Forsaking the Assembly

I recently met a man who said that he does not go to church. Instead, he said that he “follows Joel Osteen, because [he likes] the way Joel puts things.” We had talked about churches in general and his connection to churches in the past. His mother goes to a large church in Michigan and is apparently very excited about it, though he’s only visited that church with her a few times. He had grown up in a Catholic school because of the lack of quality in the public school system where his family lived. He didn’t offer any specific reason for not going to church anywhere, but I have some guesses as to why that is the case.