Pastor Keion Henderson wants church to witness ‘excellence’ of Lakewood Church
The Lighthouse held a service at Joel Osteen’s church Sunday, after Hurricane Beryl did an estimated $20 million in damages to its main Houston campus.
The Lighthouse Church’s pastor Keion Henderson, displaced by the destruction of Hurricane Beryl in Houston, delivered a two-hour revival service for several thousand of his members Sunday night at Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church. The 16,000-seat former home of the Rockets had its doors opened to Henderson by Osteen, who invited Lighthouse to hold gatherings there through August. But Henderson suggested the site wasn’t randomly selected.
“I brought you here so you can see excellence. I brought you here to see what we can build. I brought you here so that you can smell the aroma of greatness,” Henderson said Sunday from Lakewood’s stage. “I didn’t take you any place you could settle. I didn’t want to take you to a place you had before. I didn’t want to take you to a place where you knew you could get it. I had to make it hard so you can find out that is what God wants for us.”
Henderson, the 43-year-old leader of the non-denominational, predominantly Black megachurch, presented himself as a modern-day Noah, the biblical hero who builds an arc to navigate dangerous flood waters. In so doing, the pastor reminded his congregation that he had planned to expand Lighthouse’s North campus in Humble because they’d long been forced to turn away about 600 people each weekend due to lack of space. Henderson bought the building for $6.2 million about a decade ago, but said he’d had the site appraised for $20 million this year and increased its insurance policy without knowing the deadly hurricane would rip through the city, leading to widespread power outages for millions across Houston in early July.
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After Beryl, Henderson, who has estimated it would cost between $10 million and $20 million to replace the sanctuary’s roof, drywall and electrical and sound systems, had temporarily closed the campus and filed for an insurance claim. Henderson was now expressing doubt in the insurance process and has asked his congregation for $4.4 million—$2,100 from 2,100 people in 21 days—to help restore the Lighthouse’s North campus within the month.
“It’s going to take thousands of us to contribute to get us back into our building, and we cannot wait on the insurance because they’re going to fight us as long and as hard as they can,” Henderson said Sunday. “We have to do it ourselves, Amen. And here’s what the word of the Lord is: Not only are we going to get back in, not only are we going to rebuild, but we’re going to do it debt free.”
“I brought you here so you can see excellence. I brought you here to see what we can build.”
As Henderson preached, the Lighthouse’s staff and volunteers handed out white envelopes to those in attendance, asking each to give what they could that night. (Lighthouse staff also offered tissues to individuals crying from what they deemed a heartfelt plea from their pastor to return them to their home church’s location.) “If you need an envelope, raise your hand real high,” Henderson said. “If you can’t do any of that, the least I need you to do is tithe 10 percent of your income. Those of us who can tithe and do more, the quicker we do this, the quicker we can get back home. I don’t know about you, I don’t like staying in other people’s house long. I’m ready to go home. I’m reading to go home. I want to sleep in my own bed. Amen.”
The service marked Henderson’s first sermon since he had to cut his recent sabbatical short after Beryl destroyed the roof of the church’s North campus. The Lighthouse, one of Houston’s largest congregations and one of the nation’s fast-growing Black churches, announced in the wake of Beryl that its main campus suffered “significant damage” from the storm and had to be “closed indefinitely.” Henderson would later tell me that three of the Lighthouse’s four local campuses were temporarily closed due to damage since the hurricane made landfall.
