Joel Osteen (born March 5, 1963, Houston, Texas, U.S.) is an American televangelist, theologian, speaker, and author who has attracted millions of followers with his simple and positive sermons and his best-selling books.
Osteen’s parents founded the nondenominational charismatic Lakewood Church in Houston in 1959. His father, John Osteen, was pastor and over the years had built a regional following. In 1981 Osteen left Oral Roberts University after less than one year of study to help his father develop Lakewood’s growing national television ministry, working behind the cameras as a producer of the church’s broadcasts.
After his father’s death in 1999, Osteen took over as head pastor. Under his leadership, Lakewood soon became the largest and fastest-growing congregation in the U.S. He rapidly expanded the church’s media presence by purchasing advertisements on billboards and in other venues, doubling the church’s budget for television airtime, negotiating with different networks for optimal time slots, and targeting the largest media markets. Within a few years his weekly television broadcast reached households in more than 100 countries and became the top-rated inspirational program on the air. His 2004 book, Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential, was a best seller.
In 2005 Osteen conducted a 15-city U.S. tour, preaching to large crowds at virtually every stop. That year Lakewood opened a new 16,000-seat megachurch in Houston’s Compaq Center, a former basketball and hockey arena. Weekly attendance at Lakewood rose from 6,000 in 1999 to more than 50,000 by 2016. In addition, by 2018 the televised services attracted an estimated 10 million viewers weekl y. During this time he published a number of books, including How to Become a Better You: 7 Keys to Improving Your Life Every Day (2007), Think Better, Live Better: A Victorious Life Begins in Your Mind (2016), Blessed in the Darkness: How All Things Are Working for Your Good (2017), Empty Out the Negative: Make Room for More Joy, Greater Confidence, and New Levels of Influence (2020), and Peaceful on Purpose: The Power to Remain Calm, Strong, and Confident in Every Season (2021).
An affable youthful-looking man who earned the nickname “the smiling preacher,” Osteen typically avoided dense or orthodox theology in his sermons. Instead, he delivered simple upbeat messages that emphasized his oft-repeated belief that “God wants us to have a better life.” While this approach struck an obvious chord with the public, it also drew sharp criticism from those who viewed Osteen as little more than a motivational speaker offering a watered-down interpretation of Christianity. Others accused him of promoting a “prosperity gospel” designed to justify the accumulation of wealth. Osteen responded that he wanted to remain focused on the “goodness of God” and that he did not define prosperity in purely materialistic terms. He defended Lakewood’s unabashedly commercial approach to attracting new members, arguing that churches that opposed “changing with the times,” as he put it, risked losing members or folding altogether.