John Osteen Biography, Joel Osteen Father
Born: August 21, 1921, Paris, TX
Died: January 23, 1999, Houston, TX
Spouse: Dolores Osteen (m. 1954–1999)
Children: Joel Osteen, Paul Osteen, Justin Osteen, Lisa Osteen, Tamara Osteen, April Osteen Simons
Parents: Willis Jackson Osteen, Ellen Mae Leigh Brawner
Grandchildren: Jonathan Osteen, Alexandra Osteen
John Osteen Net Worth at Death
John Osteen had an estimated net worth of $58 million at the time of his death, he created most of his wealth from Lakewood Church and other investments. His son, Joel Osteen has a net worth of $110 million and is an American pastor, televangelist, and author. Joel is a well-known American televangelist, author, and pastor.
Biography
John Hillery Osteen (August 21, 1921 – January 23, 1999) was a pastor in Houston, Texas, who served as the founding pastor of Lakewood Church from 1959 until his death in 1999.
His weekly television program, John Osteen, aired for 16 years and was watched by millions in the United States and nearly 50 other countries.
John Hillery Osteen was born in the Texas town of Paris. He graduated from John Brown University in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, with a bachelor’s degree and Northern Baptist Seminary with a master’s degree. Oral Roberts University awarded him a Doctor of Divinity degree.
Osteen claimed in his biography that he did not seriously consider God until 1939, after leaving a nightclub he frequented. He began preaching in Paris, Texas, within a few months, and was apparently ordained to the gospel ministry by a church affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention shortly before his 18th birthday.
After completing his studies at NBTS, he worked as an Associate Pastor at First Baptist Church in San Diego, Texas, and by the late 1940s, he was a minister at First Baptist Church in Hamlin, Texas.
Osteen left Hamlin in 1948 to become an itinerant preacher, but he was pastor of Central Baptist Church in Baytown, Texas, within a year.
Wives and Children
Osteen and his first wife, Emma Jean Shaffer, began to have marital problems during his pastorate at Central Baptist Church and eventually divorced.
On September 17, 1954, he married Dolores “Dodie” Pilgrim and resigned his pastorate the following year. Osteen returned to pastoral ministry soon after, at Houston’s Hibbard Memorial Baptist Church, but left in 1958.
Lisa, John and Dodie’s first child, was born with serious health problems the same year. As he grappled with her situation, his theological beliefs shifted, and he began to have ecstatic religious experiences based on what he called “Holy Ghost baptism.”
A year later, on Mother’s Day, May 10, 1959, he and Dodie founded Lakewood Baptist Church in northeast Houston as a charismatic Baptist church in “a dusty, abandoned feed store.” The church became nondenominational after dropping the word “Baptist” from its name.
Osteen founded the Lakewood Bible Institute (LBI) in the mid-1980s, describing it as a “unaccredited school devoted to biblical training from a charismatic perspective.”
LBI offered a wide range of classes, including Bible study principles, healing, conversion, and prayer. Osteen was the president of LBI until it closed in the late 1980s.
Founding Lakewood Church
In 1959, Osteen founded Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, and grew it to a congregation of about 15,000 people with active ministries in televangelism, conferences, missionary support, and food distribution.
For 16 years, he hosted the weekly John Osteen television program, preaching to millions of people in the United States and around the world.
He died of a heart attack on January 23, 1999, at the age of 77. Joel Osteen, his youngest son, later became the pastor and expanded his father’s church.
Lakewood now attracts over 52,000 people and is broadcast to millions of people around the world via television and the internet.
John Osteen Wife
John married thrice; Emma Jean Shaffer (divorced); Dolores (Dodie) Pilgrim Osteen (m. 1954–1999; his death).
