Just hours after his former church congregation issued a call for prayer for his health, family members of the influential Rev. Robert H. Schuller has announced his death at the age of 88.
(Photo: AP Images / The Orange County Register, Joshua Sudock)
Christian Post Report – Sheila Schuller Coleman and her husband, Jim, left, share applause with congregants at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, Calif., as her father Robert H. Schuller, names her senior pastor over the church he led for 55 years, on Sunday July 11, 2010.
The Associated Press reported via Twitter just at 10:23 a.m. ET that Carol Schuller Milner, Schuller’s daughter, had reported his death.
Schuller’s grandson, who has been leading the church founded by former members of the Crystal Cathedral congregation since 2013, confirmed his passing via Twitter, writing: “My Grandfather Robert H. Schuller passed this morning into eternal life with Christ.”
Schuller, who lost his wife, Arvella Schuller, in Feb. 2014, passed away Thursday at a nursing home in Los Angeles. He had been suffering since 2013 with esophagal cancer, and had not been undergoing chemotherapy or radiation treatment, the Orange County Register reports.
(Photo: HourofPower.org)
A memorial service for Arvella Schuller, who along with her husband, Rev. Robert H. Schuller, was a co-founder of Crystal Cathedral Ministries, was held late Tuesday afternoon. Arvella died last week after a brief illness at the age of 84, [FILE].
The Christian Post reported Wednesday evening that members of Schuller’s former Crystal Cathedral congregation, now going by the name Shepherd’s Grove, had issued a prayer request on its Facebook page due to Schuller’s “swiftly declining” health.
“We at Hour of Power and Shepherd’ Grove are deeply saddened to report that our founding pastor, Dr. Robert H. Schuller’s health is swiftly declining,” read the post. “Please join us in prayer for him and the entire Schuller family during this difficult time. May our most precious Lord and Savior grant them peace and comfort as they gather at his side.”
(Photo: Reuters/Alex Gallardo)
A view of Crystal Cathedral, the glass-walled megachurch in Garden Grove, Calif., is seen this Aug. 10, 2011 photo.
Schuller and his wife, Arvella, founded the Crystal Cathedral church in Garden Grove, Orange County, California, in 1951, with the reverend starting his ministry outreach by preaching at a drive-in movie theater.
In 1970, Schuller started the massively popular and influential “Hour of Power” religious program, which still airs today and is helmed by his grandson, Bobby.
Ten years later, the pastor officially started services in his new Crystal Cathedral, an expansive glass and steel sanctuary with at least 10,000 windows and, by that point, home to just as many members.
Things took a turn for the worse for Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral Ministries, however, when the church found itself deep in debt by 2010. The ministry filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, owing more than $7 million to creditors.
Crystal Cathedral was eventually sold to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange for $57.5 million, and was renamed the Christ Cathedral in 2012.
By that time, relations among the leading Schuller clan had broken down, with the elder Shculler and his wife, Arvella, quitting Crystal Cathedral Ministries and filing a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the ministry for copyright infringement. The couple was awarded less than a million dollars, and their appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court denied.
The original Crystal Cathedral congregation also splintered off into at least two groups, one called Hope Center of Christ led by Sheila Schuller Coleman, former pastor and CEO and president of the ministry, and the other, Shepherd’s Grove, led by the elder Schuller’s grandson, Bobby.
The Rev. Robert H. Schuller and his wife are survived by their children, Robert A. Schuller, who had also briefly led Crystal Cathedral church, Sheila, Jeanne, Carol and Gretchen.
Source : Christian Post