Huffington Magazine Issue 52 | Page 37

How JOEL OSTEEN Is Saving Souls With Facebook CLICK ‘PRAY’ TO PRAY HUFFINGTON 06.09.13 BY BIANCA BOSKER PREVIOUS PAGE: COURTESY JOEL OSTEEN MINISTRIES HALFWAY THROUGH MEGAPASTOR Joel Osteen’s sermon at Marlins Park stadium, seven frazzled people sitting in a press box overlooking the field realize they have a problem: The prayers aren’t going through. ¶ “I can forward ‘prayer’ to ‘prayer request,’” volunteers a member of Osteen’s technical staff as a possible fix. He fiddles with the trackball of his BlackBerry as he tries his best to reassure Osteen’s marketing director, Jason Madding, that they can redirect people’s emailed prayers to the proper place and prevent them from disappearing into the digital ether. Hunched over a MacBook, Madding flips back and forth between a Skype chat and a page tracking traffic to Osteen’s sites. He coordinates with a remote team of developers as he monitors the popularity of Osteen’s page to gauge whether the surge of visitors will overwhelm the servers and bring down the site. On the field below, a musician blows two long blasts from a ram’s horn while drums thump in the background. “Every day has your name on it,” Osteen shouts to the crowd. Osteen, a 50-year-old Texas native with an impeccable complexion, thick head of dark hair and a gleaming white smile, is the pastor of the largest church in America. On this April night in Miami, nearly 36,000 cheering people have gathered in the stands of the stadium to hear him speak. But for Madding, the crucial action is playing out on an iPad propped on a desk in front of him: He is watching the live stream of the pastor’s sermon as it