The nondenominational Lakewood Church in Texas, the nation’s largest congregation, moved into the Compaq Center, once the home of the Houston Rockets, over the weekend. After $95 million in renovations, including two waterfalls and enough carpeting to cover nine football fields, the arena now belongs to a charismatic church with a congregation of 30,000, revenues of $55 million last year and a television audience in the millions. Like many new evangelical churches, the building has no cross, no stained glass, no other religious iconography. Instead, it has a cafe with wireless Internet access, 32 video game kiosks and a vault to store the offering.
On Saturday evening, at the first service in the arena, Joel Osteen, the pastor, exhorted a packed house of black, white and Latino worshipers, some of whom arrived three hours early. “What a sight this is. You guys look like victors, not victims,” he said, to a round of applause. “We’re just going to have a great time and celebrate the goodness of God tonight.”
NY Times: A Church That Packs Them In, 16,000 at a Time
A floorplan of the stadium church helps show the scale of the enormous space in which approximately 25,000 will come to worship every Sunday.
Last month [October 2004] in New York City, Osteen sold out Madison Square Garden two nights in a row — something New Yorkers say the NBA’s Knicks can’t even do. One woman from Florida asked him if he’s the next Billy Graham.
“I don’t know. I don’t think of it like that because I think Billy Graham served his purpose. I don’t think anybody is ever going to take over for Billy Graham. He was so great,” Osteen said.”That little man is so powerful. He’s just a mighty man of God,” said Nell Kendrick, who drives from Austin to see Osteen preach.The Compaq Center, the former home of the Houson Rockets, is transforming from a sports and entertainment complex to the new Lakewood International Church. The same designers who work the Grammy Awards are building a stage with a huge jumbotron and waterfalls on each side of the choir. The renovation will cost $85 million.
We asked why the money isn’t being used to help people. “What I would say is, when we have this facility, we’ll have a bigger base, so we can help more people,” Osteen said.
At moments like this, I always like to remind myself that Jesus was not a Christian; nor would he likely be one.
And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
Matthew 6:5-6
Wow. Good point.
I posted that because I thought it was interesting rather than disturbing. I don’t see a problem with people getting together to pray even though it feels to me like everyone’s watching one another to see how well they’re doing, how they’re interactive as they ’should’. I can hardly comment since I go to church so infrequently, but I feel most comfortable with the idea of ones faith being such a personal thing that no-one else can really guide you to it. I find it strange that one person is thought to be able to preach to another, although I find the words of the Archbishops of Westminster and Canterbury interesting and helpful from a moral point of view. It seems like the most realistic representation of a priest ought to be someone who helps you to travel your life with moral purity or understanding, letting your understand God and religion on ones own or through ones own research.
Yes, well, I think that was exactly the point Jesus tried repeatedly to put across: it’s one thing to study together, to learn from one another’s experiences, even to cooperate and struggle together in planning good works; but “when push comes to shove” spiritually, it’s always strictly between every individual soul and the face God chooses to turn toward that soul. Anybody who thinks getting all spiffed up of a Sunday and mumbling along with the crowd in a series of collective prayers is the essence of religion already “[has] their reward.” The essence of religion consists in intensely private reflection and prayer, combined with the tangible effects they produce Monday through Saturday in the marketplace, the workplace and the public forum.