San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
OSTEEN’S THE PASTOR WHO IS EVERYWHERE
Megachurch leader’s offer is hope for the hopeless
The divorce papers took Vickie McGinty by surprise.
Distraught and alone after 22 years of marriage, she turned to friends and family — and to a stranger with a soothing voice and a sunny message.
She’d discovered Joel Osteen’s sermons a few months earlier. Now, she set her television and car radio to his broadcasts.
His voice became a constant presence, urg- ing her to focus on a bright future instead of the clouded past.
“God is arranging things in your favor,” she heard him preach from the stage of Houston’s Lakewood Church.
“You have a backbone made of steel.”
“All you have to do is believe.”
Listening to a sermon titled “Tame Your Tongue,” she felt as though Osteen was speaking directly to her. “Some people, the only thing that’s holding them back from a healthy marriage, from good relationships, from a promotion, is their mouth,” he said.
The Wichita, Kansas, homemaker thought of all the times she had lashed out at her husband for putting work above their marriage.
McGinty booked a room at a motel a few blocks from Lakewood, and drove for more than 10 hours to see Osteen in person on a May Sunday. Again, she felt a connection, even in an arena full of unfamiliar faces. She knew she’d be back.
This is how Osteen has become the nation’s most ubiquitous pastor and one of its wealthiest. He has earned the allegiance of the hopeless, the doubtful and the
downtrodden with a credo of beguiling simplicity: Don’t dwell on the past. Think positive. Be a victor, not a victim.
A self-described “encourager,” he rarely addresses or even acknowledges the fundamental mysteries of Christianity, let alone such contentious issues as same-sex marriage or abortion.
Instead, he exhorts listeners to take charge of their destinies and confront whatever “enemies” they face — debt collectors, clueless bosses, grim medical diagnoses, loneliness.
In an era of bitter cultural and political divisions, he has redefined what it means to be evangelical by dispensing with the bad news and focusing solely on the good. His vanilla creed has proved irresistible, especially to those down on their luck.
Lakewood is the nation’s largest church, attracting as many as 50,000 people a week to its cavernous sanctuary, the former Compaq Center where the NBA Rockets once played.
Broadcasts of its thunderous, music-filled services reach an estimated 10 million U.S. viewers each week on television — and more via websites and podcasts. Many of them go on to buy Osteen’s books, devotionals, CDs,
DVDs and other merchandise.
A 24-hour Sirius XM station, launched in 2014, expanded his domain to include people commuting to work or running errands.
He has taken Lakewood on the road with monthly Night of Hope events, lavishly produced spectacles of prayer and song that fill stadiums across the country at $15 a ticket. Attendees post branded photos from the events on Facebook and Twitter, where Osteen has amassed a combined 28 million followers.
His 10 books, self-help manuals filled with homespun wisdom about the power of positive thinking, have sold more than 8.5 million printed copies in the U.S. alone, according to NPD BookScan.
It’s religion as big business, run by a close-knit family that excels at promoting Osteen as an earnest, folksy everyman. He’s Lakewood’s most valuable asset, the embodiment of the message itself.
Some are dubious
Not everyone is sold. Some religious scholars and church watchdogs say Osteen’s wealth clashes with Christian teachings about the corrupting effects of worldly riches, and that Lakewood’s high-powered marketing exploits the vulnerable.
“There’s always the question of how much money is too much for a pastor to earn,” said Carl Trueman, a pastor and professor of church histo- ry at the Westminster Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania. “When you’re looking at his lavish private lifestyle, I’d say that’s too much.”
Pete Evans, a licensed private investigator, has spent 20 years examining church misconduct for the Trinity Foundation, a donor-supported group in Dallas known for exposing financial abuses by televangelists. Evans said Osteen stays on the right side of the law.
But he views Osteen’s message, with its promise that God will fulfill the needs and desires of the faithful, as misleading.
“He’s a pitch man, selling congeniality and empty promises in the name of God,” Evans said. “All you get is an empty box of hope for a better life someday.”
Osteen responds that building a personal fortune is not in conflict with his belief that
God wants all who worship Him to prosper. He casts Lakewood’s expert use of marketing and media as the contemporary equivalent of shouting from the mountaintop. And he notes that millions of people find solace and strength in his sermons.
“I’ve outlasted the critics and figured out what I feel like I’m supposed to do,” he said in one of two lengthy interviews. “If you have a message to get out, there has never been a better day.”
Osteen, the son of televangelist John Osteen, Lakewood’s founder, became head pastor after his father’s death nearly 20 years ago. Since then, he has overshadowed virtually all his contemporaries, avoiding the sorts of embarrassments that have toppled other TV preachers.
His influence transcends political, economic and religious boundaries. His is a church that finds its followers, no matter who or where they are.
Osteen doesn’t flaunt a life of luxury, but he does enjoy one. He and his family live in a $12 million River Oaks mansion with 13 rooms, a pool, an elevator and five fireplaces, public records show.
He and his wife, Victoria, also a best-selling author, stopped taking salaries from the church in 2005. They live instead on book royalties.
Unlike some other televangelists, they haven’t declared their home a parsonage, which would make it tax-exempt. They paid nearly $250,000 in Harris County property taxes last year, records show.
Yet the cost of operating the church and showcasing Osteen on its many platforms does not come out of their pockets. It is paid almost entirely by his millions of followers.
Message is understated
Lakewood took in about $89 million during the fiscal year that ended March 31, 2017, according to its financial statement. Of that total, nearly 93 percent was donated — via mail, the internet or collection buckets — in response to an understated yet persistent message that God will bless those who support the church’s mission.
The church spent 70 percent of its budget on television broadcasts, weekly services and programs and Night of Hope events.
Almost all the rest went to administration and fundraising, leaving little for humanitarian efforts such as feeding the homeless or helping atrisk youths. Lakewood spent less than $1.2 million on missions and community service that year.
The numbers reflect the high priority Osteen puts on expanding the church’s reach