HOUSTON’S Lakewood Church tries to make Christianity relevant to everyday life and appeal to people who wouldn’t normally go to church or tune into a TV ministry, senior pastor Joel Osteen told CNN Belief Tuesday.
When asked about what has made Lakewood so successful, Osteen said, “I don’t try to make the services super religious.”
Instead, he goes on to say, “I want to make God good and relevant to people who weren’t raised like me.”
Osteen is the son of Lakewood’s founding pastor John Osteen and took over the pulpit in 1999. Since then, the megachurch has famously grown to become the largest in the country.
Osteen’s approach is to make the Christian message applicable to people’s lives rather than focus on calls to repent or debates about church doctrine.
“When I grew up, a lot of churches taught you doctrine, and that’s all good, but I felt like my calling is how do you live the Christian life?,” he said on CNN. “I can know all the doctrine in the world—which is good, I don’t want to discredit that—but I want to know, how do I forgive? How do we react?… I like to deal with some of those issues.”
Lakewood’s critics, including prominent Baptist and evangelical leaders, accuse Osteen of preaching a feel-good, prosperity message.
On CNN, he defended his sermons, heard by 40,000 church members and 10 million viewers each week, saying they always close with a reminder of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.
