Joyce Meyrer Biography- American Charismatic Christian Author and Preacher

Pauline Joyce Meyer, whose real name is Pauline Joyce Hutchison and who was born on June 4, 1943, is an American Charismatic Christian author, speaker, and the head of Joyce Meyer Ministries. Joyce and her husband, Dave, live outside of St. Louis, Missouri, with their four grown children. Her mission is based in Missouri, near a suburb of St. Louis called Fenton.

Early years

Pauline Joyce Hutchison, who became Meyer, was born in south St. Louis in 1943. Soon after she was born, her father joined the army to fight in World War II. She has said in interviews that when he came back, he started sexually abusing her. She also talks about this in her meetings.She has a St. Louis accent that comes from the working class.

She went to high school in St. Louis and graduated from O’Fallon Technical High School. Soon after her final year, she got married to a part-time car salesman. They were married for five years. She says her husband cheated on her often and convinced her to steal salary checks from her job.

They took a trip to California with the money. She says that she gave the money back a long time later. Meyer went to local bars after her split until she met Dave Meyer, who was an engineering draughtsman. On January 7, 1967, they got married.

Change of heart and Ministry

Meyer also says that one morning in 1976, as she was going to work after a very long prayer, she heard God call her name. She was born again when she was nine, but being unhappy made her believe in God more. She came home from a beauty session later that day “full of liquid love” and was “drunk with the Spirit of God” while bowling that night.

I didn’t know anything about it. I was not at church. And I had a lot of troubles, so I needed someone to help me get through them. And I think that even people who want to serve God sometimes need someone to take them by the hand and help them through the early years if they have so many problems that they don’t think right, act right, or behave right.

Meyer was a member of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod for a short time. He went to Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in St. Louis for a while.She started teaching a Bible class early in the morning at a nearby cafeteria and got involved with the charismatic church in Fenton called Life Christian Centre. After a few years, Meyer was an assistant leader at the church. Because she was so famous as a Bible teacher, the church became one of the most charismatic ones in the area. She also started giving a 15-minute radio show every day on a station in St. Louis.

Meyer quit her job as an assistant preacher in 1985 and started her own ministry, which she first called “Life in the Word.” She started putting her radio show on six other stations from Chicago to Kansas City.

Dave, her husband, suggested starting a TV church in 1993. Her show, which is now called Enjoying Everyday Life and used to be on Chicago’s WGN-TV and Black Entertainment Television (BET), is still on the air.

In 2002, Hachette Book Group paid Meyer more than $10 million for the rights to her backlist of books that she had released privately.

In 2004, the Rev. Larry Rice of the New Life Evangelistic Centre, which ran the Christian TV station KNLC in St. Louis, stopped showing Joyce Meyer’s shows. Rice, who has always supported Meyer, said that the show was cancelled because of Meyer’s “excessive lifestyle” and her lessons that “often went beyond Scripture.”

In 2005, Meyer was named 17th on the list of the “25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America” by Time magazine.

Money and Salary

Joyce Meyer used to fly in this Canadair Challenger 600S. She was a “special guest” at the Hillsong Conference in Sydney, Australia, in July 2005. Since then, a Gulfstream G-IV (serial number 1132) has taken its place.

Meyer, who owns several homes and flies in a private jet (currently a Gulfstream G-IV), has been criticised for living an extravagant life. She doesn’t explain how she spends her money because “we don’t have to be sorry for being lucky.” Meyer said, “In St. Louis, if you’re a businessman, people think the more money you have, the better it is. But if you’re a preacher, it all of a sudden becomes a problem.”

In November 2003, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch published a four-part special report[8] about Meyer’s “$10 million corporate jet, her husband’s $107,000 silver-gray Mercedes sedan, her $2 million home, and houses worth another $2 million for her four children,” a $20 million headquarters, furnished with “$5.7 million worth of furniture, artwork, glassware, and the latest equipment and machinery,” including a “$30,000 malachite round table, a $23,000 marble-topped antiqu Wall Watchers, a Christian nonprofit watchdog group, asked the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to look into Meyer and her family because of the stories.

