JESUS CHRIST'S CHURCH:

JOEL OSTEEN, PASTOR

Author of

Your Best Life Now!

CHURCH LIVE MUSIC =>

JOEL OSTEEN AND THE CHURCH BELIEVES....

"Joel's book is inspiration to everyone who dares to dream." -Mark Stentson, Los Angeles Times

Hope and Joel Osteen's Faith In God

Do you often dream of living a more rewarding life? Do you aspire to obtain a better job, a stronger marriage, a happier home? Do you wish for more gratifying relationships with your family and friends? Perhaps you simply want to accomplish more and leave a lasting legacy for future generations.

If you are like most people, you have written these goals and dreams on a list that's titled "Tomorrow's To Do." You can't pursue what's truly important to you because your day is crowded by the demands of mundane routines and other people's priorities.

How do you break out and experience the full potential that God intended you to have?

The answer lies in a simple, yet profound process to change the way you think about your life and help you accomplish what's truly important.

In this straightforward guide, Joel Osteen gives you seven simple, insightful steps to improve your life for good, and help you experience victory, joy and satisfaction everyday!

Your Best Life Now

This inspiring #1 New York Times Bestseller will put you on a journey to a brighter future. Your new beginning starts with these seven steps:

One - Enlarge Your Vision
Two - Develop a Healthy Self-Image
Three - Discover the Power of Your Thoughts and Words
Four - Let Go of the Past
Five - Find Strength Through Adversity
Six - Live to Give
Seven - Choose to be Happy

In this remarkable book, Joel Osteen offers you unique insights and encouragement that will help you overcome every obstacle you may encounter.

Your life has a divine purpose and destiny. As you put the principles found in these pages to work, you will begin living "Your Best Life Now!"

Joel Osteen is the Senior Pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas. Listed by several sources as America's largest and fastest-growing congregation, it has approximately thirty thousand attendees every week. Millions more watch Joel's messages as they are broadcast on national and international television networks. He resides in Houston with his wife, Victoria and their children.

"Joel has the unique ability to communicate the most complex spiritual principles in simple everyday language. He will motivate and inspire you to live a life of excellence and to fulfill your God given destiny."  -Rudy Tomjanovich, NBA Coach, Los Angeles Lakers

Your Best Life Now

How do you break out of the ordinary and experience the full potential that God intended for you to live? The answer lies in a simple yet profound process to change the way you think about your life. In this straight forward guide, Joel gives steps that will improve your life for good and help you experience victory, joy and satisfaction every day! Now available in these audio formats.
$14.95

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO IMPROVE YOUR LIFE ? YOU OWE IT TO YOURSELF.

SERVICE SCHEDULE:

MAP:

UPCOMING EVENTS:

Saturday Evening
6:00pm Compass
7:00pm Service

Sunday Morning
8:30am Service
10:00am Compass

11:00am Service
12:15pm Compass

Servicio en Español
1:30pm Service

Wednesday Evening
7:30pm Service

And on the EIGHTH Day, God Created Joel Osteen

Prime Minister
JOEL OSTEEN’S Houston gigachurch has a congregation of more than 30,000. His television show is the highest-rated religious broadcast in the country. His first book has already sold nearly three million copies. How did the former TV producer become the world’s most talked about “pastorpreneur”? He is who he says he is. He has what he says he has. He can do what he says he can do.

Joel Osteen and His Work

FOR MOST PREACHERS, MONDAY IS A DAY OF REST. FOR JOEL Osteen, the 42-year-old pastor of Houston’s mammoth church and the face of the world’s most popular religious television program, Mondays have become devoted to meeting his public. On one particular Monday in mid-December, his first book, Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential, had just hit the top spot on the New York Times’ “Advice, How-To and Miscellaneous” best-seller list. To show its appreciation, the book’s publisher, Warner Faith, had provided Joel with a private jet and liveried town cars to ease the burden of a book-signing trip that included events in Arkansas and Tennessee on the same day.

