During an interview on NBC’s “Today”, Pastor Joel Osteen responded to the social media storm of criticism that had engulfed him in recent days with allegations that his Lakewood Church didn’t open its doors to Hurricane Harvey victims. Osteen said that he hadn't opened his megachurch up to displaced people sooner because Houston city officials didn’t ask him to use it as a shelter, TODAY reported.
“[The city] didn’t need us as shelter then,'” Osteen said on TODAY. “If we needed to be a shelter, we certainly would’ve been a shelter right when they first asked. Once they filled up, they never dreamed that we'd have this many displaced people, [and] they asked us to become a shelter. I think this notion that somehow we would turn people away or we weren't here for the city is about as false as can be.”
WATCH: “We were just being precautious, but the main thing is the city didn’t ask us to become a shelter then.” -Pastor @JoelOsteenpic.twitter.com/Qdn5vgm09H
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) August 30, 2017
According to The Huffington Post, after several churches, mosques, schools and community centers opened their doors to hurricane victims (also without a direct request from the city), Osteen was inundated with criticism on social media for not offering his church as a sanctuary to those in need of shelter as Hurricane Harvey ravaged Houston.
On Sunday, Lakewood Church posted on social media that the church was “inaccessible” due to the flooding and encouraged hurricane victims to look for other places to seek shelter.
deeply disappointed @joelosteen. that House belongs to God + was built for people in need. you should have been the first to open your doors
— TRAVIS GARLAND (@TravisGarland) August 29, 2017
After all of the criticism, a spokesperson for the church posted on Tuesday that the church would begin to provide shelter “once the city and county shelters reach capacity,” HuffPost reported. Later Osteen tweeted that the church would begin to take in those in need of shelter.
Victoria and I care deeply about our fellow Houstonians. Lakewood’s doors are open and we are receiving anyone who needs shelter.
— Joel Osteen (@JoelOsteen) August 29, 2017
“Our church doors have always been open. We took people in right when waters started to recede, which was a day or two after the storm hit,” Osteen told TODAY. “It’s easy to say, ‘Wow, there’s that building. They’re not using it.’ But we don’t have volunteers,” Osteen said. “We don’t have staff that could get here. We’re all about helping the city whenever we could ― if they would have asked us to become a shelter early on, we would have prepared for it.”
According to HuffPost, when Osteen was asked if he would do anything differently to prevent the criticism. To that, Osteen said, “Yeah, I’m sure we would have done something differently. [But] [t]he fact is I don’t know that we would have opened any sooner, because again there were safety issues.”
