Where Church Is Big ... Very Big

But questions over tax-exemption status and squabbling over high-profile pastors are growing concerns. In recent years, none more than Joel Osteen, 46, the best-selling author and pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston, the largest megachurch in the country, has been questioned more about his riches.

"God has blessed me with more money than I could imagine from my books," says Osteen, who gave up his $200,000 salary about five years ago, when royalties started flowing from his Your Best Life Now. He adds of he and his wife, Victoria: "I don't think it has changed our lifestyle, it has just given us the opportunity to help more people."

Joel's father started Lakewood with a congregation that would fit aboard two buses and grew it to 6,000. Since he died in 1999, Joel has grown the flock more than seven fold. In 2008 Lakewood had a $70 million budget, up from $50 million in 2005. In addition to the 7 million watching on television in the U.S. (services are broadcast to more than 100 countries), about 43,500 people come to the former Compaq Center, where the Houston Rockets used to play, for any of the five weekly services.

Lakewood leased the center from the city of Houston in 2004 for 60 years, paying $13 million in cash for the first 30 years rent. Then they threw $95 million more in on top of that to try to make the 650,000 square foot building feel like an intimate church. There is wall-to-wall carpet beneath the 14,000 seats. The largest of three jumbotron screens is 32 feet by 18 feet. Twin waterfalls book-end a stage that rises and falls before a circling gold globe and a pulpit, where Osteen, often lambasted by critics for being light on theology, preaches about staying positive. He says he doesn't want to be "too religious" in hopes to reach the "everyday person."

"Don't drive up and down the freeway and just see the traffic, potholes and the construction. Look out at the beauty of God's creation. Look out at the trees, look up into the sky. Breathe in the goodness of God," he told his following on a recent Sunday. "When that critical spirit comes, you have to deal with it one thought at a time."

Out in the sea of believers and donators, amid scores of television cameras, was James Lyster, 38, a tattooed steelworker dressed in a suit. Others came in jeans and T-shirts. "The spirit of the Lord is here," he says. So is the rumble of a dramatic drum solo and the blare from a band belting the lyrics of "Come in From the Outside Just as You Are."