Lifestyle
Joel Osteen Speaks After Shooting In Lakewood Church
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Popular Lakewood Church pastor, Joel Osteen has reacted after the shooting incident that interrupted Sunday service in one of America’s largest church congregations.
Police officers shot and killed a woman who claimed she had a bomb and opened fire with a rifle in the Lakewood Church on Sunday, leaving a 5-year-old and a 57-year-old man critically injured as a result of the bullet exchange.
GWG gathered that the woman, wearing a trench coat and escorting the child, walked into Osteen’s Lakewood church in between services shortly before 2 p.m. CT and inexplicably began firing a long rifle according to Houston Police Chief Troy Finner.
“Once she entered, at some point she began to fire,” Finner said. He added that officers on scene reported the woman, whose age was estimated at 30-35, said she had an explosive device.
Two officers fired and struck the woman, Finner said, a Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission officer and a Houston Police Department officer who were off duty. “Unfortunately the 5-year-old was hit. There was a 57-year-old man who didn’t have anything to do with it, I don’t think, who was shot in the leg,” the chief said.
Joel Osteen, one of the most popular pastors in the United States who presides over services attended by tens of thousands, said the shooting has left him “in a fog.” Services at the church are regularly attended by 45,000 people every week, making it the third largest megachurch in the U.S., according to the Hartford Institute for Religion Research. Osteen’s televised sermons reach about 100 countries including Nigeria.
“We don’t understand why this happened. We’re going to pray for that 5-year-old boy, and pray for the lady that was deceased and her family and all, and the other gentleman,” he said.
Joel Osteen confessed that the church is “going to stay strong,” after the shooting. “We’re going to continue to move forward. There are forces of evil but the forces for us, the forces of God are stronger than that.”
Osteen said he’s thankful more people were not hurt. “If there’s anything good of it, she didn’t get in there and do a whole lot worse damage,” he said.
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