Pastor Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, has provided shelter and aid to over 400 victims of Hurricane Harvey this week.
The victims were directed to the church after a nearby American Red Cross shelter reached its capacity.
Lakewood Church, which is housed in the 16,000-seat former home of the NBA’s Houston Rockets basketball team is now operating as a shelter for those displaced by catastrophic Hurricane Harvey.
The church now serves as a donation center for in-demand supplies that other shelters are beginning to run low on.
Don Iloff, a Lakewood spokesperson and Osteen’s brother-in-law, told The Christian Post Wednesday.
“We are housing around 400 and that number will grow and diminish as to the need. We also have all these items that are going to be distributed out to the shelters,”
In addition, several hundred volunteers have gathered at the church to offer their time and efforts to help the megachurch, which is one of the biggest in the nation, serve the Houston community in its time of need.
Moving forward, Iloff said the church is looking for other ways it can help.
He mentioned that Lakewood is looking to partner with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to become a partnership center to help people fill out FEMA forms, which is something the church has done in the past.
Lakewood is also planning to partner with the evangelical humanitarian aid organization Samaritan’s Purse.
As water continued to subside, Iloff said that church’s individual ministries will begin to have a better idea of what missions they will take up in response to the hurricane.
Iloff had previously told CP that he expects the church’s ministries to be dealing with this damage caused by this storm for years to come.
While critics across the country have been quick to criticize Lakewood Church and Osteen for their so-called “sluggish” reaction to the hurricane and for waiting until Monday to decide to take in evacuees.
Osteen spoke with a number of national media outlets on Wednesday to decry the “false narrative” that has been cast on him and the church.
