5 Things I Love About Joel Osteen

I know half of the people reading this blog post are already ready to scroll down to the bottom and leave a comment about this guy. Joel Osteen. He’s a controversial figure in Christianity. While he is probably one of the most influential pastors in the US, he’s also one of the most hated.

But regardless of where you stand on the guy, there are some things I can’t help but love about him. Here are a few.

He encourages.

I don’t know that I’ve heard a single thing come from his mouth that’s discouraging. I wish that could be said about me. Instead, I spend too much of my time tearing others down.

The world is a discouraging place. We don’t need any more discouragement. And I’m glad that Joel Osteen is a positive voice in this negative world.

He doesn’t try to defend himself.

Every couple of weeks I see a video or blog post pointing out some sort of “heresy” Joel Osteen or his wife spoke. And I get it…some of the stuff is pretty damning when taken without context. (It might be damning in context too, but I can’t make a real judgment on that without hearing it.)

You could easily see the guy trying to defend the theology of things he says. He could form blog posts trying to explain what he really meant. But instead he just moves on.

I wish I could do that more in my life, rather than trying to defend myself to every critic that talks about me.

He’s confident in who God made him.

He’s got that slow, southern drawl. He owns it. It’s completely him and he hasn’t tried to change it. When most people would try to get rid of that sort of thing, he embraces it and chooses to make it part of who he is.

There are things about all of us that could be defining characteristics if we let it. But many of us choose to run away from those things. Imagine if we all leaned into them—the fingerprints of God on each of us.

He’s genuine.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t necessarily come across on the television screen. But when you sit in his church, you see the honesty. Every time I’ve seen Joel Osteen speak, he ends up tearing up about something. You can tell where his heart is.

Of course, they edit that out for the television program. It’s an awkward thing to flip the channel and see a guy in a big suit crying.

He chooses to simplify.

Part of what gets him in trouble is the way he simplifies things. Instead of using the word “joy”, he uses the word “happiness”. And maybe that’s something bad. I’m not sure.

But I love that he knows who he’s talking to, and he simplifies it for them. That’s part of why he has such huge influence. People actually understand what he’s saying without having to have a Bible dictionary in their hand. I’m constantly striving to be able to speak with that type of simplicity.

So those are the things I respect about Joel Osteen. I hesitate to invite comments on this post, because I know many of your fingers are itching wanting to thrash the guy in comments below. Instead, I’d encourage you to reach out to Joel yourself if you have something bad to say. I know he probably won’t defend himself, but at least that way you’d give him a chance to. Let’s keep comments below positive. Deal?