With all the growth that occurred as a result of its marketing efforts, the only plausible way for the church to expand even further was to find more space. When Joel learned in 2001 that the Houston City Council was going to be leasing out the Compaq Center, he and his associates put together a proposal and hired Dave Walden, who had served former mayor Bob Lanier as a top aide, to lobby the council on their behalf. Their only competitor was Crescent Real Estate Equities, which owned nearby Greenway Plaza and wanted to tear the building down to make way for additions to that complex. A lively struggle ensued. Crescent argued that the space should be put to more varied use and that giving a religious organization exclusive access to a city-owned facility violated the separation of church and state.

ACQUIRING THE COMPAQ CENTER

The church forces pointed out that the city had rented the Compaq Center and other facilities to religious organizations over the years and promised to spend tens of millions of dollars on improvements. They also bombarded council members with a phenomenal number of calls, letters, and e-mails asking for their support. Ultimately, the church prevailed, agreeing to pay $12.1 million for thirty years, with a $22.6 million option for a second thirty years. Even though their new facility will hold more than twice as many people as the old one, the current plan is to drop only the one o’clock Sunday service, with the option to resume it if the remaining three English-speaking services grow too crowded.

What Joel Osteen Looks Like

At the first stop, a Wal-Mart Supercenter in Little Rock, a few hundred adoring admirers were already lined up as Joel and his wife, Victoria, made their way to the store’s book section. Some fans applauded them ecstatically or squealed with delight; others handed them flowers or reached out to touch them, tears of joy streaming down their faces. One woman said to her husband, a tinge of disappointment in her voice, “I thought he was taller. He’s no bigger than you are.”

In fact, Joel is not a particularly imposing figure. A trim five nine, he looks and stays in good shape by running, lifting weights, and playing basketball at the YMCA. On television or before any sizable gathering, he wears a conservative dark suit and an attractive but not flashy tie, with thick black hair moussed and curling down his neck past his collar line his only nod to youthful fashion. He is not classically handsome, but his face is instantly appealing, both because of the lively energy in his intense blue eyes and a smile that never seems forced and is seldom missing; he is often referred to as the Smiling Preacher.
 

What Joel Osteen Does..

As Joel sat down, the church executive director Duncan Dodds announced that the pastor would not have time to listen to testimonies or to personalize his inscriptions. But these restrictions detracted little from the excitement. A large woman laughed and jumped up and down while taking pictures of friends having their books signed. Another woman clutched her autographed book to her breast and said through rapturous tears, “I’m signed. I’m blessed. It’s all good!” Many were content simply to let Joel know that they were his greatest admirers, but some used their precious seconds to attempt a more personal connection: “I been keeping up with you since you first started.” “You saved my husband’s life.” “Shake my baby’s hand. He needs the anointing.” “This is Bailey Ann. She claps when she watches you.” One man handed his cell phone to Joel and asked him to say “Hi, Jamie” to his wife. (“She started a new job today and couldn’t come.”) Joel happily obliged. A young minister who identified himself as Chopper handed the pastor a DVD of his sermons, noting that he often used Joel’s. (Among preachers, plagiarism has long been considered more homage than offense.)

CHURCH GROWTH AT THIS CHURCH

In the meantime, the church’s staff is considering other ways of growing beyond Houston by establishing satellite churches that would have a local pastoral and teaching staff, with the worship and preaching service beamed in directly from Houston. “I can’t speak for the pastor,” said Dodds, “but I can see us having [Lakewood] Philadelphia, Atlanta, Detroit, and having Joel preach the message every week. I think we could have churches of four thousand to six thousand [in other cities]. I see the potential there from the marketing side. I see the opportunity to expand this ministry and almost franchise it in that way. I think we will get there.”

JOEL AND OTHER PASTORS COMPARED

AS DIFFERENT AS THEY AND THEIR ERAS MAY HAVE BEEN, the great popular preachers with an enduring legacy in American religious history—Charles Finney in the 1830’s, D. L. Moody in the 1870’s, Billy Sunday in the World War I era, Billy Graham in our lifetime—have shared three characteristics: a good organization, a distinctive and appealing personality, and an easily grasped message aimed at a mass audience. Joel’s organization has clearly met the competence test, and even his detractors concede that he is an enormously charismatic young man with no apparent dark side or hidden agenda. Still, detractors aplenty exist, and the criticisms they raise pertain directly to Joel’s message, which is variously characterized as a barely baptized version of the secular doctrine of Positive Thinking or a damnable heresy that legitimizes materialism and endangers the souls of those who embrace it.

