Joel Osteen

Joel Osteen is an American televangelist and pastor whose Houston-based Lakewood Church is the largest single-congregation Protestant church in the United States — averaging approximately 45,000 weekly attendees across multiple Sunday services. He was born Joel Scott Osteen on March 5, 1963, in Houston, Texas, to John Osteen, the founder of Lakewood Church, and Dolores Osteen. He attended Oral Roberts University in Oklahoma briefly before returning to Houston in the late 1980s to work in television production at his father's church.

For seventeen years he worked behind the scenes at Lakewood, producing the TV broadcasts of his father's services. He had no public-speaking ambitions of his own and turned down repeated requests from his father to preach. Days before his father's January 1999 death from a heart attack, John Osteen specifically asked Joel to deliver the next Sunday sermon. Joel reluctantly agreed, gave his first sermon on January 17, 1999, and was unanimously elected senior pastor of Lakewood Church one week later.

Under Joel's leadership, Lakewood Church has grown enormously. The 2005 relocation to the former Compaq Center (the 16,000-seat Houston basketball arena that previously hosted the NBA's Houston Rockets) made Lakewood the largest American church congregation. Osteen's Sunday services are broadcast in over 100 countries and reach an estimated weekly viewership of over 7 million. His television program is the most-watched inspirational program in the United States.

Osteen's preaching style is characterized by what critics and supporters both call "prosperity gospel" — an emphasis on material and personal success as evidence of divine favor. He has authored ten New York Times-bestselling books, including Your Best Life Now (2004, which sold over 4 million copies and stayed on the NYT bestseller list for over 200 weeks) and Become a Better You (2007). His books and ministry have made him one of the most-financially-successful American televangelists.

His name Joel is from the Hebrew Yo'el meaning "Yahweh is God" — referring to one of the Twelve Minor Prophets of the Hebrew Bible. Joel has been continuously among the most-popular American boys' names for decades.