About $600k.
“Victimized”, the Washington Times headline says, though the ignorant saps that give money to this huckster are the true victims.
Guess how long it takes that church to bring in $600k in donations…tax-free, I might add?
One weekend.
Thats a huge, huge church. They use an old Sports Arena. 38,000 people per weekend.
I can’t begin to imagine going to a church service this huge. Its just a sea of people. Imagine getting out of the parking lot and getting home.
Wow, communion must take forever.
I wonder who gets to sit right up front? Big donors?
Well, remember that the arena and the parking area were originally designed to host major sporting events, like the Houston Rockets. The entry/exit is about as good as it gets, and on Sunday morning, the traffic flow is low on the SW Freeway.
It’s assembly-line Jeebuz and snake oil at its best. Old Joel will have that $650k out of the pockets of the believers faster than one can imagine.
Why would you go to a church that charged admission? Or is this just donations?
$600,000 between 38,000 is only $15.79 each person. So I guess that’s not too outrageous an amount for one weekend, before the banks open Monday morning.
Just donations - why would you assume admission charge for church?
Once word gets out that the church was robbed, he’ll probably end up getting higher donations than usual to make up for the money that was stolen. He’ll probably make a million this weekend.
More than that. The church seats 16,800 and they conduct four services each weekend. They usually get over 43,000 people attended each week and they’ve hit as high as 46,000.
The article says the loss was insured, so the church really didn’t lose anything.
Yes it was, but I had the same assumption as Little Nemo…donations will spike following this.
It’s a wonder there isn’t surveillance footage…no security guards?
I put my vote solidly behind “inside job”.
Well, its experience mods go up, so it will probably pay slightly more to insure itself. But it won’t be out $600k, which is the main thing. And by “main thing” I mean Joel can still upgrade his helicopter fleet this year.
As long as we’re pointing out mundane and pointless stuff, I will point out that I have fond memories of the building in question (formerly The Summit in Houston). My dear, departed grandmother took me to the circus there as a little boy, and in college I saw Billy Joel, Fleetwood Mac, and Sting perform there.
Aha, that explains your “huckster” comment. I was trying to think of anything particularly seedy about the church in question. It may preach something that people disagree with, but it’s not those churches that trick people into thinking that, if they pay x amount of money, God will give them 1000x back. Nor is it one of those that promotes healings or “signs” that turn out to be fake. It’s just one a long line of “feel-good” churches.
Unless, of course, you know something I don’t. I haven’t followed him in a while. The messages just feel like empty platitudes.
There’s literally a gift shop when you come in from the parking deck, selling all sorts of things, including the Osteens’ books.
It’s hardly a blip to them. They came up with nearly $12 million up front for a 30 year lease back 10-15 years ago. And bought the property outright a few years ago for nearly $8 million. That’s not including the tens of millions (not sure how much but over $50M and less than $100M) in renovations on top of that.
It’s a fair amount of money to lose, but even if they ate the loss themselves, it’s hardly enough to damage any of their operations.
I thought there was an unwritten code about thieves not stealing from other thieves.
My primary suspect would be this so-called “god” character, it’s a well known fact that he’s got money issues, always out begging for more, very poor financial skills for a supposed “omnipotent” entity
What’s his alibi for the day of the theft anyway?
I just had a mental image of God spending 600k on hookers and blow.
Thank you, that was awesome.
“Fine, I’ll go make my own religion… With Blackjack, and hookers…”