His church holds 16,000. Guess again.
I didn't actually count the seats. I was just attesting to the fact that the pews are full. Whatever the seating capacity is, it's always close to full.
Maybe he has more that one service on Sundays?
Joel Osteen's wife Victoria's his brother Paul, a physician who gave up his practice to work in the church.
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Osteen visits tonight
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Osteen, now 42, took over Lakewood Church in 1999 after the death of his father, John Osteen, a Southern Baptist preacher who in the late 1950s began to be more associated with the charismatic and Pentecostal movements.
Osteen said overcrowding at his first arena event in Atlanta pointed up the need for tickets at his arena events. When he followed it up with two nights at Madison Square Garden, city officials insisted that the event must have tickets, he said. He began charging $10 per ticket, most of which went to the ticketing service.
Since it's a worship service, there is also an offering taken up, he said.
He said the ticket doesn't cover the cost of the whole event. The TV ministry never solicits donations, he said.
Osteen dropped out of Oral Roberts University after one year and returned to Houston to join the staff of his father's church in 1982. The church's services began airing on TV in 1983, with Osteen working behind the scenes. He never preached until after his father died, but he quickly grew into it.
"I know this is what I'm supposed to be doing," Osteen said.
Osteen and his wife, Victoria, from Columbus, Ga., have been married 18 years. She has relatives in the Deep South, including Birmingham. Many of them will be in the audience tonight, said Iloff, who is Victoria's brother.
snip
Lakewood Church, which already drew 30,000 worshippers to four services each weekend, moved in July into the 16,000-seat Compaq Center, former home of the Houston Rockets of the National Basketball Association.
Not only his weekly church services but his speaking tour draws arena-size crowds.
He drew 57,000 during the first weekend in the Compaq Center. Attendance has been 38,000 to 42,000 combined at the four weekend services since then. It was 28,000 to 30,000 at the old location, Iloff said. The church paid $11 million for a 30-year lease of the arena, then did $90 million in renovations, Iloff said.
http://tinyurl.com/cjyef
They endorse material wealth and tell followers that God wants them to be prosperous. In his book, Osteen talks about how his wife, Victoria, a striking blonde who dresses fashionably, wanted to buy a fancy house some years ago, before the money rolled in. He thought it wasn't possible. "But Victoria had more faith," he wrote. "She convinced me we could live in an elegant home...and several years later, it did come to pass."
http://tinyurl.com/96bdm
And they only do one service?
The 40K could represent total membership, not attendance at one service. Also, it's likely that this church has more than one worship service on Sunday mornings. If they have two, and the arena is full, Osteen is preaching to 30K plus each Sunday. If they have three services, he (or the assistant pastors) are preaching to over 40K each Sunday.
ok, einstein...have you ever considered that the church holds 16,000 and that there may be more than one service on Sunday??? duh.