Pastor Joel Osteen was heckled by protesters during Sunday morning's worship at Houston's Lakewood Church, leading to the arrest of six individuals.
The six participants, suspected to be Jacob Gardner, Kevin Fessler, Mark DeRouville, Matthew Martinez, Randall Valdez, and Richard Trudeau, stood up during Osteen's 11 a.m. service and began verbally assaulting the 52-year-old preacher and author, according to Newsmax.
The dissenters were identified as members of the Church of Wells - a small, revivalist movement based out of Nacogdoches, Texas, according to Examiner.
Casey Eaglin was at Sunday's 11 a.m. service and just a few seats away from one of the protesters.
"He jumped up with his bible and started screaming 'Shame on you Joel, shame on you Joel' and Joel kind of just repeated scripture and they just escorted them out," Eaglin told USA Today about one of the protesters. "I was terrified for a quick second there. After the first guy, I thought oh it's just a random heckler, but then you start seeing the second, the third..."
Another churchgoer managed to catch part of the incident on video, which was later posted on Twitter:
Crazy scene. Sixth person ejected from Lakewood Church by police and security pic.twitter.com/SwGTcH66Qs
— Anwar Richardson (@AnwarRichardson) June 28, 2015
Cops escorted the dissenters outside where they couldn't disturb the service.
