‘OUR GOD IS GREATER’
A week after shooting, famed Tex. pastor back in pulpit, calls for ‘healing’
Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church resumed services Sunday, one week after a woman opened fire in the Houston house of worship.
Osteen, 60, led the 8:30 a.m. and 11 a.m. services with a message of “healing and restoration.”
“This troubled woman came in and tried to do harm,” he preached. “This is a critical moment. As a church we can shrink back, ‘It’s dangerous, let’s hide our life. Let’s just go under the radar.’ But this is a time to shine brighter than ever, to share more hope, to dig down deep and say, ‘We will not fear, for our God is stronger, our God is greater.’ “
Genesse Moreno, 36, walked into the huge church, previously the home of the Houston Rockets, on Sunday, Feb. 11, and opened fire with a rifle. Two off-duty police officers working security returned fire and killed her. Moreno’s 7-year-old son and a middle-aged man were wounded in the shootout. The boy was critically injured, while the man was released from the hospital shortly after the shooting.
Police are still investigating details of the incident. Moreno opened fire while the church was in between services, as the weekly Spanish-language service usually begins about 2 p.m. Osteen was in the building, but on a different floor, at the time of the attack.
The shooter used a legally bought AR-style rifle, police previously said.
At Sunday’s service, Osteen said he was praying for the family of the shooter and her son.
“I just ask you, Lord, to heal the hurts in that family,” said the celebrity pastor.
His church is one of the biggest in the country and regularly draws 45,000 congregants, according to the Hartford Institute for Religion Research.