This is what I found (I didn't know that they were both married before):
Separate Callings
Concerns about the couple have accelerated as the Whites pursue their separate callings. They spend less and less time at their church. In fact, for some weeks at a stretch, they aren’t in the same city.
They acknowledge rumors have been flying for a long time about their relationship. Randy said the two are best friends and will always remain so.
Asked whether they’re contemplating divorce, he said, “No one can predict the future.”
If they’ve appeared distracted lately, they said, it’s because they are focused on a serious, personal crisis.
In December, Randy’s 29-year-old daughter, Kristen Hernando, a mother of two, was diagnosed with an advanced brain tumor.
Dealing with her treatment and recovery has put “tremendous pressure” on the couple. So much that Randy told his congregation during the church’s Sun Dome Easter service that he has gotten rid of his e-mail and changed his cell number.
“The best way to reach me now is to see my secretary,” he told the packed arena, “and she’ll give you to somebody else.”
He appointed his wife as senior pastor, putting her in charge of the congregation, so he could take time to “collect my thoughts, to process and spend time with my daughter.”
He’s also spending time in Malibu, where, he has said, he plans to start another church. In April, he told congregants that the church he was in negotiations with once had 6,000 members including “people like Mel Gibson and Pamela Anderson and [singer] Kid Rock.”
But a spokeswoman for Malibu Christian Fellowship, formerly Malibu Vineyard, said the talks have ended.
“His vision is not our vision,” associate pastor Dorothy Burton said of Randy. “We’re not selling.”
No matter, Randy said when told of that comment, there are at least three other churches he’s looking at. At least “300 people have contacted me, wanting to start a ministry in that area,” he said.
While her husband commutes to California, Paula is also on the go, a sought-after speaker at Christian programs, women’s retreats and success seminars. She just launched a health and fitness program, “10 Commandments of Health and Wellness,” and in July, she’ll launch her “Life by Design” workshops across the street from Madison Square Garden. Her companion book, “You’re All That: Discovering God’s Design on Your Life,” comes out in October.
They understand some question their union, the second for both. Randy said he knows people talk when he is seen around town with attractive women, including his two grown daughters. Likewise, Paula acknowledges there have been rumors romantically linking her and some of her associates.
Still, the couple said they believe firmly in the sanctity of marriage and have been true to their marital vows for 18 years.
“We do what we’ve always done - a ministry of evangelism and restoration,” Paula said. But “when you get a call saying your 29-year-old daughter is going to die within a year and she doesn’t know it or understand, … that’s the bottom line. Has that put pressure on us? Oh, yes.”
“She’s my pride and joy,” Randy said of Paula. “To know that she came from a trailer and to now see her on CNN, and see her preach to 60,000 … and to know I was part of it, that’s better than anything I’ve done my entire life.”
‘Change Is Good’
At a meeting in January of a training program for aspiring pastors, Randy told his students, “There’s some transition that’s gone on, but that’s OK. Change is good. Tap your neighbor on the shoulder and say change is good.”
In chorus, they repeated: “Change is good.”
At one point during the meeting, when some of the students bristled at his seemingly impious ways, Randy quipped: “You all can’t hang; you are all too religious for me. That’s why I need to go to Malibu, to get away.”
Randy recently dismissed any suggestion that morale at the church is suffering. Staff cuts he said were recommended by efficiency consultants may have been premature.
Things are going so well, Randy said, “We’re looking at adding additional staff members. People are happy. The sheep are happy.”
List, the evangelist who helped the Whites’ ministry in its early years, hopes it stays that way.
List was in Tampa a few weeks ago but never connected with the Whites.
“I talked to them a few years back, but they’re real hard to get a hold of these days,” he said.
He has heard about their ministry’s vast reach, the multimillion-dollar revenue and the couple’s personal accumulated wealth.
List is not saying people shouldn’t have those things. But he has seen what happens when people come from nothing, hit the big time, then get overcome with making more. For 27 years, he and his wife have lived in the 2,100-square-foot house where they raised their four children.
All this talk of financial security and gaining bountiful riches isn’t how Jesus lived, List said.
“Never forget where you came from,” he said. “That’s the teaching that’s not emphasized enough.”
“They’ve built an empire and used it to gain their own
financial wealth.”
healtheland.wordpress.com/2007/06/12/paula-and-randy-white-a-brief-history-of-their-ministry/
While reading up on the Juanita/Weeks incident, on another site, a poster who attends Without Walls Church in FL www.withoutwalls.org/
