Over thirty years ago, Billy Graham invited a number of key ministers from around the world to an evangelism conference in Germany. It was during that conference that Dr. Schuller first heard a speaker that he would never forget - Dr. Juan Carlos Ortiz.

Juan Carlos began his career as pastor and evangelist at the surprising age of sixteen in Argentina. His dynamic and vibrant messages were so effective that a seminary granted him a special exemption and accepted this underage student with God’s fingerprint on his life into their school. By age twenty-three, Juan Carlos was preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ at crusades throughout Argentina and, today, many of South America’s largest churches credit their spiritual roots to Juan Carlos.

At age twenty-six, Juan Carlos married Martha Palau (evangelist Luis Palau’s sister) and became the senior pastor of the largest evangelical church in Buenos Aires. Juan Carlos’ ministry expanded greatly as he ministered at conventions, religious congresses, universities, seminaries, and churches across five continents.

In1990, sixteen years after they first met, Dr. Schuller asked Juan Carlos to pastor Crystal Cathedral’s newly forming Hispanic Ministry, which started with twelve people and quickly grew to five hundred, then to over 2,000 people. At the height of this church growth, Juan Carlos was diagnosed with less than a twenty percent chance of survival due to a malignant form of cancer that was spreading rapidly. After leaving his position at the Crystal Cathedral due to his illness, Juan Carlos experienced a healing miracle. He has recently returned to the ministry as the Crystal Cathedral’s interim Senior Pastor and as a speaking pastor for “America’s Television Church,” the Hour of Power.