Joel Osteen
Periodically, throughout the annals of ecclesiastical history here in the United States of America, dynamic new figures have arisen upon the religious scene with dizzying and astronomical success.
However, it is very doubtful that any one singular individual has risen to such fame, fortune and numerical church growth success as that of the dynamic young televangelist Joel Osteen, Senior Pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston Texas, an Evangelical Christian congregation that now draws over 42,000 people to their weekly services that now meet in a massive renovated building that called the Houston Spectrum, former home of the two time world champion Houston Rockets NBA Basketball team.
Pastor Joel Osteen (Osteen, not Olsteen as I mistakenly mispelled his name in my last post), was born on March 5, 1963 to Pastor John and Dodie Osteen. Joel’s father John Osteen was a former Southern Baptist Pastor who became a Charismatic in the late 1950’s and started Lakewood Church in the Houston Texas area in 1959.
Joel grew up around a very successful and growing Charismatic congregation that numbered in the thousands before his father John died in October 1999. Before his father’s passing, Joel Osteen attended Oral Roberts University in Oklahoma for only one semester, before he returned home to Lakewood Church in order to produce his father’s successful television show.
Outside of his one semester at Oral Roberts University, Joel Osteen received no further ministerial and theological education and worked on the production aspect of his father’s television show for 17 years and ironically, did not preach his first sermon until a week before his father’s death during the Fall of 1999.
Since taking over the helm of leadership at Lakewood Church, the growth of the church has been nothing less than absolutely phenomenal as the church now numbers over 42, 000 professing Christians and his television show is now seen in over 100 nations around the world.
Joel Osteen is also an accomplished and highly popular author, whose first book, "Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential", was released in October 2004. Soon after publication, it was ranked at the top of the New York Times Bestseller's list and remains a best seller across the country.
Joel’s dynamic new book, “Become a Better You” will be released this October and is already a much anticipated read for many Christians around the country.
Joel Osteen was named by Barbra Walters as one of 2006’ “Ten Most Fascinating People”
Osteen is clearly a very telegenic and dynamic person who has become one of America’s most recognizable Evangelical leaders almost over night. The story of how a pastor’s son with no preaching experience prior to his installation as Senior Pastor at Lakewood Church in Houston Texas is incredible.
However, it is very doubtful that any one singular individual has risen to such fame, fortune and numerical church growth success as that of the dynamic young televangelist Joel Osteen, Senior Pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston Texas, an Evangelical Christian congregation that now draws over 42,000 people to their weekly services that now meet in a massive renovated building that called the Houston Spectrum, former home of the two time world champion Houston Rockets NBA Basketball team.
Pastor Joel Osteen (Osteen, not Olsteen as I mistakenly mispelled his name in my last post), was born on March 5, 1963 to Pastor John and Dodie Osteen. Joel’s father John Osteen was a former Southern Baptist Pastor who became a Charismatic in the late 1950’s and started Lakewood Church in the Houston Texas area in 1959.
Joel grew up around a very successful and growing Charismatic congregation that numbered in the thousands before his father John died in October 1999. Before his father’s passing, Joel Osteen attended Oral Roberts University in Oklahoma for only one semester, before he returned home to Lakewood Church in order to produce his father’s successful television show.
Outside of his one semester at Oral Roberts University, Joel Osteen received no further ministerial and theological education and worked on the production aspect of his father’s television show for 17 years and ironically, did not preach his first sermon until a week before his father’s death during the Fall of 1999.
Since taking over the helm of leadership at Lakewood Church, the growth of the church has been nothing less than absolutely phenomenal as the church now numbers over 42, 000 professing Christians and his television show is now seen in over 100 nations around the world.
Joel Osteen is also an accomplished and highly popular author, whose first book, "Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential", was released in October 2004. Soon after publication, it was ranked at the top of the New York Times Bestseller's list and remains a best seller across the country.
Joel’s dynamic new book, “Become a Better You” will be released this October and is already a much anticipated read for many Christians around the country.
Joel Osteen was named by Barbra Walters as one of 2006’ “Ten Most Fascinating People”
Osteen is clearly a very telegenic and dynamic person who has become one of America’s most recognizable Evangelical leaders almost over night. The story of how a pastor’s son with no preaching experience prior to his installation as Senior Pastor at Lakewood Church in Houston Texas is incredible.
However, many have called Joel Osteen's theology unbiblical with similarities with that of the prosperity teachers in the Word of Faith Movement? Is this true? Is Joel Osteen peddling the Prosperity Gospel? Is he an orthodox Evangelical Pastor, teaching and preaching God's Word in accordance with historic Evangelicalism or is he teaching another Gospel?
Many Evangelical apologists and scholars are increasingly becoming wary of the prosperity and pop psychology teaching emphasized in much of Joel Osteen's preaching, and while he is a very likable guy, many Evangelical apologists are seriously calling into question the very message that has taken Mr. Osteen to great fame and fortune at a level almost unseen in the history of American religious life and culture.
However, what is Joel Osteen really teaching? Is his message Biblical? Or, are his growing critics wrong in their understanding of Osteen's teaching.
Log on here tomorrow for a theological critique of Joel Osteen's popular message that is winning millions of disciples around the world in an essay I have entitled, "A Biblical Evaluation of the Theology and Preaching of Pastor Joel Osteen"
