Posted on 12/19/2009 6:37:28 PM PST by marshmallow
Houston, Texas (CNN) -- Joel Osteen strides into the former Compaq Center. Some 20,000 people are standing and singing. Purple lights softly pulse across the ceiling, and mist floats around two giant screens flashing words to the songs.
It's not a pulpit but a podium. It's not an altar but a stage. There is no cross. Instead a huge globe spins, and two massive bubbling creeks flank the stage. A lighting system softens distant corners of the massive arena and spreads colored light and smoke in strategic spots. Somehow, the space that will hold 40,000-plus on Sunday morning doesn't feel like a sports arena.
In the control room, producers watch multiple camera angles and feeds.
Smiling broadly, Osteen bounds up the few stairs to the stage, closes his eyes, lifts his hands and leads a prayer.
"God, I'm going to start this week off in faith. Expecting your goodness. Expecting to have a blessed and a prosperous week. Amen. Well, God bless you. Give him your very best today."
Welcome to Sunday morning at Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas. It's reportedly the nation's largest congregation and probably one of the most diverse places in America. One third of these churchgoers are Hispanic, one-third African-American and a quarter white. There are dozens of nationalities.
Osteen will give this sermon twice. He later said he knows immediately which segments to edit together into a sermon that will air on television to millions three weeks later.
Between services, he is signing his most recent book in the lobby, just past the bookstore that is one of the highest-grossing Christian bookstores in America.
His wife, Victoria, is co-pastor of the church and a best-selling author in her own right. In fact, the Osteens are not paid to be pastors at Lakewood, according to .............
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Both of them are theological “children”.
I have resisted in purchasing all symbols of the faith, from the cross necklace to the fish on the backs of cars to the angel pens. Actually I think the one angel pen I saw in a store turned me off completely to Christian symbol merchandise. It was a fancy pen with a gaudy angel on the pen clip. In general, I just resist the whole marketing ploy that I see with the symbols (I’m cheap that way too). It doesn’t remind me one way or another of Christ. In fact, you can prob. make a case against displaying fish symbols on cars if you’re an angry or terrible driver.
Why is there so much hatred towards this guy? Well, I think the Devil hates him because Osteen's got a secret about victory that if embraced can turn a useless Christian into a powerful force of faith for God and against darkness. If he can't keep you from accepting Jesus, Satan's next step is to make you a weak, joyless, useless believer who won't bother his plans or his kingdom of darkness.
I think there is great truth in your assertions.
Thx.
I think he teaches faith better than most.
He helps make it easier, i.e. more functional—workable, to practically ‘walk out’ a faith attitude, orientation, thought-life.
vs pie in the sky notions of faith.
You bet my friend. We’re in a fight and it’s not against flesh and blood. Let’s continue to “earnestly contend for the faith that was once delivered to the saints.” Jude 1:3
I’m sure you’re right.
I don’t know much about the dad except what Joel’s told in his preaching.
Sounds like he may have been slightly more . . . well rounded in his preaching yet still overwhelmingly positive. Joel seems to have carried the positive focus to another level.
I admire him for carrying forward his father’s Biblical vision and focus to greater heights. Many sons would have bastardized it horribly or fumbled it horribly or both.
This argument is so lame.
How can you be a blessing unless you have the means to be a blessing ..??
I’ve never seen a poor person who helped another poor person. In order to help someone you have to have the finances to bless someone else. You can’t give what you don’t have.
Besides, God wrote it: “Beloved, above all I wish that you mayest prosper and be in good health, EVEN AS YOUR SOUL PROSPERS”. So while you’re learning more and more about God, God is planning on you being able to prosper financially as well. Perhaps a better job will come your way - unless of course you don’t believe God can do those things.
It’s sad really. You don’t believe God .. so you don’t want anybody else to believe either; because if others believe, then it makes you look bad.
INDEED.
“It was collated by the Catholic Church.”
You’re painting with an overly broad brush.
Until the Gutenberg printing press it is estimated that there were only about 30 to 50 complete copies of what we would consider a compilation of anything like our modern Bible. There was much dissent over what constituted the canon of scripture from the early church on (and the dissent continues today).
And the parts were not removed because someone was ‘offended’. Parts were considered to be worthy of inclusion based on specific tenets such as Apostolic Origin.
Well .. enjoy your negative views of the scriptures .. quite frankly it’s getting boring.
Well .. good luck with your “theory”.
I listened to dozens of Kenneth Hagin tapes in my earlier years—a lot.
I rarely heard him say anything I could quibble much about.
His disciples [including his son] seemed to take things and run at least a bit sky west and crooked with them.
I think Kenneth Copeland is the best of them.
Regardless, the teachings ARE BASED ON SOLID SCRIPTURE.
GOD SAID
I would that you prosper and be in health even as your soul prospers.
And Henry Wright has been documenting that quite emphatically in a list of ways in helping people get healed of many incurable diseases.
Really?
Funny, there are hundreds of thousands if not millions of Christian churches around the world who do not have a cross in them.
And yet they are far better Christians then many I have met here in the States.
I missed your point in that post.
Sounds like Osteen says that God wants us to improve our lives, have enough to live and some left over for others. What’s wrong with that? There are lots of promises in the NT where we are told that God will take care of our physical needs. Are you disagreeing with that?
Osteen preaches a Gospel that is antithetical to what took place in an Animal Manger in Bethlehem; on Mount Calvary; and the Empty Tomb.
Some churches are underground and have to go place to place with nothing but The Word! They know that’s all they need.
Because it's a curse...Because it's a shame...Because Jesus was murdered there...Because the Jesus that we worship IS NOT THERE...He is risen...
I've been to churches with crosses and churches without crosses...Didn't see any difference in the preaching or the people...
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