Some Christian megachurch congregations weren’t pleased with a comedic skit by Druski that went viral earlier this year. But the popular pastor Joel Osteen isn’t offended – in fact, he revealed that he found it amusing in a recent interview.
Osteen was asked if he had seen the skit during his appearance as a guest on the most recent episode of Logan Paul’s podcast, Impaulsive. “Well, I saw clips of it” he began with a chuckle, “it was funny. It was funny, you know? He’s making fun of it. I just thought it was funny. That was funny, but it’s a megachurch because we’re big.”
Osteen continued, “We never tried to have a big church. It really wasn’t a goal. It was just a goal to help people. And so my parents started with 90 people back in 1959. So I grew up in a small church. I knew everybody till I was 10 years old, it was still 90 people. And so it grew to thousands by the time my dad died. But we never really tried to have a big church. We just didn’t want to turn people away. We had to just make room for more people. So I think the goal was not just the bigness, but the goal is to impact people.”
The skit by Druski was first released in January, and it poked fun at the pastors of megachurches who prey on their congregation for their personal profit. The comedian was decked out in designer clothes, and at one point spoke to the congregation while suspended in the air, hooked up to wires.
Osteen, 63, has been the senior pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, since 1999. The church was the former home of the NBA’s Houston Rockets. Osteen has become a major figure whose teachings are fueled by “prosperity theology,” or the belief that God always blesses those who believe with financial rewards and great physical well-being.
“My dad was taught to be holy or a Christian, you need to be poor, and you need to think defeated. And this was years ago,” Osteen stated at the 1:11:00 hour mark of the podcast. “I just have a different mindset …it cost a hundred million dollars to renovate this facility. I can’t do that with a mindset of, ‘Oh, we’re not supposed to have anything.’”
