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Topic: Joel Osteen on Larry King Live
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Gramajo320
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Member # 4667
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posted
Israel My Beloved,
I really like your name very much. Israel is very special to me and it always will be. God bless you.
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Gramajo320
Posts: 2385 | From: WA | Registered: May 2005
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israel my beloved
Advanced Member
Member # 4776
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posted
Granmajo; I came by the name Israel My Beloved by seeing the Israeli Flag that said "Israel My Beloved" I really liked it, so I thought I would use it as my username ![[Smile]](smile.gif) Thank you for asking about it ![[Kiss]](graemlins/Kiss.gif)
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Psalm 122:1
I was glad when they said unto me; let us go unto the house of the LORD
Posts: 32 | From: Indiana | Registered: Jun 2005
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SoftTouch
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Member # 2316
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posted
quote:
Originally posted by TEXASGRANDMA:
When the Pastor of a Church shies away from using the term of sin and sinners, then the Church has lost its focus.
And the Salt has lost it's Saltiness ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
Amen Sis!
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Psalm 119:104Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way. 105Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
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TEXASGRANDMA
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"Score 1 for God: Ex-sports arena now church."
BA, this is true, if they are preaching the plan of salvation, but it seems to me they are more of a motivational seminar then an oasis of salvation.
Like Ray Comfort says: you have to know what you are being saved from before you can embrace salvation. When the Pastor of a Church shies away from using the term of sin and sinners, then the Church has lost its focus.
betty
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Luk 21:28 And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.
http://www.indieheaven.com/artists/mm (son-in-law)http://www.myspace.com/mireles
Posts: 4985 | From: Washington State | Registered: Jan 2003
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BORN AGAIN
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posted
Score 1 for God: Ex-sports arena now church.
Good.
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SoftTouch
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Member # 2316
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posted
wow... ![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
quote:
Romans 16:17Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.
18For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.
2 Peter 2:1But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
2And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.
3And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.
Matthew 7:13Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:
14Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
15Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
16Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
17Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
18A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
19Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
20Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
21Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
22Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
23And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
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Psalm 119:104Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way. 105Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
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helpforhomeschoolers
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Member # 15
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posted
Score 1 for God: Ex-sports arena now church
KRISTIE RIEKEN
The Associated Press
advertisement
HOUSTON - An arena that basketball fans once packed to see the NBA's Houston Rockets is about to take on a new role - home to the largest congregation in the nation.
Lakewood Church, led by televangelist and best-selling author Joel Osteen, has grown so much in recent years that last weekend it expand into a new building: the former Compaq Center.
The arena was home to the Rockets when they won two league titles in the 1990s and the Houston Comets of the WNBA when they won four. It now seems fitting that "discover the champion in you" has long been the church's slogan.
"It all ties in together," Osteen says. "Many sports champions have been crowned there and we believe we can crown champions in life."
Lakewood, a nondenominational Christian church, recently became the first congregation in the country with an average weekly attendance of more than 30,000 for its services - and had an average attendance of 32,500 in the first quarter of this year, says John Vaughan of Church Growth Today, an organization that studies megachurches, based in Bolivar, Mo.
Now the Lakewood Church Central Campus will seat 16,000 people, with parking space for 8,000 vehicles.
Lakewood will now reduce its weekend English language services from four to three, though it will continue a weekly Spanish language service.
Critics have sometimes taken Osteen to task for downplaying the sinful nature of humanity and the need for repentance.
An article last week in the liberal Protestant magazine The Christian Century calls Osteen an "easy theological target" who turns the language of the Scriptures "into a vague religiosity, or into more digestible categories of self-help and self-improvement."
Lakewood, which first opened in an abandoned Houston feed store in 1959, has grown almost fivefold since Osteen took over the church in 1999, before the death of his father, former pastor John Osteen.
Posts: 4684 | From: Southern Black Hills of South Dakota | Registered: Jun 2002
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helpforhomeschoolers
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posted
At Lakewood, goal is to be 'good stewards of God's money'
Big budget supports the higher calling
By JOHN C. ROPER
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle
With 300 employees, a projection of $77 million in annual revenue and audited financial statements, Houston's Lakewood Church sounds a lot like a business.
