(Trinity Fi) Beach houses and beach condos along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts have become the vacation homes of choice for America’s wealthiest pastors.
In 2017, Joel Osteen purchased a beach house in Newport Coast, California, for $5 million. Recently, the Redfin real estate website estimated Osteen’s second home to be worth $11 million.
Over the past three years Trinity Foundation has conducted hundreds of property searches, resulting in the discovery of 40 beach houses, beach condos and… to continue reading click here.
This article was written by Barry Bowen and published at Trinity Fi
The Trinity Foundation has a fantastic article up, where in conjunction with the Houston Chronicle, they began an investigation into pastor “parsonages” of the rich and the famous. Using the most up-to-date assessments and appraisals examining state tax codes and ‘filing open records requests’, they compiled a list of all the “parsonages” and pastor homes to see who was not paying taxes on their mansions under the tax-free exemption afforded to the homes of the clergy, and who was just living t large.
For this reason, we’d thought we’d post and detail a few of them, so that people can know what the other side of the extra-blessed looks like, and to see what all those tithes and offerings, book sales, and speaking fees can get you.
This is Joel Osteen’s Houston home, a 16,000sqf mansion valued at over $14 million dollars. He also has a home in California that is “registered to a limited liability company registered in Delaware” that he paid $7.4 million dollars for. Houston is a very wealthy man, having received a $13 million dollar advance for his book “Become a Better You” after the success of “Your Best Life Now.”
Kenneth Copeland’s parsonage is a beaut. We wrote about it more here, how he’s been dodging paying taxes on 18,000sqf mansion, worth nearly $8 million dollars for years.
Dr. Irishea Hilliard pastors New Light Church in Houston has an interesting setup. They own several homes and a mansion all grouped together, valued at $4.9 million dollars and totaling some 48,000sqf.
Faith healer David Turner has a beautiful house, having purchased it in 2016 for $17.5 million dollars.
Elevation Church Pastor Steven Furtick’s mansion is valued at $3.9 million and is 16,000sqf. He previously downplayed the whole thing and claimed in a video about a decade ago that his house wasn’t as big or as nice as people were making it out to be.
A few more names they discovered:
-Robert Morris, pastor of Gateway Church owns a home worth $1.7 million. -Daystar Television Network co-founder Joni Lamb’s home is worth $2.5 million. -Ed Young Sr, pastor of Second Baptist Church in Houston, lives in a home worth almost $7 million. -Ed Young Jr., pastor of Fellowship Church in Grapevine, TX , lives in $2.8 million dollar home. Trinity reports “In 2021, Young Jr. sold his 2nd home, a Florida beach house for $5.5 million, according to the Monroe County appraisal website.” -TD Jakes’s home is worth $4.4 million dollars. -Televangelist Jesse Duplantis lives in a 22,000sqf mansion estimated to be worth around $20 million. -Televangelist Ron Carpenter’s parsonage has been appraised at $7.2 million.
The next three houses are not mentioned in the article, but we know about them nonetheless. First, we must not forget the dreadlocked Todd White, pastor and now president of Lifestyle Christianity. He owns a $1.2 million dollar home (appraised in 2017.) He makes a good living, paying himself $625,000 a year.
-Creflo Dollar’s main mansion is an estimated $3.4 million dollars, but he also has other properties of an unknown value.
Paula White also has a beautiful house. It is 8000sqf, but the appraisal is unknown.
We are not saying that it is a sin to have a large and expensive mansion. We are saying that if you buy one, you’ve earned yourself skepticism about where your heart is from the Christian community, coupled with the fact that almost all of them are rank heretics.
An audio recording between Hillsong founder Brian Houston and Church executives has leaked, revealing that disgraced Pastor Carl Lentz, who cheated on his wife with model Ranin Karim, had engaged in multiple sexual affairs and committed adultery with many women, and not just with the one that was known, with Brian Houston saying “It was more than one affair, they were significant. And at least some bad moral behavior had gone back historically”
The meeting, which was recorded around November 19, took place between founder Houston, church executives, and top donors. During the meeting, Houston rips Lentz six ways to Sunday, describing him as possessing:
general narcissistic behavior, manipulating, mistreating people, I think sometimes other hurtful things, the breaches of trust… constantly lying.
In fact, Houston describes how Lentz was spiraling and that he likely would have been terminated even before the adulterous affair came about.
[Carl was a] difficult man to have any kind of direct conversation with, because it was always defensive, it would always be put back on the other person, as though they’re the ones with the problem. And so they were not easy meetings, and I was already at the point at the end of summer that I felt like (unintelligible) Carl and Laura’s time in New York was coming to an end.
And then of course what actually happened was Tolu [Hillsong East Coast Chief Operating Officer Tolu Badders] had a conversation with one of the staff members, and that staff member had found a very compromising chain of text messages on Carl’s laptop or computer. And so that person went straight to Tolu. And Tolu, to her credit, the first thing she did was call me. I knew it was an urgent call because it was very late at night, and you know she needed to talk, and we did talk, and then the next day Tolu spoke to John.
In what would have been an extremely difficult thing to do, John and Tolu drove straight across town to talk to Carl and confronted him, and that was the beginning of the process where we’re at the point where we are now…
It was more than one affair, they were significant. And at least some bad moral behavior had gone back historically, but not necessarily those affairs. I can honestly say before God the first time I heard any moral complaint against Carl was when Tolu contacted me, and so if anyone’s wondering whether this was something we knew about, no it’s not.
In the meeting, members also discuss that Lentz will likely be getting a very hefty severance package, though it appears in part to help out Laura and the kids:
We’re working on a severance package which we’re negotiating with them on…
They haven’t accepted that at this point in time.
We are trying to care for them as far as they are letting us care for them. And certainly our heart is to look after the children, to look after [Lentz’s wife] Laura, and even Carl who needs a lot of help.
And the purpose of that is really to get them the help they need, and to help them through this difficult process, to work on their marriage.
We’re doing a lot of stuff behind the scenes, it’s not anything we’re going to promote publicly.
The Lentz’s, however, don’t seem to be hurting for money after recently their home for $1.5 million dollars and moving into a $16,000 a month beachfront home.
This is breaking news and we will update this post accordingly as we transcribe more of the audio to get the most clarity and context possible.
