Within a couple of months, he began preaching in Paris, Texas, and was apparently ordained to the gospel ministry shortly before his 18th birthday by a church affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.
During his pastorate of Central Baptist Church, Osteen and his first wife, Emma Jean Shaffer, began to experience marital unrest and subsequently divorced.
Before long, Osteen again entered pastoral ministry at Hibbard Memorial Baptist Church, Houston, Texas, but left in 1958.
As he wrestled with her circumstance, his theological beliefs began to shift and he had ecstatic religious experiences, based on the baptism of the Holy Ghost.
In the mid-1980s, Osteen launched the Lakewood Bible Institute (LBI), an "unaccredited school devoted to biblical training from a charismatic perspective."