![]() Osteen, its leader, is the smooth-talking best-selling author of books like Your Best Life Now and the host, with his wife Victoria, of a Sirius radio channel. With an estimated attendance of 52,000 people spread out over six worship services (four in English and two in Spanish), Lakewood is one of the largest churches in the US. Lakewood bought the Compaq Center from the city of Houston for $7.5 million in 2010, after seven years of leasing and extensive renovations. It is housed in the former Compaq Center arena (originally The Summit), which, until 2003, was home to multiple professional sports franchises, including the Houston Rockets. Lakewood Church is nothing if not a high-profile target for criticism. Then, after city officials told Lakewood that the convention center was reaching capacity, the church opened its doors to those seeking shelter, and it is currently housing more than 400 evacuees. Diapers, baby formula, clothes, and towels piled up along the walls as lines of cars waited to drop off more. Once the worst of the rains stopped, Lakewood started receiving more donations than it could keep up with. You don’t ever open the doors and say, 'Sorry, go away.' Nobody here could do that.” He has glanced at social media the last few days, but mostly tried to stay away from it. “It was making us look like we don’t care,” he said. said in a phone interview on Wednesday morning that Lakewood is used to a constant barrage of criticism - “a daily stream of bitchery,” he called it - based on their beliefs, but that this situation felt different. Lakewood Church spokesperson (and Joel Osteen’s brother-in-law) Donald Iloff Jr. But Lakewood - Houston's largest church - was slower to open its doors, and found itself in the eye of an online storm. People have also been received at smaller facilities across the Houston area, including many places of worship: Four mosques in the Islamic Society of Greater Houston are open as shelters, and at least 17 Houston-area churches have been operating as shelters or temporary staging areas for evacuees. Brown Convention Center in downtown Houston opened its doors and has already received 10,000 refugees, double what the Red Cross planned for. ![]() Since Friday, at least 19 people have died, and over 30,000 in Texas and Louisiana, at last count, have left their flooded homes with no destination in mind but away. A Houston-area meteorologist called Harvey "almost certainly the biggest US flood-producing storm of all time." Mandatory evacuations were issued for seven counties and a state of emergency was declared in 30 others. on Friday, August 26, unleashing unprecedented rains over Southeast Texas and Houston, our nation's fourth-largest city. Hurricane Harvey made landfall at 10 p.m. weighed in, saying that the Lakewood closure "is why people (like me) don’t trust the mega churches." The speed, tone, and volume of criticisms leveled against Osteen and Lakewood Church speak to the seriousness of the flooding crisis in Houston, but also to a larger powder keg of resentment directed at a particular strain of American Christianity - Osteen’s pro-wealth prosperity gospel, and the larger evangelical movement it’s associated with - that many see as failing to be charitable to people who are truly in need. ![]() Outlets like TMZ covered the debacle, and the rapper T.I. People railed against Osteen, arguing that his "excuses" were not valid. By the time the church did start receiving donations and refugees mid-morning on Tuesday, a narrative had already gained momentum on social media that Osteen was coldheartedly keeping the church's doors closed to those in need. Houston pastor Joel Osteen's name was trending on Twitter for much of Monday, as criticism mounted against him for not opening his Lakewood megachurch to serve as a shelter for victims of Hurricane Harvey.
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