One week after a woman opened fire at Lakewood Church in Houston, Pastor Joel Osteen spoke of God’s protection during an incident that “could have been so much worse.” Though a shooter entered the premises of the megachurch, she didn’t make it inside the sanctuary.
“I celebrate what the security team did,” Osteen told worshipers on Feb 18. The shooting “didn’t have the word ‘mass’ before it, and that’s the grace of God. I thank God for that.”
Off-duty officers killed the suspect in the Feb. 11 shooting. The suspect’s 7-year-old son, who was shot in the head, remains in critical condition.
Lakewood Church Pastor Joel Osteen on Heroes & Miracles
During worship on Feb. 18, Osteen prayed for everyone involved in the shooting. He told congregants God would use Lakewood Church to help people heal from the traumatic event.
The officer who helped “neutralize” the suspect was “really a hero,” Osteen said, because he was outgunned by the suspect’s AR-15 style rifle. “That was certainly a miracle,” he said. When the shooting occurred, Osteen had just finished greeting people in a lobby and was heading downstairs to change clothes.
“Some technicians came running out. Their eyes were big, like there had been some kind of incident. I thought, ‘What in the world?’” Osteen told a reporter. The pastor waited in his office about 20 minutes, and then Houston’s police chief texted him to make sure he was okay.
Although Lakewood has a strong security plan in place, Osteen said the church is always looking for ways to improve. While praying during the service, he became emotional about the “mentally ill” woman who “lost her life” and the fact that she brought her child along. “I guess it’s just pretty overwhelming to me,” Osteen admitted.
Victoria Osteen, the pastor’s wife, said the Feb. 18 service was about “reclaiming what is ours” and “reclaiming the space.” Attendees told reporters they weren’t fearful and wanted to support their pastor and his vision for the church.
Suspect’s Former Mother-in-Law: ‘Her Brain Was Broken’
In a Feb. 14 Facebook post, Walli Carranza, the suspect’s former mother-in-law, shared a photo of Samuel, her grandson, in a Houston hospital. The boy “lost a major part of what makes us who we are…a portion of his frontal lobe,” she wrote. Samuel went into cardiac arrest “multiple times,” Carranza added, and doctors don’t yet know his prognosis.
Carranza also used her post to lambaste politicians “who claim to be ‘pro-life’” but also support “unbridled gun rights.” She called for red-flag laws and for the repeal of the Second Amendment, writing, “The 1st [Amendment] means too much to allow the second.”
