30 Years, Many Hours of ‘Power’

The Rev. Robert H. Schuller, who marks the 30th anniversary today of his groundbreaking “Hour of Power” TV broadcast, tells a story about the program’s rocky beginning to illustrate a theme he has turned to time and again over decades of preaching: the power of positive thinking.

His church, which blossomed from a rented drive-in theater in 1955 to the mammoth Crystal Cathedral of Garden Grove today, wasn’t flush with cash at the time. He asked his congregation to commit to weekly pledges toward the “Hour of Power” and decided that if the pledges didn’t add up to $200,000, he would cancel the show.

“If God wanted to show us the support, we’d have that amount,” said Schuller, 73.

But by the final Sunday he still was $11,000 short. “It was the scariest moment of my life. . . . The pledges only added up to $189,000. I said, ‘Well, I guess I don’t have to do it.’ ”

At the urging of his mentor, the Rev. Billy Graham, Schuller postponed pulling the plug. And by the end of the day, a surge of new pledges pushed the final amount over the goal. It’s a tale that says a lot about how Schuller actualized his dreams--including the fourth-longest-running TV program in history.

“If people don’t believe in God, they have a problem,” Schuller said. “It’s a lot easier to understand these mysteries by being a believer.”

Experts say Schuller has earned credibility with that message, with his vast audience and his interfaith outreach. The “Hour of Power” is broadcast on every continent, and his worldwide audience is estimated at 30 million people in more than 200 countries.

Schuller was invited to preach in Russia in 1989 and in a mosque in Damascus in 1999. Russia’s Channel One has broadcast the show since Christmas Day 1989, when it became the first Christian ministry to preach in the Soviet Union.

Articulate and charismatic, Schuller has also gained the reputation as a man of God with not-so-humble aspirations to reach as many people as he can.

“Schuller’s impact has been enormous,” said Marvin Meyer, chairman of the religion department at Chapman University in Orange. “Schuller is a person who has had very immodest dreams, huge dreams, and he’s worked for those dreams.”

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Schuller preached to his first congregants from the top of a tar-papered pulpit--the roof of the Orange Drive-In snack bar--in 1955. Now he draws about a million people each year to his distinctive campus in Garden Grove.

Schuller was ordained by the Reformed Church in America after receiving his bachelor’s degree from Hope College and a master of divinity from Western Theological Seminary, both in Holland, Mich.

He veered away from traditional Reformed theology almost immediately by preaching “possibility thinking” from his makeshift pulpit.

In his book “Turning Hurts Into Halos,” Schuller urges people to “seize the positive possibilities” in pain and that “the cross has to be seen as the boldest, most beautiful ‘plus sign’ in human history.”

It was in 1970 that Schuller branched out to start taping his sermons in the first weekly, hourlong nationally televised church service.

“I don’t try to convert people” with the show, Schuller said. “I just say, ‘Join me in following Jesus Christ.’ ”

Pamela Ezell of Los Angeles, whose father attended the Crystal Cathedral and is now buried in the graveyard near the tower, said, “One of the reasons that Schuller is so popular is that he reaches out to the unchurched. A lot of his message is how to be more successful in spite of whatever obstacles life gives you.”

The program’s longevity is surpassed by only three other TV shows: “Face the Nation” (1963), “Meet the Press (1947) and “60 Minutes” (1968).

It has been announced to the Crystal Cathedral congregation that Schuller will hand over the mantle to his son, Robert, when he retires. In the meantime, Schuller will continue to preach.

“The reason I find acceptance and have had the survival I’ve had is that I don’t try to be a teacher,” said Schuller. “I’m not trying to convert people. I’m just a witness for Jesus Christ.”