Joel Osteen's Megachurch Got $4.4 Million In COVID-19 Grant Money

HOUSTON, TX — Lakewood Church, the Houston megachurch where televangelist Joel Osteen preaches, received a $4.4 million loan from the federal government as part of the Paycheck Protection Program designed to help small businesses survive the coronavirus pandemic.

The loan was approved this past summer, multiple media outlets have reported.

It was one of the largest PPP loans approved for a Houston-area entity, according to the Houston Business Journal.

Donald Iloff, spokesman for the Osteen church, told the Business Journal that the funds went to the church's 368 full-time and part-time employees, The Hill also reported. Iloff said the suspended church services from March through October impacted their ability to "collect substantial donations."

The approved grant for Lakewood Church marked the first time federal lawmakers provided direct assistance to a house of worship, according to The Hill, which cited reporting from the Houston Chronicle.

Osteen, whose reported net worth is around $100 million, has led the Lakewood Church since inheriting it from his father, John Osteen, in 1999. Since then, the church has purchased and renovated the Compaq Center, former home of the Houston Rockets professional basketball team. Their Sunday services from there have often been broadcast on national television.

The church said applying for the loan was a necessary step to help their employees during the pandemic.

“Believing the shutdown would only last a few weeks, Lakewood did not initially apply for PPP assistance during the first half of the program,” Iloff said in a statement to media. “However, as the shutdown persisted month after month, given the economic uncertainty, Lakewood finally applied for the PPP loan and has been able to provide full salaries and benefits including health insurance coverage to all of its employees and their families.”

Ilhoff stressed that Osteen and his wife, Victoria, have personally not benefited financially from the loan. They have also not taken salaries as pastors at Lakewood since 2004, the spokesman said.

Lakewood is not the only Houston-area church to receive PPP loans, the Chronicle reported. The Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, First Baptist Church of Houston and St. Mark Lutheran Church all received federal money as well.

This article originally appeared on the Houston Patch