At nearly every service, Joel first greets both the television audience (“It’s always a joy to come into your homes. We love each and every one of you, and we know that God has good things in store for you”) and the live audience (“You guys are looking good”) and then begins by reading a joke: “A man came into the church office…” “A Christian lady on an airplane was reading her Bible…”

JOEL OSTEEN'S SERMONS

The topic of Joel’s sermon was “The Dangers of Procrastination,” and he opened by identifying procrastination as “one of the greatest enemies we will ever face.” He then listed the kinds of things even well-meaning people put off: cleaning the kitchen, straightening up the garage, paying the bills, cutting back on spending (“Listen carefully, Victoria”), losing weight and getting in shape, giving up smoking, practicing good preventive medicine (“Ladies, you know how important it is to have that regular checkup”). He admitted that he suffered the same temptations, which come to us from “the Enemy” (formerly known as Satan), but always felt much better when he did what he knew he should do, which was most of the time now. As in many of his sermons, he urged people to pay attention to their conscience, with gestures that indicated that it was located just below the rib cage

.

VICTORIA OSTEEN

A few aisles down, past an area where a young woman from Warner Faith stayed busy opening box after box of Joel’s book, Victoria held court with a smaller but no less enthusiastic crowd. A tall blond woman blessed with a beauty queen’s features and smile, she wears clothes well. On this day, the vaguely dominatrix look of her high-heeled black boots, black mock turtleneck sweater, and long black leather coat with silver buttons down the front was erased by the warm friendliness she showered on her adorers: “Hi, sweetheart. How are you, darling?” “It’s so good to meet you. You look so pretty.” “You watch every week? Oh, that’s wonderful!” “Bless your heart.” “We love you too.”

It’s an audacious claim, especially when you consider that just six years ago Joel Osteen was largely unknown—probably even to most members of the church , whose beloved founder and guiding spirit was his father, John Osteen. And even among those who did know Joel, it is difficult to find anyone who imagined that the mantle would fall to him when his father died, in 1999. At the time, Joel was a college dropout who ran the church’s television ministry and hadn’t preached a single sermon.

Yet within a few years, he’s positioned himself as one of the country’s premier “pastorpreneurs,” a term often used to describe the leaders behind America’s rapidly expanding megachurches. Preaching a consistently upbeat, can-do message that some detractors refer to as “Christianity Lite”—references to biblical passages are few, and he rarely takes a stand on controversial political issues—he’s attracted one of the largest and most diverse flocks this side of the Vatican. Under his stewardship, the church has grown from an impressive 6,000 congregants to more than 30,000.

His personal-appearance events are packing arenas in major cities around the country, including Madison Square Garden, in New York, where an extra night had to be scheduled to keep up with demand, and the American Airlines Center, in Dallas, where scalped tickets fetched as much as $100. His television show, Joel Osteen, is now broadcast in more than 150 countries. And in mid-July, the church moved into the former home of the Houston Rockets, the 16,000-seat Compaq Center, where he and his staff expect their congregation to swell before long to 50,000. In less than a decade, Joel Osteen has outgrown nearly everything he inherited.

FAITH AND JOEL OSTEEN

Specifically, they charge him with being a Word of Faith preacher. Faith healers often espouse this teaching because it provides a convenient explanation for failures; the supplicant lacks the faith to “name it and claim it.” (In the process, it also gives healers an inflated rate of apparent success, as people claim cures they have not yet experienced, lest doubt thwart God’s willingness to heal them.) Word of Faith advocates also urge people to claim material blessings, including new cars, new houses, and financial windfalls. Some, including a few who have preached at the church, go even further.

One night in late 1981 I heard television preacher Kenneth Copeland, host of the Believer’s Voice of Victory program, tell a Lakewood audience about a farmer whose cotton was withering and dropping to the ground like little brown marbles. When the farmer took his preacher into the field to read some scriptures promising rewards to the righteous, Copeland claimed that they began to hear sounds like popcorn popping, and as they looked about them, they saw the field filling with large, fluffy bolls.

