church critic

i haven't been feeling well this weekend, so instead of going to church, i tuned into a service on tv. i chose to watch lakewood church's broadcast since i have been reading a book written by their pastor.

i have been having mixed feelings about both the pastor and the church itself. their membership is something like 30,000 and they hold services in the former houston rockets exhibition hall. i have a hard time understanding how something that should be semi-intimate (church) could be so public. how many of the 30,000 people could you possibly know on a personal level? another thing that i didn't like was that during the broadcast, little messages would pop up at the bottom of the screen hawking the pastor's book. it's quite obvious that the pastor and his family are very well off. rumor has it that he is delivered to the church in a limo. i have always admired clergy that were able to stay humble, no matter how successful the church became. drive up in a lexus, i don't care. but you drive up in something, not have someone drive you.

don't get me wrong - i think it's great that the church has taken off and i would expect the pastor to reap the financial and material rewards. but the thing is, he promotes materialism - not only by example, but by his written word. while the book has a lot of encouraging messages and is a basic outline for leading a great life, i found it a little arrogant at times. osteen uses material gains in example after example of personal growth. from what i know about the Bible and Jesus Christ, the message is to give up everything material to follow the Lord. or at least be willing to.

this morning's message did validate my post from yesterday. osteen was speaking about treating others with respect and being kind at all times to all people. in one of his examples, he said that you could go to church every weekend, which is nice, but not necessary to claim Christianity. he called it "religious things." and i have always seen a difference between religion and spirituality. some of the most avid churchgoers are the biggest hypocrites you'll ever meet.

i think the reason that osteen is so popular is that he talks about things that affect everybody, regardless of race, ethnicity and socioeconomic status. today, the message was about being kind and how being polite gets better responses from others than being rude. who could not relate to that? his relatively quiet manner (for a preacher), slight southern twang, and humorous anecdotes make him endearing as well. osteen's celebrity doesn't hurt, either. that's the formula for a successful church experience - but i find that the messages are so broad and generic that they almost seem impersonal.

i guess the bottom line is that i am undecided about lakewood church and joel osteen. but the good news is that it doesn't really matter in my everyday life.

as you were.