By Helen Littlejohn
When Joel Osteen speaks, people listen… and laugh, and cry and listen some more. On Nov. 18 at Denver’s Pepsi Center, about 15,000 people listened to him for two straight hours, interspersed with singin’, the obligatory basket passin’, and plain-old good preachin’... with a little therapeutic New Age positive thinking weaved in for good measure.
Osteen’s Lakewood ministry, based in Houston, Texas, will turn 50 next year, which he calls their “jubilee” year. The pastor’s message of love, hope and positivity heaps salvation and jubilee on everyone in attendance, not to mention the scores who tune in to his weekly television broadcast or download a free podcast of his stirring message.
Why is this man’s message so powerful? To begin with, I must digress a bit. Visiting my local grocery store to buy a turkey on sale, I was waiting in the meat department while the dutiful butcher checked in the back for a 14-pounder, the size Mama always cooks, according to my Dad. Another shopper poured through the deli cuts with his back to me. Being the avid reader, I was obliged to read his black sweatshirt. The words are too profane for publication, but they involved fornication and your corpse. My new bifocals were less than a week old, so I read it again, hoping my eyes were deceiving me. Nope, there it was in plain English. I felt assaulted, vilely so, and unlike the words on most apparel that I read, these stuck like glue mixed with shards of glass. I turned away, then saw him stroll away to continue shopping.
So what does that have to do with Joel? Plenty, in the much-needed balance that he provides to a society that breeds the kind of person who would wear such a thing. I don’t know all the reasons for what ails our culture to the extent that would lead to someone wearing that shirt in public. Perhaps it was just shock value, with absolutely no redeeming value. Perhaps he wanted to scare little old ladies with a tardy Halloween joke. The words ‘freedom of speech’ crossed my mind, but just didn’t seem to apply. My own T-shirt told a tale – DAM I love to POW WOW, a souvenir from the Denver Art Museum’s annual friendship pow wow, with the obvious play on words. Was mine just a few steps away from the other? I gave up trying to analyze and just prayed. Yes, I did something else, but that’s another story.
Sadly, I doubt that we’ll be able to rid the world of its ails and vileness, so I thank God for the balance that Joel Osteen delivers every Sunday morning in his HUGE Houston church and on televisions, iPods and computer screens across America. It’s huge, the largest in America, for a reason: we need the ministry of Joel Osteen.
He has a knack for talking directly to each person as an individual. On the tube, you’d swear he was talking RIGHT at you, working on a solution to the very thing that’s been bothering you. Meeting him in person only reinforces that look-you-in-the-eye sincerity. He really does uplift you, and sometimes we all need that. Somehow, knowing Joel believes in me makes it easier to believe in myself.
Although creative visualization is something thought of more in the concept of New Age thought, Joel sprinkles it liberally throughout his messages.
“Discover the champion in yooooouuuuuu!!!” is his theme song. “Celebrate today knowing you are victors, not victims!”
If ever a preacher was on a roll, Osteen is riding high with no end in sight. He’s been criticized for smiling too much, but he says it just reflects the joy he feels inside. Often emotional with his personal stories of faith and redemption, he crosses barriers of color, creed and economics with a single bound. A look around the Denver audience showed folks from all walks of life, every conceivable creature – old, young, red, yellow, black, brown, and white.
Changing lives and offering hope is what he does, and he does it extremely well. A rousing gospel choir reinforces the message of overcoming through Jesus. In spite of Black faces in the choir, that true down-home Black gospel singing that pushes spirit through your veins is missing, but you’d never know it with the heartfelt ‘amens’ that punctuate the service.
This is the religion of belief. Belief in the ability of God to provide all abundance for us, and belief in that which we can accomplish for ourselves with our belief in God. No fire and brimstone for this southern preacher. His message is one part hope, one part therapy and one part humor. He begins every sermon with, “I like to start each week with something funny.”
After seeing him live, I reckon I know a few more things about Mr. Osteen. Joel’s walk is bigger than his talk. He’s a teacher, more than a preacher. Like many of us, he knows his mission is to serve, although he can hardly believe sometimes that God chose him, of all people. He has struggled, like most of us, to accept his destiny and live out his biggest dreams. He relies heavily on wife Victoria, who plays an integral part in their joint ministry and skillfully plays the Reinforcer. She preaches about the importance of family and honoring one’s mate. He credits her, rightfully so, for seeing what he could be before he saw it himself. They both are testament to the power of being ‘equally-yoked’ and having someone in your corner. We should all be so lucky.
Editor’s note: Visit www.JoelOsteen.com for broadcast times and more information.
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