Joyce Meyer

Pauline Joyce Meyer, born Pauline Joyce Hutchison on June 4, 1943, is an American Charismatic Christian author, speaker, and president of Joyce Meyer Ministries. Her ministry is headquartered near Fenton, Missouri, close to the St. Louis area where her life and public work began. Meyer came of age in the years after World War II. Her father left for the army the day she was born, and she has said that after his return he sexually abused her, an experience she later discussed in her meetings.

Meyer graduated from O’Fallon Technical High School in St. Louis and married a part-time car salesman shortly after her senior year. That marriage lasted five years. She has said her first husband frequently cheated on her and persuaded her to steal payroll checks from her employer, money they used for a vacation to California. She states that she returned the money years later. After her divorce, she frequented local bars before meeting Dave Meyer, an engineering draftsman. They married on January 7, 1967.

Meyer reports that in 1976, during an intense prayer while driving to work, she heard God call her name. She had been born again at age nine, but she has described that period as one in which unhappiness drove her deeper into faith. Later that day, after a beauty appointment, she said she came home “full of liquid love” and was “drunk with the Spirit of God” that night at a local bowling alley. She later said she had little knowledge, did not go to church, and had many problems, and that people who want to serve God sometimes need help through their early years.

Her public ministry grew from local teaching. Meyer was briefly a member of Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in St. Louis, then began leading an early-morning Bible class at a local cafeteria and became active in Life Christian Center, a charismatic church in Fenton. Within a few years, she was the church’s associate pastor, and the church became one of the leading charismatic churches in the area, largely because of her popularity as a Bible teacher. She also began a daily 15-minute radio broadcast on a St. Louis station. In 1985, she resigned as associate pastor and founded her own ministry, first called Life in the Word, expanding the radio show to stations from Chicago to Kansas City.

In 1993, at Dave Meyer’s suggestion, she began a television ministry under the Life in the Word name, airing on WGN-TV in Chicago and Black Entertainment Television. In 1998, it was one of the first religious programs on KTBU. Her program, now called Enjoying Everyday Life, remains on the air. In 2002, Hachette Book Group paid Meyer more than $10 million for the rights to her backlist of independently released books. In 2005, Time listed her among the “25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America.”

Meyer’s ministry has also faced criticism over finances and lifestyle. She owns several homes and travels in a private jet, and in 2004 St. Louis station KNLC dropped her programming, citing what Larry Rice called an “excessive lifestyle” and teachings that “often” went beyond Scripture. Reports in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and inquiries from watchdog groups led to public scrutiny, and Joyce Meyer Ministries was later one of six organizations examined in a United States Senate inquiry led by Senator Chuck Grassley. The ministry complied with requests for financial records, made commitments to future transparency, and was not found to have committed wrongdoing. In 2009, it received accreditation from the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. Meyer’s words still draw attention because they speak plainly to pain, disappointment, patience, and daily conduct, themes closely tied to the hardships and convictions she has described throughout her life.