WHAT JOEL OSTEEN PREACHES

One can understand why some critics place Joel in the Word of Faith camp when he says such things as “You can change your world by simply changing your words” and “When you make declarations of faith, you are charging the atmosphere, and your own words can help to bring it to pass.” Joel does not disown such statements nor categorically reject the teachings in question, but he softens them considerably. “I never knew it was such a bad thing to be a Word of Faith preacher,” he said, “but I never preach that whatever you say, you can get —‘I want five Cadillacs.’ ‘I’m going to be the president of this company.’ I never believed that kind of stuff.” When I mentioned what Copeland had said about the magical cotton bolls, he said, “I like Brother Copeland, but I don’t believe that. That’s just not me. I encourage people to say what God says about you, to say, ‘I am strong in the power of the Lord. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.’”

Joel illustrated his points with simple stories of people he had known or read about, and occasionally he cited a scripture whose words seemed to fit, whether or not the author had that application in mind. As if he had an endorsement deal with Nike, he repeatedly recommended that instead of putting off those things that were nagging at our conscience, we should “just do it!”

JOEL OSTEEN'S POSITIVE ATTITUDE

Quit letting others steal our joy, quit complaining about what we don’t have and start thanking God for what we do have, and stop putting off our happiness and start enjoying life, God would pick up any remaining slack and help us discover the champion in ourselves and, repeating two key church slogans, be more than conquerors, vic tors and not vic tims. “He will pour out his blessings and favor so you can experience the abundant life that he has in store for you. Amen. How many of you receive it today? I know you do. Amen.”

Joel signed another 750 books, bringing the total for the day to nearly 2,000, all without the slightest sign of fatigue or boredom. The day before, he had preached to 30,000 people packed into 4 ninety-minute high-octane services and had now gone full tilt on one stage or another since daybreak. Minutes after we got into the air, bound for Houston, Joel pulled his tray out before him, laid his head directly on it, without a pillow, and slept soundly until we made the approach for our landing.

Book signing at the Barnes and Noble in Jack London Square, Oakland

We need to get away from the dollar sign on prosperity. In my next book, I’m going to be clearer about that. I believe God wants us to be blessed, but it’s only so that we can be a blessing. I think God blessed me by writing this book and giving me a lot of money, but it’s not so I can go buy thirteen cars or a bunch of other stuff. After the book started selling a couple hundred thousand copies, I called a friend on staff and asked, ‘Do I get paid [more] for that?’ They gave me some [advance] money. I thought I’d already been paid for it. I didn’t know. He said, ‘Yeah, you get a royalty.’ I said, ‘Have you figured that out?!’ I had never in a million years thought about doing it for the money, but I thought, ‘You know what? That’s great. I never dreamed that I could be one of the biggest givers in our church, and now I can. I can underwrite a whole wing of this thing.’ I don’t see us changing our lifestyle. It’s so I can help more people’s lives. We are stewards of God’s money.”

JESUS AND SALVATION

The service ended with Joel’s inviting people to accept the free gift of God’s salvation and get on the road to victory. Dozens of people streamed down the aisles, accompanied by sustained applause from those who were not already heading for the exits in an effort to avoid the traffic jam. An hour later I watched the 10:45 service from the television control room. It was virtually identical, right down to the teasing reference to Victoria’s penchant for shopping and her surprised reaction—caught both times on the monitors for the congregation to see but not included in the telecast that aired two weeks later.

NOT EVERYONE WAS INITIALLY ENTHUSIASTIC about Joel’s becoming the pastor at the church. To some observers, the choice appeared to be rooted in a determination to keep control of the church within the Osteen family. How could a shy young man with hardly any experience as a preacher be up to the task of shepherding one of the largest flocks in America? Among those said to be disappointed was Gary Simons, who is married to April Osteen and was already prominent in the church as a youth pastor and praise-and-worship leader. Simons subsequently left to establish the High Point Church, in Arlington, modeled along the church lines. Another plausible choice was Jim Graff, who is married to the third Osteen daughter, Tamara, and who was the pastor of a church in Victoria. Joel, however, believes he was more ready than people gave him credit for. “I grew up [in my father’s] church,” he said, “and I worked with him for seventeen years. That was an education. I kid about being the least likely to take the church, but in one sense, this is all I have ever known. I know how a church works. I just hadn’t spoken.”