After bad press about her lifestyle and a request from Ministry Watch for the IRS to look into her finances, Joyce Meyer announced in 2004 that she would take a pay cut from the $900,000 per year she was getting from Joyce Meyer Ministries (on top of the $450,000 her husband was getting) and instead keep more of the royalties from her outside book sales, which she had given to Joyce Meyer Ministries in the past. She now keeps the royalties from books sold outside of her ministry at places like Walmart, Amazon.com, and libraries. She still gives her ministry the royalties from books sold at her conferences, through her catalogues, on her website, and on her TV show.

“The net result of all of this,” says Ministry Watch, “was probably a large increase in Joyce Meyer’s personal pay and a drop in JMM’s income.” Mark Sutherland, Meyer’s public relations director, said in a story in the St. Louis Business Journal that her new income would be “way above” what it was before. Joyce Meyer Ministries says it has made a promise to be open and honest about its finances, share its annual reports, make sure that most of its board members are not related to Meyer, and agree to an annual audit. On December 18, 2008, church Watch gave this church a “C” (score of 71–80) for being honest about money.

Senator Chuck Grassley led an investigation into the tax-exempt standing of religious groups in the United States Senate, and Joyce Meyer Ministries was one of six groups that were looked into. The investigation wanted to find out if Meyer made any money for himself from the money that was donated. They asked for a thorough accounting of things like plastic surgery and foreign bank accounts, as well as expenses like the $23,000 toilet. Grassley also asked that the information be made public by Meyer’s office by December 6, 2007.

In her answer to Grassley on November 29, Meyer says that the “commode” is actually a chest of drawers. Meyer writes that it was part of a big group of items worth $262,000 that were needed to furnish the ministry’s 150,000-square-foot (14,000 m2) headquarters, which was bought in 2001. She said that the sale agent had put a “erroneous value” on the price tag of the commode and apologised for “not paying close attention to specific “assigned values” placed on the pieces.”

On November 9, 2007, Joyce Meyer Ministries sent a message to the people on its email list. The group pointed to its annual financial reports to say that in 2006, 82 percent of the ministry’s total expenses went towards “outreach and programme services to reach people with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” This was confirmed by an independent accounting company, Stanfield & O’Dell, LLP. The same information was also posted on the ministry’s website and in a letter from the Internal Revenue Service dated October 10, 2007, which said, “We determined that you [Joyce Meyer Ministries] continue to qualify as an organisation exempt from federal income tax under IRC section 501(c)(3).” Joyce Meyer Ministries was one of only two ministries that gave the Senate the cash records they asked for. It also promised to be open about money in the future. No one was found to have done something wrong.

Accreditation from ECFA

In 2009, the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA) gave Joyce Meyer Ministries its seal of approval. The ECFA said in a press release on March 12, 2009, that Joyce Meyer Ministries and Oral Roberts University had met their requirements for “responsible stewardship,” which includes how ministries handle their finances, how their boards are run, and how they raise money.

2011 case for wrongful death

Christopher Coleman, who was in charge of security for Joyce Meyer Ministries, was arrested on May 5, 2009, on suspicion of murder. His wife, Sheri Coleman, and two boys were found dead at their home, and it looked like they had been strangled. Christopher Coleman was found guilty of three counts of first-degree murder on May 10, 2011, after a long trial. He was given three life terms. The prosecuting attorney, Kris Reitz, says that Coleman planned to kill his wife and move in with another woman with whom he was having an affair. According to Reitz, Coleman was afraid that if his extramarital affair became public, he would lose his job at Joyce Meyer Ministries. Meyer gave evidence that had already been recorded at Coleman’s criminal trial. On March 6, 2022, the episode “Words Matter” of Forensic Files II was about this case.

The family of Sheri Coleman sued Joyce Meyer Ministries for wrongful death, saying that the deaths of the three could have been caused by Meyer’s carelessness as a counsellor. According to the lawsuit, Christopher Coleman sent threatening notes to his family without their knowledge as a way to clear his name after the murder. The lawsuit also said that as a counsellor for both Christopher and Sheri Coleman, Meyer should have had a good reason to think that Coleman sent the letters and should have told Sheri. The case was thrown out in 2013 by Circuit Judge Richard Aguirre.