Robert Schuller Biography

Robert Harold Schuller was born in Alton, Iowa. He was raised on his parents farm nearby, in a small, close-knit community of Dutch Americans. The Schuller family were adherents of the Dutch Reformed Church, the oldest Protestant denomination in North America. Robert knew from the age of four that he wanted to be a minister of the church.

After graduating from the tiny high school of nearby Newkirk, Iowa, he entered Hope College, in Holland, Michigan, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree. While home for the summer he saw his parents home and farm utterly destroyed by a tornado. Eight other farms in the neighborhood were destroyed, but the Schullers' were the only family to rebuild. Robert and his father bought a nearby farmhouse and dismantled it piece by piece, rebuilding it on their own property. At summer's end they were once again at home on the farm, and Robert was ready to return to Michigan to pursue his religious studies at Western Theological Seminary. In 1950 he received his Masters of Divinity.

The young Rev. Schuller married Arvella DeHaan of Newkirk, and the newlyweds moved to Chicago, where the newly ordained minister took up his first assignment, as pastor of the Ivanhoe Reformed Church. During his ministry, the congregation grew from 38 to over 400.

In 1955, Schuller's denomination, the Reformed Church in America, called on him to build a new congregation in Garden Grove, California. With only $500 in assets, the minister found it difficult to find a building for the new congregation. At last, he decided to rent a drive-in movie theater, the Orange Drive-In. On the first Sunday, 100 persons attended services seated in their cars, while Rev. Schuller preached from the tarpaper roof of the snack bar.

Many in the Reformed Church considered this an undignified setting for divine services. but Rev. Schuller loved preaching under the open sky. The Garden Grove congregation grew rapidly. In 1961, Rev. Schuller opened his first permanent church building, the world's first walk-in/drive-in church designed by the distinguished architect Richard Neutra.

In 1968, Dr. Schuller founded New Hope, the world's first live, church-sponsored 24-hour counseling and suicide prevention hotline. Since its inception, it is estimated that over a million people have dialed this hotline and received immediate counseling.

The Robert H. Schuller Institute for Successful Church Leadership opened in 1970. More than 20,000 students from different Christian denominations, Catholic and Protestant, have graduated from the Institute. The same year Dr. Schuller began regular television broadcasts from his church. This program, The Hour of Power, is broadcast on hundreds of stations around the world, and can be seen on 200 stations in the U.S. and Canada alone. An estimated 30 million people watch the broadcast every week.

The Garden Grove congregation continued to grow; when a larger building was needed, Rev. Schuller commissioned the renowned architect Philip Johnson to build a new building, all of glass: the Crystal Cathedral. After almost insurmountable difficulties, this 2,736-seat architectural marvel was dedicated in 1980, "To the Glory of Man for the Greater Glory of God." Today, one million people visit the Cathedral annually, for regular Sunday worship, for conferences, seminars, workshops and for two annual pageants, The Glory of Christmas and The Glory of Easter.

In 1992, Dr. Schuller fulfilled one of his lifelong dreams with the opening of the Fuqua International School of Christian Communications, funded by the generous donation of Mr. J.B. Fuqua, of Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. Schuller serves as Chancellor of the school , where ministers from all over the world hone their preaching skills.

Dr. Schuller is the author of over 30 books, six of which have found a place on the New York Times and Publishers Weekly best-seller lists. Robert and Arvella Schuller have five children, all active in Christian ministry. Dr. Schuller's son Robert A. Schuller is also an ordained minister of the Reformed Church in America.