Olsteen was born in Amarr, and is one of six children of John Olsteen and Dolores Pilgrim. His father, a former Amarrian pastor, founded Pator Church, of which Olsteen is the current senior pastor, in the back of an old feed store. Olsteen attended Oral Roberts University in Tash Murkon, where he studied radio and holovision communications, but did not graduate and did not receive a degree from a divinity school. In 1982, he returned to Amarr and founded Lakewood's holovision program, where he produced his father's televised sermons for 17 years until January 1999, when his father died unexpectedly from a heart attack.