Pastor Joel Osteen breaks down in tears as he tells congregation $100m loan to convert NBA stadium into Texas megachurch has been paid off after just 19 years: ‘It’s because of your faithfulness’

Megachurch pastor Joel Osteen has paid off a $100 million loan for renovations at his church in just 19 years with donations thanks to his congregation’s ‘faithfulness’.

Osteen burst into tears as he ripped up the loan agreement on Sunday during a service at the 17,000 seat NBA stadium turned church in Houston, Texas.

He has led the non-denominational Lakewood Church, popular with celebrities including Kanye West, for over 20 years and has grown the congregation to over 50,000 people, with some 200 million viewers tuning in online each week.

The pastor – who is estimated to have a personal net worth of over $40 million – has provoked controversy in the past for taking a $4.4 million government Covid loan and initially refusing to let victims of Hurricane Harvey shelter in his church.

He has also been criticized for his extravagant lifestyle and palatial home, which was recently valued at $14 million, but he defends his wealth, once saying: ‘We just feel like this is God’s blessings.’

Osteen, 60, took over the Houston Rockets’ arena in 2005, signing a 60-year lease for $11.5 million. In his sermon on January 14, he said: ‘Daddy left us that kind of money so we just signed that lease.’

It was ‘quite the ordeal’ to get the building and they were quoted $100 million to renovate it from an arena into a church.

Osteen said that the first bank they approached for a loan had been ‘so negative’ and told him ‘Man, it’s not going to happen’.

But he said he let their negativity ‘go in one ear and out the other’ and approached the Bank of America instead.

He said: ‘They showed up at our office, first day we were there, without even knowing us, they hadn’t even seen our financials, and they had a check for $25million they said that we could borrow.’

The Bank eventually agreed to loan them the $100 million needed to transform the building into a church from a stadium.

As of December 31, he said they had officially paid off the loan, saying: ‘It’s because of your faithfulness. What God has done for Lakewood he is going to do in your lives.’

He also acknowledged that interest had been ‘historically low’ for much of the 19 years meaning they were ‘good stewards’ of ‘God’s money’.

The pastor came under fire in 2017 in the wake of Hurricane Harvey when he initially refused to allow evacuees to shelter in the church, claiming it was flooded.

He finally let people in after critics filmed the seemingly-dry church and public outrage grew.