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Joel Osteen is a non-denominational Christian pastor and televangelist, whose Houston-based megachurch (Lakewood Church) hosts one of the largest congregations in the United States, averaging an estimated 52,000 attendees per week. Osteen has often been criticized for promoting a prosperity gospel, which he described in a 2005 letter to his flock as God wants us to prosper financially, to have plenty of money, to fulfill the destiny He has laid out for us. He has additionally been the target of scorn in some quarters for purportedly using his ministry less for preaching the gospel than for the amassing of immense personal wealth: These factors led to the May 2019 circulation of what looked to be a Facebook post from a woman seeking prayers for her marriage from Osteen's ministry, only to be told that she needed to pay for a prayer request account: Osteen has also been the subject of numerous spoof articles playing on his alleged predilection for putting material gain ahead of the well-being of his parishioners, and this particular post about prayer accounts was more of the same. No such real exchange took place on the Facebook page of Joel Osteen Ministries; the post was merely a fabricated response from a look-alike Facebook account that directed some more financial-based trolling Osteen's way. https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/investigations/article/How-Joel-Osteen-made-himself-the-smiling-12960441.php
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