Joel Osteen
Joel Osteen
Joel Scott Osteen is an American preacher and televangelist. He is the Senior Pastor of Lakewood Church, the largest Protestant church in the United States, in Houston, Texas. Osteen's televised sermons are seen by over 7 million viewers weekly and over 20 million monthly in over 100 countries. His sermons also broadcast 24 hours a day on Sirius XM Satellite Radio, Channel 128. Osteen has written seven New York Times Bestselling books. He has been widely nicknamed "The Smiling Preacher"...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionClergyman
Date of Birth5 March 1963
CountryUnited States of America
I never dreamed my book was going to do what it's done, ... Hopefully I'll never have to take a salary from the church again. We plan to be good givers.
When my father died, it sounds kind of simple but I just had the desire to step up and pastor the church. It was what I was supposed to do. I just took that step of faith.
A lot of churches have not moved with the times.
I'm a reverend and a pastor. A pastor of the church. I go by usually pastor.
When my dad founded our church, he used either a globe or a map of the world behind him. It was symbolic of what Christ said: to go forth and preach hope to the world. We believe in the cross, but we just continued with the globe.
There's pros and cons of a big church. Cons is I don't get to know everybody, I don't get to go to their ballgame, I don't get to marry everybody, but the pros are you get all this community, 800 ushers come in to serve, getting there at 7 in the morning on their day off and coming in on Saturday to make all those wafers.
I don't want to just preach to the church. I feel like I have a broader message.
Our whole message is it's easy to just keep preaching to the church and people that already come.
You can be committed to Church but not committed to Christ, but you cannot be committed to Christ and not committed to church.
Most people already know what they're doing wrong. When I get them to church I want to tell them that you can change.
Whether a person is straight or gay, Republican, Democrat, good person, not a good person, they're all welcome, because to me, church is a place you're supposed to get healed and whole and loved.
The Hindus are some of the nicest people you'll ever meet.
I am excited about the opportunity of expanding our outreach with Free Press.
You may make some mistakes-but that doesn't make you a sinner. You've got the very nature of God on the inside of you.