Everyday Life & Health
Tale of a "Mega Church"
By Matt Scheffer
Apr 15, 2004, 17:56

She didn’t expect a surprise from the package addressed to her father--a surprise that literally shook the church building in January 1990.

After the pipe bomb exploded in her lap, Lisa Osteen escaped injury from the shrapnel that was sprayed across the room. An official investigating the scene said it was as if someone was standing between her and the bomb.

In 45 years, Lakewood Church has had its share of miracles.

John Osteen started the church with less than one-hundred people in 1959 in an abandoned feed barn in northeast Houston. Osteen served as the pastor for two years, and then he began an eight-year evangelical ministry traveling throughout the Philippines.

Osteen returned in 1969, and with the church growing, a new building that seated seven hundred was built adjacent to the feed barn in the 7300 block of East Houston Road.

Steve Austin, director of member care ministries and a pastor on staff at Lakewood, says,”At the time, the church was Baptist and Pastor John was leaning towards being non-denominational. A hurricane came through, blew off the Baptist part of the name on the building, and Pastor John took it as a thumbs-up from God to go ahead with the change.”

From 1975 to 1979 the church building was expanded to seat five thousand. In 1988 through member pledges and tithing, a six million dollar, 120,000-square-foot sanctuary seating 8,200 was built debt-free.

A 37,000 square foot children’s building followed in 1991 and in 1993 a 62,000 square foot, three-story educational and office building was completed.

Renee Branson, Osteen’s secretary for 17 years says, “Pastor John had come out of the hospital after open heart surgery, and God told him two things. ‘If the people tithe and give over and above, then the buildings will be debt-free.’ Both were paid with the church owing nothing.”

After John Osteen died at 77 in 1999, his son, Joel, became pastor. For seventeen years the younger Osteen worked behind the scenes building Lakewood’s television ministry.

In 2002, Joel negotiated contracts to enter the top twenty-five television markets in the United States where network affiliates reach ninety-two percent of American homes.
Lakewood now broadcasts to over 100 countries worldwide.

Austin says, “The message is you are the victor, not the victim, and God is for you and is on your side. We may face problems, but those problems aren’t bigger than God. There is victory in Christ.”

Helen Rose Ebaugh, a professor of Sociology of Religion at the University of Houston, says Lakewood qualifies as a “mega church,” one with over 2,000 members that draws people from a wide geographic area.

She says, “Members tend to like praise and worship music and good preaching. Religion is preferred as a social experience as opposed to a more individualistic one in smaller churches.”

Austin says with forty services per week that minister to 30,000 members that are thirty percent white, thirty percent black and thirty percent Hispanic, the facilities are “maxed out.”

He says, “There is an overflow of 400 to 500 people at the weekend services, and the one lane, two-way streets that run through the surrounding neighborhood can only bear so much traffic. It takes 20 to 30 minutes to go the two miles from 610 to the church.”

After looking the past three years for a location to build a new facility, Lakewood was handed a ceremonial key to the Compaq Center by Mayor Lee Brown in December 2003.
Austin says that a facility the size of Compaq would have cost the church $300 to $400 million to build.

The 30-year rent for $11.8 million has already been paid, and the lease can be renewed for another 30 years for $22.6 million.

Branson says the city was willing to negotiate with Lakewood, but because the center was city property and Crescent Real Estate was also bidding for it, a lawsuit was filed over the issue of separation of church and state.

Austin says after the president of the real estate company watched Joel Osteen on television, he dropped the lawsuit and agreed to lease the covered parking garage with 9000 spaces that is next to Compaq. “We were going to build a lot with 4000 spaces, but that simply wouldn’t be enough,” Austin added.

Renovations worth $75 million are being done to the center that is scheduled to open at the beginning of 2005. Branson says half of the money has been received from the church itself over three years, and the rest is still being raised

The new facility will seat 18,000 and will include an international broadcast and production center and a convention center. A dining and retail plaza and a health and wellness center are being added to the building.Austin says Joel Osteen is proposing the east Houston facility be converted to a biblical college.

Austin says,”Being in the heart of Houston will allow Lakewood Church to touch more lives and make a greater impact for Jesus.”

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