, near a replica of the 1953 Chevy she and the pastor drove to the first worship service.

About 3,000 red, blue, yellow, orange, pink and white balloons soared skyward from the plaza.

“Where are they going?” asked Diedre Trask, 5, whose family was visiting from Oklahoma City.

“Aren’t they beautiful?” her mother, Heather Trask, responded. “They’re flying toward God.”