JOEL OSTEEN'S WORK

Any residual skepticism about Joel was shattered when attendance at the Sunday morning service began immediately increasing. In fact, the church soon ran out of room, so Joel enlarged the field of his dreams, convinced that “if we hold another service, they will come.” When they added a second service in January 2000, attendance doubled. Nine months later, a Saturday night service drew 5,000 more. Not long afterward, a one o’clock service on Sunday filled the building once again, and a Spanish-language Sunday afternoon service, led by Latin Grammy award—winning recording artist and preacher Marcos Witt, drew an additional 3,000 worshipers, bringing the average weekly total to 30,000.

Not long after arriving at Hibbard Memorial, in 1958, John experienced and began to recommend to others what Pentecostal and charismatic Christians call the “baptism of the Holy Spirit,” which typically involves speaking in tongues and openness to other “gifts of the Spirit,” such as the ability to heal, perform exorcisms, and experience visions. Rather than face a showdown with his Baptist brethren, who preferred to keep a tighter rein on the Holy Spirit, John withdrew from their fellowship and, in 1959, founded the church in an abandoned feed store in a predominantly black neighborhood on Houston’s northeast side.

It was an unimpressive little place, not obviously different from the many churches one sees in such neighborhoods or along highways of Texas and throughout the South, where a small group of believers and a zealous preacher have erected an outpost of faith in the hope of winning their slice of the world for Christ. From the start, however, the church had a great spirit. Nondenominational and inclusive, it welcomed all colors and conditions to what Pastor John referred to as an “oasis of love in a troubled world.”

More About John Osteen

“Daddy would often just teach the Bible,” Joel said. “I take a little different approach. I may give a whole sermon and give the scripture at the end—‘This is what Jesus meant when he said this, that, and the other.’ I know doctrine is good. We need doctrine, but I think the average person is not looking for doctrine. They are looking to ask, ‘How do I let go of the past?’ ‘How do I have a better marriage?’ ‘What is wrong with me?’ If you want to reach the culture, you need to speak in their terms. When Jesus was here on this earth, he did such practical stuff. He taught using simple examples like the parable of the prodigal son; everybody can relate to that. I tell a lot of stories in my sermons. Most of what I preach is about the simple things.”

I WRITE MY SERMONS AND PRAY

Jesus indeed told stories, but he also issued some scathing condemnation of sinners, particularly the arrogant, the self-righteous, the corrupt, and those who trust in riches. Joel’s sermons are notably free of condemnation. “The Bible says it is the goodness of God that leads us to repentance,” he said. “When I talk about sin, I may call it ‘making bad choices.’ People get so used to being beat over the head. I don’t come from that side. I come from the encouraging side. It seems like it resonates with people that God is for them. I feel like I’m doing what God calls me to do. I don’t have any agenda to say I’m not going to preach about sin. I write my sermons and pray, and this is what comes out of me.”

SUCCESS COMES FROM GOD

Joel’s youth and energy certainly played a part in his sudden popularity, but another key to his success was his early recognition that he needed competent help. Within a month of becoming pastor he hired Duncan Dodds, who had overseen media for Houston’s giant Second Baptist Church before establishing a successful marketing and advertising business, to come to the church to help implement his ambitious vision for the church’s television outreach. As executive director, Dodds coordinates media buying and handles the contracts with TV networks and individual stations.

Media relations is handled by Don Iloff, Victoria’s brother, who performs his duties on a volunteer basis, though he is connected to the church in his capacity as president and general manager of the church-controlled KTBU-TV55. Joining Joel and Dodds on the executive team is Lisa’s husband, Kevin Comes, who is in charge of administration, including accounting and other business, and has been charged with heading up the transformation of the Compaq Center into a place of worship.
 

