Joel Oste first book, Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at your full potential, was released in October 2004. In December 2006 he was named one of this year's "ten most fascinating people" by Barbara Walters. Cheese released her second book, entitled Become a better you: 7 keys to improving your life every day in October 2007, which also topped the New York Times bestsellers list with an initial circulation of four million copies.
The cheese has received much criticism from some in the evangelical community. He stated several times that only God knows a person's heart, but as a believer in the Christian faith he believes in an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. His sermons and writings are sometimes blamed on their use of the concepts of prosperity theology, or prosperity gospel, a belief that wealth and power is reward for devout Christians.