ADVERTISEMENT
And in many ways, it is.
"It would be naive to say, 'No, we're not a business,' " Senior Pastor Joel Osteen said in an interview. "We obviously are a business because we're dealing with millions of dollars. And I say that because we don't take that lightly."
According to a copy of the church's most recent audited financial statement obtained by the Chronicle and a review of public records including court documents, Lakewood is a sophisticated and successful business operation.
"We have to be good stewards of God's money, so we run it by sound, solid business principles," said Osteen, who this year stopped taking his $200,000 salary from the church and instead lives on profits from sales of his best-selling book, Your Best Life Now, which has sold 2.8 million copies.
The documents show revenue for the 2004 fiscal year of $54 million, including $3.4 million from the church bookstore, which sells religious videos, CDs and books.
Records also show:
•It owns and operates KTBU Channel 55, "The Tube," a local television station that features religious shows and retro programming like Gunsmoke and I Love Lucy.
•Employees have access to retirement plans.
•It has had a multimillion-dollar line of credit at Northern Trust Bank and has seven-figure investments in securities..
•Lakewood structured a sophisticated $60 million construction loan with Bank of America to revamp its new home at the former Compaq Center using collateral pledges from its members, a deed of trust on its northeast Houston campus and a life insurance policy for Joel Osteen.
•The church has successfully sued to protect Joel Osteen's name as a valuable trademark.
•Osteen, who lives in a home appraised at $2.3 million in the ritzy Tanglewood neighborhood, is listed as president of Lakewood Church, a nonprofit organization. (A spokesman for the church noted that Osteen paid $380,000 for the home when he bought it, though it has since been remodeled.)
If Lakewood is to be compared to a business, there is no doubt it is family-run:
Osteen's wife, Victoria, his mother, brother, sister and in-laws all play central roles.
Kevin Comes, who is married to Joel Osteen's sister, Lisa, who also is a pastor at the church, is the administrator who handles the day-to-day business. He attributes much of the success to penny-pinching.
"We have an incredible budgeting system," Comes said. "We budget all the way down to hot chocolate."
Comes said Lakewood has done "significant analysis" that shows the church will increase its revenue by 42 percent, from $54 million in fiscal year 2004 to $77 million in the current fiscal year, 2006. At the same time, annual operating expenses will rise from
$45 million to $75 million.
Comes said the increased revenue will come from a sharp increase in weekend attendance — already at 30,000 strong before the church moved into the former Compaq Center. Worshippers are encouraged to tithe 10 percent or more of their income annually.
Lakewood recently held its first services in the 16,000-seat arena, drawing standing-room-only crowds.
The church has few big donors and counts on a large volume of middle-income families, Comes said. "We have a huge middle class that gives responsibly," he added.
While Lakewood is considered the largest church in the country by attendance, it is not alone in finding success among the masses. Hundreds of other so-called megachurches — defined as having 2,000 or more weekly attendants — are cropping up around the country, and they're filling the pews using business tactics.
"Lakewood, and megachurches like it, are efficiently marketing an interchangeable product better than the competition," said James Twitchell, a professor of English and advertising at the University of Florida who's written about churches and marketing.
"They have been able to tell a story, dynamically market a brand and are harvesting the reward, namely, greater consumption at higher profit margins thanks to economies of scale."
John Green, a political science professor at the University of Akron in Ohio, who studies megachurches and their impact on society, refers to Osteen and other megachurch leaders as "religious entrepreneurs" who excel at niche marketing.
"If you go to a megachurch, you'll find that they emphasize different things, and if you're looking at this from a business point of view, that's good marketing. You find your niche," he said.
Interpretations of the Bible, for example, vary widely from church to church and are sometimes tailored to their demographics, Green said.
Lakewood features "prosperity gospel," which promises the faithful that if they ask, God will reward them financially. Its niche is what Osteen calls "the unsaved" or "unchurched."
"We like to target people who do not go to church today," Osteen said.
Green also said megachurches are frequently structured like corporations.