Although the Osteens seemed slightly amused when I characterized the church as a family-owned business, they did not protest. “Yes, the family is in charge,” Lisa agreed. “The board is all family members. Joel decides what he feels like the Lord wants him to do, but we work with attorneys. We call other ministries. We get as much counsel as we can. We have a great accountability to the Lord and to the people and we feel that. We hold ourselves to a high standard.”

None of them saw this arrangement as a cause for concern. “The beauty of our organization,” Paul observed, “is that we don’t have to pass things by a thousand boards or a bunch of people with different opinions. If we want to add an extra service next week, we can do it. There’s a real beauty about the way we work together. We know our parts. It sounds a lot like the body of Christ.”

MARCOS WITT

Marcos Witt  is the Spanish pastor at the church and does the Spanish service on Sunday afternoons. He also does most of the Wednesday night services, which are English services. Marcos is normally the man that does the Church Services on Saturdays and Sundays when Pastor Joel is out of town. He is also an amazing singer that has quite a few Spanish and English Christian cd's for sale.

KEEPING THE MESSAGE OF GOD...

PERHAPS IN AN EFFORT TO MAINTAIN HIS UPLIFTING MESSAGE, Joel has avoided speaking out on today’s red state, blue state issues, such as abortion and homosexuality. “I feel there are other issues I am called to more than those,” he explained. “I don’t know the answers, even on abortion. Somebody asked me what I think of stem cell research. I had to say I don’t know. I’ve heard people talk about it both ways. I don’t think a homosexual lifestyle is God’s best way, but I’m not going to tell [homosexuals] they can’t come to our church. I’m going to be wide open for them.”

In the same spirit, he has resisted recruitment into the ranks of the religious right. Iloff, who worked for a time in the White House during the senior Bush administration, admitted that he was tempted at one time to try to get Joel to be more political. “I guess God dealt with me on that, because I realized, as Joel did from the very beginning, that [politics] could be very polarizing. It could shut the door on his ability to plant the seed of God’s message in people’s hearts.” Politicians are often eager to court his constituency, yet as a general rule, an officeholder who attends Joel’s service will be recognized but not asked to speak. And candidates in a current race will rarely be recognized at all.

ENCOURAGING PEOPLE

What does come out of Joel, no matter what topic he is discussing, is unfailingly upbeat and encouraging. Repeatedly, at book signings, at the Dallas appearance, and at the church itself, his followers told me that this was part of the appeal: “You can actually take what he teaches you into real life. It’s real useful.” “He gives you such a positive outlook on life. When you listen to him, he gives you renewed hope.” “He addresses the needs in my life.” “He doesn’t make you feel dirty, you know? It’s just so uplifting.” Nonetheless, Joel and his family are sensitive to the charge of theological thinness, so they take comfort in the classic defense used by unconventional but successful evangelists for centuries: It gets results. Virtually every key person I interviewed noted that “We had eighteen thousand people walk the aisles [at Lakewood] last year” to mark a new or renewed relationship with Jesus and that thousands of others from across the country and around the world write or call each week to tell of “giving their lives to the Lord.”

(You can find this page again by typing 1neetso into Google Search -- that's osteen1 spelled backwards!)

OFFERING SALVATION

After Joel’s invitation to new visitors at the end of the Sunday service I attended in February, I followed dozens of people to a “salvation room” behind the stage. Once there, Joel congratulated them, urged them to get into a good Bible church if they didn’t intend to keep coming to the church—“This is not the only good church”—and gave each of them a small folder entitled “Your Next Step to a New Beginning,” which set forth a bare outline of Christian beliefs, encouraged them to be baptized in water, and invited them to attend an eight-week New Beginnings class taught on Sunday evenings by Paul. They also received 30 Thoughts for Victorious Living, a daily devotional guide written by Joel. It wasn’t possible to probe the thoughts of these folks, but expressions on the faces of most indicated that they felt something significant had just happened.

