Grammy-Award Winning Pastor Sings Praises of Recent Weight Loss

Singer-composer-pastor Andrae Crouch is getting more recognition lately.

In March, the multiple Grammy winner was inducted into the Gospel Music Assn.’s Hall of Fame in Nashville. And next month in Detroit, a new Gospel Music Hall of Fame will honor the musician who has been making albums since 1971.

But a slimmed-down Crouch is also being recognized more by admirers in public.

Before he lost 75 pounds over the past year, he said, people would say things like, “You remind me of Andrae Crouch” or not recognize him until they heard his voice.

“Now I look like the pictures on my album covers,” he said.

Disturbed by his appearance and worried that his weight had become a potential health risk, Crouch said his motivation arose from his religious commitment.

“I want to live to complete what God has commissioned me to do,” the Pacoima minister said. Crouch became pastor of Christ Memorial Church of God in Christ three years ago, after the deaths of his father and older brother.

And this year Crouch also raised his visibility in the religious world by defying his denomination’s policy against ordaining women by ordaining his twin sister, Sandra, as co-pastor of the 800-member congregation.

In contrast to clandestine ordinations of women by other churches of his denomination, Crouch publicized Sandra’s ordination at the church well in advance of the Aug. 1 ceremony.

Andrae said this week that no reprimand has come from church headquarters in Memphis. “They wouldn’t do anything negative to us,” he said.

Some prominent Church of God in Christ pastors in Southern California have indicated that the Crouch family’s prominent role in the denomination would probably preclude any censure.

The Church of God in Christ, the country’s largest black Pentecostal denomination, is expected to hear a report at its national convention next month on whether to open the pulpit ministry to women.

But Crouch was not optimistic that change will come this year. Church bylaws limit the number of voting women delegates to as little as 10% at regional and national conventions, he said. “It’s going to happen (sometime),” he added. Without change, the denomination will lose many members and talented women raised in local churches, he said.

Even before her ordination, Sandra Crouch had been acting as a co-minister, including preaching in services when Andrae was out of town. The two are calling the church at 13333 Vaughn St. the New Christ Memorial Church to reflect the new directions they are taking the congregation.

“I feel we have the freedom to do new things without always having to refer to what my father did,” said Andrae Crouch, referring to the Rev. Benjamin Crouch, who was also a bishop in the denomination.

The Crouch twins also have the power of celebrity on their side, Sandra being a Grammy winner herself for her debut 1983 album.

Andrae said that when he was inducted into the Gospel Music Assn. Hall of Fame seven months ago, the honors were bestowed on him as an individual as well as on Andrae Crouch and the Disciples, a singing group he performed with on his first eight albums. Although that hall of fame includes black gospel greats such as the late James Cleveland of Los Angeles, he said, the inductees are largely white gospel performers.

His newest honor comes from the black-oriented Gospel Music Hall of Fame begun in 1995 by David Gough, president of DoRohn Records, an independent label in Detroit. Crouch is among 10 groups and individuals to be saluted Nov. 14 in Detroit.

He said he may not be able to attend the awards banquet because he is scheduled to perform at the annual Media Fellowship International dinner in Marina del Rey the night before. His busy schedule as pastor includes the church’s third annual food-giveaway block party Nov. 20-21.

His musical and ministerial travel was indirectly to blame for his old weight problem, Crouch said. “I was never able to eat a lot of food at one time in restaurants, and I would eat the wrong thing too late at night,” he said.

Now it’s sunflower seeds for snacks, reinforced by regular exercise. “I even bought a membership at Bally’s for a friend so he could go with me,” he said.