In an emotional moment, Joel Osteen, the pastor of the Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, took to the stage last Sunday to tell church members because of their “faithfulness” in their giving, the church had paid off its $100 million loan from Bank of America that they had been paying back for almost 20 years.
“It’s because of your faithfulness,” Osteen told his congregation, according to The Houston Chronicle. “You paid it off by the goodness of God.”
After a video presentation showing how the megachurch church had acquired what was then known as the Compaq Center, Osteen, with his wife Victoria standing by his side, spoke about what was needed after the church acquired the arena where 45,000 people now meet to worship every week.
“I look back over these 19 years, and there have been great years. I mean, Lakewood has been a lighthouse to the whole world. And it was interesting when we got the facility. You know, it was a basketball arena, like you saw. But, you know, underneath these bleachers, service areas, and locker rooms and where they serve food, it wasn’t public areas,” Osteen said. “We needed nurseries, and we needed children’s facilities. We needed
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