Lakewood Church, for example, has a president, a chief financial officer who oversees a team of accountants, a board of directors, a public relations officer, and health and retirement plans.
Osteen said he is mainly involved in the spiritual side of Lakewood's operation but that the church has hired "top-quality people to manage the money to help us be good stewards."
It's common for a megachurch to have annual revenue in the millions of dollars, and for most if not all of that money to be spent on construction, highly produced services, advertising, promotion and broadcasting, according to the Hartford Institute for Religion Research.
The average annual income for a megachurch was $4.8 million, with expenditures of $4.4 million, according to a 2000 Hartford study.
Just 25 years ago, there were only about a dozen megachurches in the United States. There are at least 1,200 today, according to the Hartford Institute's Scott Thumma, who is wrapping up a study on the phenomenon.
Thumma said those churches are mainly nondenominational and are in 45 of 50 states. Texas leads the nation with 174 megachurches, followed by California with 169 and Florida with 83. Houston and Dallas account for 56 megachurches alone.
Broadcasting is a big part of the megachurch.
Some 44 percent use radio and 38 percent use television to spread their gospel and in turn get bigger, according to Thumma's research.
While no one knows for sure how much the megachurch industry is worth, most experts say that with their millions of attendees, who often tithe 10 percent of their income or more to the church annually, it's in the many billions of dollars.
"This is a business that dwarfs all other businesses. This business dwarfs the car business. Nothing compares to it," said Twitchell, who wrote Branded Nation: The Marketing of the Megachurch, College Inc., and Museumworld, which examines how religion, education and culture are relying heavily on brand recognition and marketing.
He's working on another book, Shopping for God, which will show how megachurches are targeting audiences using highly developed marketing skills.
Megachurches, he said, are marketing salvation.
"From a consumer point of view, we may not think we're church shopping, but from their point of view, they're shopping God," he said.
And to do it, they are targeting an audience that Twitchell said churches once largely failed to court — men.
"That's been the marketing breakthrough. If you want this thing to succeed and get big and get strong, pitch it to men," he said.
Megachurches, he said, are unlike the churches of yesteryear in that they feature what men like: comfortable cineplex-style seats, glossy professional-quality performances with high-tech sound and video systems, and rapid-fire sermons about issues related to day-to-day living.
In its glossy magazine's summer edition, Lakewood Church features an article written by a star of the Houston Texans football team, David Carr, whom it counts as a member.
With a laid-back tone and action photos of the popular quarterback playing football, Carr discusses how his faith guides him as a father and a field general.
At a recent Sunday service at Lakewood, among the crowd of several thousand were family men in their 20s and 30s.
On that Sunday, while her brother Joel was in California preparing to preach to a sold-out stadium in Anaheim, Lisa Comes gave a sermon to several thousand churchgoers on personal finance, which she called "financial freedom from the Bible's point of view."
Financial freedom, she said, will come to those who tithe.
And the church isn't shy about asking the congregation to ramp up its tithing. Joel Osteen said he wants to pay off "as quickly as possible" the $60 million construction loan used to refurbish Compaq Center. He said he expects church members, who have already paid $35 million of the $95 million cost, to carry the load.
"We're just going to put it to the congregation that we want to pay this thing off," Osteen said during a recent media tour of the arena.
He said he doesn't fret over filling the stadium or raising enough money to pay expenses.
"I don't lose any sleep over it," Osteen said in an interview. "If something's not working, we'll scale back."
Osteen suggested that the church could even eventually outgrow its new home.
"I'm satisfied with this, but 10 years from now, you never know," he said.
"We might need something bigger."
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TEXASGRANDMA
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I can no longer bring it up. Becuase I no longer live in Texas I can only read today's newspaper on line. You have to be a paying customer to bring up past articles.
sorry, betty
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Luk 21:28 And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.
http://www.indieheaven.com/artists/mm (son-in-law)http://www.myspace.com/mireles
Posts: 4985 | From: Washington State | Registered: Jan 2003
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SoftTouch
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posted
quote:
Originally posted by TEXASGRANDMA:
I honestly do not think his apology was sincere. Weeks after his apology, I read in the Houston Chronicle that he was hoping his Church at the Comapct Center would be a place where 100 thousand people come come fore "self-imporvement and self empowerment". In other words the same "let's make them feel good" stuff.
betty
 I completely forgot about that article. The "Operative" word I see there is Self- Shouldn't a True Preacher of God's Holy Word be preaching on Regeneration by the Holy Spirit of the Lord God and not Self-Improvement? or SELF Anything? It's all about HIM (Jesus) not us or Self... ![[Frown]](frown.gif) I could see a New Age "Motivational Speaker" doing this, but not someone who claims to be Born Again.
