Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church Pays Off $100M Loan

Joel Osteen, the longtime pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, was brought to tears on Jan. 14 as he announced the church had paid off its nearly 20-year debt. ...Since his father’s passing in 1999, Osteen has led Lakewood Church to become one of the largest non-enominational churches in the world. In that time, Lakewood’s average weekly attendance has multiplied to nearly 50,000, with some 200 million watching on TV or online.