The Osteens define salvation as both a transformation in one’s earthly life and the promise of eternal life in heaven. They believe in hell, but they don’t talk about it much. As Lisa put it: “My dad always said, ‘Preach the Bible like it’s good news. Don’t tell people they’re going to hell. Tell them they don’t have to go.’” Joel often makes the same point: “God is not mad at you; he is not trying to send you down into darkness. God is on your side. He has already forgiven your sins. All you’ve got to do is accept the free gift of God’s salvation.”

FAMILY MINISTRY

Inevitably, some wonder about the wisdom of having a small family group exercise almost total control, with little outside accountability, over more than $60 million in annual revenue, a figure almost certain to grow in future years. When I spoke with Joel about the financial scandals that have bedeviled some independent ministries, he revealed that the church did not currently make its budget available to the congregation but that the executive team had been discussing the need to do so. I noted that Billy Graham and other ministries associated with the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability had been able to deflect much criticism—and, in the process, erect a barrier against temptation—by providing an audited financial statement to supporters. As a family ministry, the church cannot belong to the ECFA, nor is it required to submit 990 forms to the IRS listing income and major expenses, including the salaries of its five highest-paid officials. Joel recognized, however, that nothing was stopping the church from doing this on a voluntary basis.

Indeed, rather than make an attempt to conceal the family-run nature of the church, the Osteens obviously regard their image as a faithful unit as one of their greatest strengths. From the church’s beginning, Dodie has played a prominent role in the worship services. The tiny (size 2 petite), neatly dressed Osteen matriarch still speaks at every service, frequently noting her pleasure in her brood, and it seems that no service passes without some mention of “Daddy.”

Even when they are not on the program, Lisa and Paul are also present, and the giant screens remind everyone that they will be speaking at the Wednesday night service. Pictures and promos for the church feature Joel and Victoria in affectionate poses, and they have recently brought their two children into a more prominent role. At the Dallas event at the American Airlines Center, six-year-old Alexandra sang “Come Just as You Are” during the invitation. And at this spring’s Easter service, at Minute Maid Park, eleven-year-old Jonathan led the Bible affirmation, then drew warm laughter from the crowd of nearly 40,000 by repeating his father’s familiar line, “You sound great, as usual.”

DODIE OSTEEN'S FAITH

Dodie, whose oft-repeated story of surviving metastatic liver cancer serves as a premier warrant for belief in miraculous healing, also finds it easy to accept her son’s success as part of a divine plan. “Not long after John died, Joel said, ‘Mama, I need to talk to you. I think God is calling me to be pastor of this church.’ I said, ‘What?!’ I thought he was the last one. He didn’t want to get up there and pastor, but he felt like it was God’s will.”

A second set of explanations for the church’s success, not perceived as conflicting with the first in any way, is heavy reliance on technology and a great deal of marketing savvy. Although the weekly television show can be seen in almost every home in America, Joel and his associates work constantly to raise the odds that it actually will be seen. In addition to repeated showings on religious channels TBN and Daystar, the program currently airs on national network affiliate stations in 35 major cities, including the top 30 markets, and on 5 secular cable channels (ABC Family, USA, Discovery, PAX, and BET). Iloff noted that some people disapprove of having the program appear on USA and BET—“Don’t you see the stuff they put on those networks?”—but said, “That’s where we need to be: reaching the unreached, telling the untold.” Dodds added, “We love Christian television. We are on TBN and Daystar. But we are committed to reaching those who don’t believe yet. You have got to go with what they are watching. They are not typically tuning into Christian stations. We try to place our program within the habits and patterns of those people. I am convinced that if they will give Joel five minutes, they will be hooked.”

ANOTHER GREAT STORY ABOUT JOEL OSTEEN

The days before that Sunday were not easy. He was convinced that he had made a serious error and was setting himself up for colossal public failure. Knowing he’d be preaching for the first time, in front of some six thousand people, he longed to retreat to his familiar and comfortable position behind the camera. To boost his confidence, he even wore a pair of his father’s shoes when he stepped onto the broad stage. He spoke rapidly but winningly, drawing laughs from a sympathetic audience with self-deprecating comments and amusing stories about his family. No one, apparently, enjoyed the sermon more than John, who had been hospitalized but had listened to the service over a telephone. Lisa recalled that when she visited her father after the service, he asked her how she thought Joel had done and she had said, “I thought he was great. You know, Daddy, I think one day he may be standing in front of that camera instead of behind it.” Later that same week, on January 23, John Osteen died of a heart attack at age 77. Before the end of the year, Joel officially became the church’s new leader.

