Rap icon and fashion mogul Kanye West is slated to appear on stage to offer a testimony at Joel Osteen’s Lakewood megachurch this Sunday, according to reports.
West, who converted to Christianity this year, will reportedly have a 30-minute live conversation with Osteen during Sunday’s 11:00am service to discuss how he has overcome significant adversity in his life.
“Joel is still putting his questions together, but he will talk about Kanye’s journey to his faith,” said Donald Iloff, Jr., a senior executive at Joel Osteen Ministries.
Later in the day, West will return for the 7:00pm service to perform with his choir, Iloff said. West has been touring about promoting his new gospel-rap album Jesus Is King and performing so-called “Sunday Service” with his choir in various cities.
West and Osteen have been talking regularly and have become friends, and Iloff said that the idea for the Lakewood visit emerged over the weekend, while West was in town to perform at Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival.
“Kanye and Joel are friends. He’s been wanting to come out for some time and it just worked out for this weekend,” Iloff said
Lakewood Church is America’s largest megachurch, with an average of nearly 50,000 attendees each weekend, and its pastor, Joel Osteen, is followed by a television audience of some 10 million people.
According to Kanye’s pastor, Adam Tyson, the rap megastar had a major conversion experience last April, after which he seriously considered dumping his music career, saying that rap is “the devil’s music.”
Kanye “started visiting our church back in mid-May,” said Tyson, the senior pastor at Placerita Bible Church in Newhall, CA, and soon after told Tyson that five weeks earlier he had “got radically saved.”
Instead of giving up rap, Kanye transitioned his music career to doing exclusively Christian rap, starting a gospel-themed “Sunday Service” music tour, which has drawn thousands. Earlier this month, West’s latest album, Jesus Is King, debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 albums chart.
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