Lakewood Church

Lakewood Church is a megachurch neocharismatische without denominational affiliation in Houston, Texas and with 40,000 weekly worshipers the largest local church in the United States. The community is made up of equal numbers of whites, African- Americans and Latin Americans.

Founder of the Church was John Osteen (1921-1999), an ordained pastor of the Southern Baptist Convention, which broke up in 1958 by the Southern Baptists and Pentecostals had turned. The church was founded in an old feed store on the outskirts of Houston in 1959. From the beginning the church was open to people of different religious backgrounds, all races and all social backgrounds.

John Osteen wrote about forty books and founded a television program, for which the church spends about 30 million dollars annually. The weekly television programs were broadcast too Osteen times in over 100 countries and can be received in the United States of nearly 200 million households in Europe and on the God Channel today.

Since the death of John Osteen, the church is led by his son Joel Osteen. The older children, Paul and Lisa Osteen Comes, as well as Dodie, the widow of John Osteen, are also among the employees of the church. The responsible minister for the Latin American church, Marcos Witt, is a winner of the Latin Grammy. Under the leadership of Joel Osteen, the number of worshipers increased five-fold within a few years.

2005 moved Lakewood Church a new building, a converted sports stadium with 16,000 seats, which it has leased for 30 years from the city of Houston. The renovation should have cost $ 95 million.

In addition to the weekly services are available in the Lakewood Church sixteen different age and interest groups, each offering several activities, courses and voluntary work.