A day after Hurricane Beryl crashed into Houston, Raymond Herrera drove his wife and their five kids to Lakewood Church. The 39-year-old Fifth Ward resident heard on Texas’ KSBJ Christian radio that Joel Osteen’s megachurch was serving as a cooling and water distribution center after the storm flooded roadways, killed several people and left millions of people without power citywide.
“We’re here to cool down, get some water, charge our phones and tell our loved ones we’re OK,” Herrera said Tuesday while walking his kids into the church just north of the Southwest Freeway in Houston’s Greenway Plaza area.
As a heat advisory went into effect, the Osteens opened Lakewood’s 16,000-seat arena—a venue that once housed the mid-1990s Rockets dynasty—to serve people starting around 8 a.m. Tuesday. The Houston Office of Emergency Management specifically plugged the church on its social media pages, saying it was “grateful to our partners” for acting as one of the city’s local cooling centers.
But despite the acts of service, Lakewood and the Osteens continue to receive criticism from Houstonians who believed they failed to shelter Hurricane Harvey victims seven years ago. Even Herrera admitted to being “surprised” Lakewood was open Tuesday. Herrera, one of the megachurch’s 45,000 members, told me that he had “always liked Joel” and that he volunteered with the church’s Freedom Ministries serving incarcerated people. “The church wasn’t open during Harvey. But when the church opened today, it cheered me right up,” Herrera added. “I said, ‘Joel, that’s my man.'”
Lakewood Church
Back in August 2017, Joel Osteen announced the opening of Lakewood after many in Houston criticized the televangelist for not immediately offering shelter to displaced hurricane victims, according to reporting by the Associated Press at the time. The decision came after since deleted posts on Lakewood’s Facebook and Instagram accounts said flooded highways had made the church inaccessible. Don Illoff, a church spokesman and Osteen’s brother-in-law, told reporters that floodwaters had rendered the building mostly inaccessible before they receded, but he said the church wasn’t closed.
Illoff and Andrea Davis, another Lakewood spokesperson, agreed this week to defend the wealthy pastors once again. “Despite misconceptions, Lakewood was open after Hurricane Harvey and every storm in recent history including Hurricane Katrina [in 2005], Hurricane Ike [in 2008], winter storms and heat waves to provide a safe haven for our community,” the Lakewood spokespersons said. The church also served as a shelter at its previous home during Tropical Storm Allison in 2001.
“When the church opened today, it cheered me right up.”
By Tuesday evening, Lakewood staff said they’d guided more than 400 people into the church, and handed out more than 40,000 bottles of water and 21 pallets of food, which they suggest could feed at least 1,000 families of four—all of this was offered to anyone who drove onto the ramp on Timmons Lane. “We’re here to be the hands and feet of Jesus,” said staffer Gladis Guerra, after telling me her own home had lost power in the hurricane. (The Osteens weren’t at Lakewood: “They are good and dealing with the situaiton like everyone,” the church’s spokespersons said.) Lakewood was expected to remain open until 8 p.m. Tuesday, as its relief teams planned to distribute emergency response kits and water in other areas across the city.
Standing outside Lakewood, Jose Cervantes, a 21-year-old decorator with the Local Union 550 in Houston, said Tuesday that his sister and mother came to Lakewood after Hurricane Beryl left their home on the South Side without power and water. Cervantes wasn’t a Lakewood member. Did he have any thoughts about the criticism surrounding the church around its handling of Hurricane Harvey? No. “The church is really helping us,” Cervantes said bluntly Tuesday, while grabbing phone chargers from the trunk of his vehicle to bring to his family inside the church.