Betty, perhaps you could post that article here?
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Psalm 119:104Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way. 105Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
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TEXASGRANDMA
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I honestly do not think his apology was sincere. Weeks after his apology, I read in the Houston Chronicle that he was hoping his Church at the Comapct Center would be a place where 100 thousand people come come fore "self-imporvement and self empowerment". In other words the same "let's make them feel good" stuff.
betty
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Luk 21:28 And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.
http://www.indieheaven.com/artists/mm (son-in-law)http://www.myspace.com/mireles
Posts: 4985 | From: Washington State | Registered: Jan 2003
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SoftTouch
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There was a letter of apology (written by Osteen) posted here by one of Osteen's supporters. It apologized for his lack of a stance on Jesus being the only way to God. It's just Very Sad that all the people who saw this Larry King show will never know about. Does anyone know if that letter was posted by Larry King on his site (or read on the air)?.
However, this still doesn't excuse all the other false "Positive Thinking" teaching which is in direct contrast to the Scriptures. Now if he apologizes (repents) from that and starts teaching Sound Doctrine, then that will be a Great Day. Until that time, we do need to pray for him.
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Psalm 119:104Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way. 105Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
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hardcore
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posted
quote:
Originally posted by Itty-Bitty Girl:
His T.V. program should have a warning label on it.
I have to admit, that one made me giggle IBG.
Posts: 627 | Registered: Mar 2005
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hardcore
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quote:
Originally posted by israel my beloved:
If this a has been a thread here once about Joel on Larry King Live then I apologize, but I could not believe what I read in this transcript from CNN. Read for yourself and see what I mean...
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0506/20/lkl.01.html Look what he says about atheists...
Pray for this man!!!
It is sad indeed and unfortunately an even sadder commentary on the growing apostacy in churches today.
We do indeed need to pray for Mr. Osteen; not only him, but his congregation as well.
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Itty-Bitty Girl
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Member # 4579
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KING: What if you're Jewish or Muslim, you don't accept Christ at all?
OSTEEN: You know, I'm very careful about saying who would and wouldn't go to heaven. I don't know ...
KING: If you believe you have to believe in Christ? They're wrong, aren't they?
OSTEEN: Well, I don't know if I believe they're wrong. I believe here's what the Bible teaches and from the Christian faith this is what I believe. But I just think that only God with judge a person's heart. I spent a lot of time in India with my father. I don't know all about their religion. But I know they love God. And I don't know. I've seen their sincerity. So I don't know. I know for me, and what the Bible teaches, I want to have a relationship with Jesus.
+++++++++++++++++++++
Joel Osteen's twisted sugar-coated gospel leads people to hell. His T.V. program should have a warning label on it.
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Gramajo320
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Member # 4667
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IsraelMyBeloved, I am fascinated by your name, may I please ask how you came to choose it - thank you very much.
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Gramajo320
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TEXASGRANDMA
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posted
that is okay israel my beloved, it is new to you.
no problem at all.
betty
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Luk 21:28 And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.
http://www.indieheaven.com/artists/mm (son-in-law)http://www.myspace.com/mireles
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Gramajo320
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Yes this is an old thread which already has been discussed at great length.
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Gramajo320
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israel my beloved
Advanced Member
Member # 4776
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posted
If this a has been a thread here once about Joel on Larry King Live then I apologize, but I could not believe what I read in this transcript from CNN. Read for yourself and see what I mean...
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0506/20/lkl.01.html Look what he says about atheists...
Pray for this man!!!
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Psalm 122:1
I was glad when they said unto me; let us go unto the house of the LORD
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