The ever-smiling Joel Osteen appeared on the Lakewood Church stage during the 8:30 a.m. service Sunday seated beside his wife and co-pastor, Victoria, as he participated in a mock interview before delivering his 1,000th sermon later that morning. Nick Nilson, an associate pastor at Lakewood, tossed out calculations that drew “oohs” and “aahs” from the Houston crowd: The boss sticks to 27-minute-long sermons, so he must’ve written at least 27,000 minutes of messages and spent at least 450 hours preaching since he first stood in front of his throngs of followers a quarter century ago.By 11 a.m., during Lakewood’s second service—it’s only televised segment that day—Osteen cut the numerical bit but kept the anecdotes that earned a lively response: a self-deprecating story about vomiting before a sermon in Atlanta, another about hosting “America’s Night of Hope” at Yankee Stadium. Osteen cried each time he told the Bronx tale, repeating the action of putting his hands over his face and taking dramatic pauses as congregants shouted amens. Osteen went slightly off script in the second service, adding a line about how he “wouldn’t be half of who I am without Victoria.”
To sit through consecutive services is to glimpse Joel’s aw-shucks, family-man persona and witness his abilities to write, rewrite and present in real time.
