Crystal Cathedral Title Change Will Enhance Support, Schuller Says

The Rev. Robert H. Schuller told a congregational meeting of nearly 1,000 members Tuesday night that title to the $20-million Crystal Cathedral is being shifted primarily to enhance financial support.

Church officials and members who attended the meeting said the congregation voted unanimously Tuesday night to approve the property transfer from the congregation to Robert Schuller Ministries, the organization that produces the “Hour of Power” television broadcast.

Barred From Board

Before the vote, the Garden Grove evangelist explained that under the rules of the Reform Church of America, the denomination with which the Crystal Cathedral is affiliated, only members of the local congregation can serve on the governing board. Since most of the financial support to build the structure came from supporters of the television show--from around the country and around the world--those people were effectively barred from the governing board. That same constituency outside the congregation would also be called upon to help maintain the facility in the future, so the change in title was necessary, Schuller said.

Schuller also announced that Victor Andrews, an Orange County businessman, has been appointed to the newly created post of chief executive officer of both the Crystal Cathedral Congregation and Robert Schuller Ministries, church officials said.

Andrews told the meeting, which was closed to the press, “there is complete integrity and accountability with both these ministries,” according to Schuller spokesman Michael Nason.

Symbol of Unity

Andrews’ appointment, according to Congregation President Herman J. Ridder, is “a symbol of the two ministries coming closer together.”

There were about a dozen questions from the floor, which Nason characterized as “quite routine.”

A motion to affirm the title transfer was passed unanimously, Nason said.

Andrews read to the congregation a letter to Schuller from Mark A. Rozelle, head of the California Classis, or western regional governing board of the Reform Church.

At a meeting of that body’s executive committee, Rozelle wrote, “we came out strongly in support of you (Schuller) and without any criticism. . . . We have absolutely no desire to assert ourselves over the Robert Schuller Ministries.” Tuesday night’s meeting lasted an hour and a half, which those in attendance described as upbeat.

“Dr. Schuller, I think, adequately explained why the actions were taken to secure these (church) properties so they wouldn’t be sold to pay any debts that would be incurred through the church program,” said Dallas Anderson of Westminster, who is also the church sculptor.

David Laver, a 17-year-old Katella High School student said, “A lot of questions were asked that needed to be answered.” Concerning the transfer of property from a church to Schuller’s TV ministries, he said, “Pretty much everybody believed it was best for the church.”

‘Not Looking for Today’

John Simpson, a church tour guide and his wife Betty, who works in the church library, said they believed that the new arrangement will be best in the long run. “We are not looking for today, but 50 to 100 years from today.”

The original announcement of the meeting in an April 27 letter from Schuller said it would give Crystal Cathedral officials an opportunity to describe newly drafted architectural plans for a proposed family life center and chapel on the Garden Grove church grounds.

A subsequent letter written to church members by Ridder said church officials at the meeting also would answer “several questions of significance” that have arisen in the wake of newspaper reports about recent church actions.

Ridder’s May 7 letter was accompanied by a memorandum that said the Crystal Cathedral Congregation, which claims 10,000 members, has never been able to shoulder the entire cost of supporting Crystal Cathedral.

When the huge glass sanctuary was built six years ago, Ridder wrote, the congregation was able to contribute only $3 million toward the $20-million project. “The rest of the $17 million was contributed under the aegis of the National Board of the Robert Schuller Ministries”--the same organization that will receive title to the church buildings. Ridder also said Schuller Ministries has “subsidized a collective amount of over $6 million toward the maintenance of the gardens and grounds since the cathedral was opened.”

Schuller previously said the transfer of property from control of the congregation to the “trusteeship” of Schuller Ministries was intended as an attempt at “safeguarding and securing the beautiful church property.”

Limit to Financial Ability

“With only 10,000 members there is a limit to the financial ability of this membership to sustain both program and mission let alone the additional burden of maintaining the enlarged gardens, grounds and structures,” Ridder said in the memorandum.

He said that while the church board is elected from members of the local congregation exclusively, the television ministry’s separate board is international in nature and represents “a virtually unlimited base of potential financial resources.”

Schuller previously said the transfer of property puts the cathedral under the “umbrella” of Schuller Ministries, which has formed an endowment committee to raise funds “to guarantee the future security” of the cathedral and other ministries properties.

“The CC (Crystal Cathedral) congregation will always have use of the property, which is guaranteed by a 99-year lease renewable in perpetuity,” Schuller said.

Ridder added in his memorandum that “in order to protect the congregation” legal provisions have been made for ownership of all church properties “to revert to the congregation in the event that the Robert Schuller Ministries should, for whatever reason, no longer be in existance.”