Pastor Joel Osteen Says Muslims Attend Lakewood Church and His Books Sell a Lot In Muslim Countries

Joel Osteen

Houston’s Lakewood Church is the largest church in the country, with around 40,000 people coming to services there each week.

“I never really planned on having a big church,” pastor Joel Osteen told Here & Now’s Jeremy Hobson. “We didn’t want to turn people away. People kept coming and we thought, ‘OK, let’s just build a bigger place.’”

Hobson is broadcasting from KUHF in Houston this week. This is the latest in our View From The Top series of conversations.

Interview Highlights: Joel Osteen

On the church’s relationship with Muslims

“I have Muslims that attend our church and my books sell a lot in Muslim countries as well. You know, I don’t know, I don’t get too deep in those kinds of things, but our ministry is about reaching out to everybody, and so I do and I do have those conversations. I had a whole group of probably about 50 Muslims here at the service about two weeks ago, sitting right on the front row. They came, and we have good, good relations. And I think it’s again, part of our ministry is, you know, our main theme is Jesus says love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as you love yourself. And I don’t try to put people in a box – OK, they’re Jewish or they’re Catholic, they’re this or they’re that. I just say, ‘you know what, they’re somebody that God’s put in our path for us to love,’ and that’s our philosophy.”

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SOURCE: Here & Now