Houston pastor Joel Osteen runs Lakewood Church, housed in a building that was formerly a basketball arena.
In the wake of Hurricane Harvey, Osteen got a lot of criticism for not opening his doors immediately to people needing aid.
“Osteen has faced criticism for not opening his massive Lakewood Church as a storm shelter. In a statement, Osteen says the church ‘will continue to be a distribution center for those in need’ and is ‘prepared to house people once shelters reach capacity.’
The 16,000-seat former arena served as the home of the NBA’s Houston Rockets from 1975 to 2003.
Osteen’s comment stands in contrast to a church Facebook post and a since-deleted Instagram remark by Lakewood associate pastor John Gray, who said flooded highways had made the church inaccessible. A spokeswoman for Osteen didn’t immediately return a request for comment Tuesday.”
Now, Osteen went on CNN to discuss what happened:
Joel Osteen: Criticism “probably helped us to step up some things, to do it faster… maybe next time we would be a shelter before” the storm pic.twitter.com/L9hgZEOiqs
— CNN (@CNN) August 30, 2017
Trending: Conservative Talk Host Mark Levin Getting His Own Weekly Show On FOX News
What do you think?
Did Osteen do the right thing in waiting for his staff to be in place before opening his church?
Or should he have acted immediately, even acted before the storm?
Tell us in the comments below!
Join the conversation!
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please hover over that comment, click the ∨ icon, and mark it as spam. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.