“God is not a ‘get by’ God,” said Joel, “but a bountiful God. The crowd, probably about 80 percent people of color, was with him every step of the way. Not just a ‘get by’ year, but a bountiful year.” God will crown the year with a bountiful year. “We’re gonna start hoping again, believing again, dreaming again!” he declared. “Nothing we’re facing is a surprise to God,” said Joel, standing atop the bare stage deep in the infield on the windless August evening: sticky air, blue sky and blue coat, banks of speakers curling out from either side of the stage. The event began with praise and worship music, then Joel himself and his wife, Victoria, she in all white, strolled onstage and waved at everyone and the crowd roared and it was on. 'He is not doom and gloom, he has a positive picture, not where did you mess up?' Said Denise from the Bronx: “He is positive. Every morning I wake up and listen to his podcast…. Yusef, who manages a Dunkin’ shop in Rockport, told me : “I was not a fan of him at first. Not where did you mess up, discouraging you from knowing the true nature of God. She was heading to her seats on the first base side of the lower deck with her mother and her husband, Yusef, who was pushing their daughter in a stroller. “He is not doom and gloom,” said Nasheen Nazir from Rockport, Long Island. You are drawn to to this preacher in spite of yourself. Joel Osteen knows how to keep a Friday night channel surfer on for a good three minutes longer than they intended. You are drawn to him, as they say, in spite of yourself. Four! Four minutes! Every word feels minted, every intonation just right, as if choreographed for its desired witnessing effect. You stay watching Joel a minute, two, sometimes even three. Pastor Osteen is deftly weaving Scripture passages into stories of uplift and hope for rapt audiences at the 16,800 seat Lakewood Church in Houston, Tex., formerly the Compaq Center. He stands on a gleaming stage, a huge bronze metal globe slowly revolving behind him. You are flipping through the channels late at night, and there he is. Maybe you have seen Joel Osteen delivering his sermons on TV. Then again, considering the phenomenon that he is, maybe the sky selected its shade of blue to accent Joel Osteen’s suit. He was wearing a smart cobalt-blue suit that practically seemed chosen to accent the pale blue sky he would preach beneath. It would be Joel’s first large stadium event since the pandemic began. Sophia started to cry, thinking about what his message means to her. He waved fervently and smiled even bigger than usual, and the little clutch of people went (calmly) nuts. “It is something that we either bring into existence in a positive way, or through fear that manifests as destruction.”Īfter a while, Joel turned and saw us standing on the other side of the glass wall. My friend Hal, who regularly quotes Jung and Kierkegaard (but somehow can get away with it), put their description of Osteen’s message in his own words: “The future isn’t something that happens to you,” he said. “I’m gonna cry,” she said, just thinking about what Joel’s message means to her. Michelle’s friend Sophia said Joel Osteen helped her realize: “Everything’s going to be okay. “He tells you to believe even when you don’t see anything happen,” Michelle continued. “I need his message.”Īnother woman in the crowd outside the dining room, Michelle from East Flatbush, Brooklyn, said: “Joel Osteen breaks it down. “Everything that’s due to me will come back to me,” Diane told me. What had drawn them to leave their homes and get on a train and sit in a stadium to see Pastor Joel Osteen? I met Diane, who stood with a small, buzzing crowd gazing into a glass-walled dining room where, we were surprised to find, Joel himself was filming conversations with local New York pastors. Before the Joel and Victoria Osteen “Night of Hope” at Yankee Stadium, I roamed the park’s lower-deck concourse with my friend Hal and asked people why they were there.
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