MONEY IN THE MINISTRY

IN FRONT OF PACKED CROWDS, PASTOR JOEL IS A SUPERB COMMUNICATOR. He pokes fun at himself, makes no effort to moderate a strong Texas twang, and appears to be talking almost extemporaneously. He seems completely unaffected and can be funny without straining to be a comic. His presence and charisma go a long way toward explaining the astounding popularity of the Joel Osteen television program, which in most markets is half an hour long and consists almost entirely of his preaching. But crucial to the success of the church is bringing in its Houston constituents, who provide more than 80 percent of the ministry’s $50 million in annual contributions. As with all megachurches—usually defined as Protestant churches with more than 2,000 members; at 30,000, the church is sometimes called a gigachurch—new members are attracted with a vibrant worship experience packed with generous helpings of music and prayer. On a mild Sunday morning in early February, I witnessed a good example of the church’s version of a familiar format.

MUSIC MINISTRY OF LAKEWOOD

With this call to worship completed, Cruse-Ratcliff, the choir, and a ten-piece band launched into a slick, rollicking, often throbbing country-rock-gospel outpouring that had the congregation on its feet for more than half an hour, most with arms upraised, some dancing in a manner not learned entirely in church. In one of the aisles, an older black gentleman, nattily dressed in a gray suit, expressed his pleasure at being in the house of the Lord with a restrained but charming quick-step soft-shoe shuffle. Cruse-Ratcliff, meanwhile, wearing high-heeled boots, a white blouse, and a long black jacket that made her short black skirt seem more modest, prowled the stage almost fiercely, now bouncing, now stomping, now leaning forward in an attitude and expression of pained ecstasy. All of this was magnified on five giant screens and dozens of smaller monitors spaced throughout the auditorium and underscored by a saxophone whose smoky sensuality sounded better suited for Saturday night than Sunday morning.

Cruse-Ratcliff and her colleague, African American singer-songwriter Israel Houghton, compose most of the music used at the church. Typical of the thousands of churches that have converted to “praise music,” hymnals have given way to projection screens, and harmony and substantive content have surrendered to unison repetition of simple themes with simple words:

Lord, we declare, who can compare, who would even dare,
’Cause there is no one like you.
Or, in a less complex assessment of divine transcendence,

Who is like the Lord? Nobody!
Who is like the Lord? No, no, no, no, no, nobody!

Joel says little about the narrow way in his televised sermons or his book, which elaborates on the themes from those sermons. In the past he has conceded that most of his ministry is not evangelistic and has admitted that the principles he extols will work in anybody’s life, whether or not that person is a Christian, but he feels confident that by teaching people how to live as God wants them to live, he is training them for Christian discipleship.

And in addition to those he brings into the church, Joel feels his television audience gets the necessary message when he offers a fifteen-second “salvation call” at the end of each telecast, asking viewers to repeat a brief prayer—“Lord Jesus, I repent of my sins. I ask you to come into my heart. I make you my Lord and Savior”—and assuring them that if they say those words, they will be born again. “It’s not long and it’s not complicated,” he acknowledged. “It would be great to have three minutes to really explain it, but I do think I put it out there.”

PASTOR JOEL'S INFLUENCE

IN A VIDEO SHOWN AT THE TOUR EVENTS, a man says he believes Joel will replace Billy Graham. Clearly, that does not strike Joel’s siblings as fanciful. “Joel’s impact is huge,” Paul pointed out. “He has a humility about him, a power and presence, an ability to use television, and hundreds of pastors are saying, ‘This is changing our lives.’ It would not surprise me for Joel to be a dominant force in Christianity for quite a few years.” Lisa’s assessment was even more positive: “The reason they [compare Joel to Graham] is because the anointing is on him to bring in thousands, and that’s what we saw with Billy Graham, and still see today. That is only the hand of God on a person. You don’t choose that. God chooses. I sort of agree with them.”