Who is Joel Osteen

Every few years a religions best-seller sweeps the nation with the message of self-help. Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive-Thinking, Robert Schuller's TV ministry and series of best-sellers, Bruce Wilkinson's The Prayer of Jabez, and other sensations have come and gone. Each time the media treats the appearance of a work in this vein as though it were a new phenomenon, but the success of this genre has long been established. The attractions of Americans to this version of the glory story is evident in the astonishing success of Joel Osteen's runaway best-seller Your Best Life Now: Seven Steps to Living at Your Full Potential and the sequel, the recently released Become a Better You. Beyond his charming personality and folksy style, Osteen's phenomenal attraction is no doubt related to his simple and soothing sampler of the American gospel--a blend of Christian and cultural elements that he picked up not through any formal training but as the son of Baptist, turned prosperity evangelist, who was a favorite on the Trinity Broadcasting Network. However, gone are the eccentric caricatures of prosperity tele-evangelism with it flamboyant style and over the top rhetoric, and bad hair. At least in the televised broadcasts of his services there are no healing lines with people falling or fainting when the preacher blows on them. He doesn't send blessed prayer cloths or speak endlessly of sowing seed in his ministry in order to reap their desired miracle.

The pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston, which now owns the Compaq Center, and is now the largest church in America does not come across as a flashing evangelist with jets and yachts , but as a charming next door neighbor who always has something nice to say. However Joel Osteen is definitely a leader of a new generation of prosperity evangelists. His explicit drumbeat of health and wealth, or word-faith teaching is communicated in the terms and the ambiance that might be difficult to distinguish from most mega-churches and other seeker driven ministries. In this broadcast we are going to take a look at Joel Osteen as an example of that increasing creeping fog that we are calling Christless Christianity.

Bobby started doing drugs when he was 8 years old. Needless to say, his life was on a destructive path. After stabbing a guy in 2002 - Bobby cried out to God for help. See how a visit to Lakewood Church helped change his life forever.

Podcast #323
"God Is In Control"
(Part 1 of 3)
by Pastor Joel Osteen

More often than not, God works the most when we see it the least. May you be encouraged by this sermon. :)

Podcast #323
"God Is In Control"
(Part 2 of 3)
by Pastor Joel Osteen
Lakewood Church, USA

Podcast #323
"God Is In Control"
(Part 3 of 3)
by Pastor Joel Osteen
Lakewood Church, USA

My favorite pastor Joel Osteen starts his weekly sermon with a joke. Here are a few. I listen to his weekly podcasts while I'm running on the beach bike path. - Justin Rudd, Long Beach, California