Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Megachurch
43,500 weekly attendance
Posted on 08/27/2013 11:53:37 AM PDT by NYer
Megachurch. Two young ladies. Both had left the Catholic Church. Both were now attending “megachurches.” We had a good chat together. I wanted to understand their reasons for why they left the Catholic Church for a megachurch.
Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Megachurch
43,500 weekly attendance
I was at the bank and somehow I got into a spiritual conversation with two Hispanic executives that worked there.
When I asked why they exchanged the Catholic Church for the megachurch, they gave me a number of reasons:
Although these two ladies didn’t articulate it explicitly to me, I could tell that they were very proud of their new churches. I could also discern in them a surprise that I am so “spiritual” and yet I am very excited about being Catholic. They assumed the “with it” people were leaving Catholicism for the bigger and better and deal.
I asked them what they miss about being Catholic. They replied with two answers:
I asked both about the Eucharist: “Don’t you miss the Eucharist?”
This question didn’t phase them one bit. “Oh we still have communion. They pass out little crackers and cups of juice. I like this better because I thought drinking from one big cup is icky. Spreads germs.”
“But in the Catholic Church,” I replied, “we believe that the Eucharist is the real Body and Blood of Jesus?”
I may as well have said, “Don’t you know that there are Martians in my back pocket.” She was unaware that the Catholic Church taught this. No idea.
This, my brothers and sisters, is the crux of the problem. These girls were raised as Catholics, but did not know about the Eucharist. They did not know that the Eucharist is God. They did not understand the Holy Eucharist is the center of the Catholic tradition.
So when they compare our ho-hum Catholic music and pedestrian sermons to snazzy well produced musical productions and highly polished bulleted sermons from handsome professional speakers…where are they going to go?
If they had believed that the Holy Eucharist is truly the Lord Jesus Christ, then they would have stayed. This is the task of the New Evangelization if there is going to be one. Can we communicate the mystery of Eucharist. If we fail in that, everyone is leaving the building.
Godspeed,
Taylor
PS: I don’t mean to suggest that having the Holy Eucharist is an excuse for bad music, bad vestments, bad architecture, and bad sermons. The Eucharist is like a precious diamond. It deserves a platinum setting…not a plastic setting. We can’t say, “Well, we have the Eucharist – so you’re forced to stay and have a miserable experience every Sunday.” We can’t keep the sacraments hostage to mediocracy.
PPS: With 1 billion strong, the Catholic Church is the real megachurch!
Pope Francis at Rio de Janeiro
3 million people
I do not agree. If i was just a conscience, i would still have the tendency to sin. We are not perfect souls trapped in a body that is open to temptation.
That is EXACTLY what we are.
Did you ever read Romans 7?
*I* am dead to sin and alive to Christ. I have been crucified in Christ and I no longer live but Christ lives in me.
Romans 7:4-25 Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. 5 For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. 6 But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.
What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. 9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. 10 The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. 11 For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. 12 So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.
Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. 14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
Romans 8:1-4 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
So God didn’t bring the people from all nations to reform the nation of Israel as it is recorded in the Old Testament prophesy?
>> All churches will have lost their believers and we have a very interesting new scene on earth by this time.<<
Revelation 18:4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.
I pray that you are correct and those who are truly “His” will have come out of her and those are the ones we speak to here in these forums. We don’t know who they are. We only have the obligation to be spokesmen.
What lifestyle you go after will be permanently reflected in the quality and extent of your eternal life... goofing off here will NOT gain you... nobody is saying God is mocked here. The bible explicitly calls it shortsighted. What kind of WOO-HOO is this? This is to vastly misunderstand. It is not human efforts that keep your salvation going. But God gives you a range of choice in the quality of the results.
We really need to reference specific scripture here. In general, though, Israel and believing Gentiles have been united through Christ into a new entity, the church.
Completely ignores any scripture...
There will be new Christians through the preservation of existing witness. Hence, a people to warn out of the sphere of the “Whore.” But what becomes of what was left of old Christendom’s infrastructure... who knows... sounds to me like a possible basis for such a “Whore.” Some pan-post-Christianity or whatever the serious removal of the Holy Spirit’s ministry allows to happen.
Anyhow, we need to rightly divide the word of truth and not get so excited over screaming “Whore” that we don’t apply some educated Christian sense to what that might actually mean. The (non biblical) story about crying Wolf comes to mind.
Nope. It actually says “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved”. Believing on denotes a dependence. Believing in cans simply mean that He is your savior but doesn’t denote dependence.
>>I could do that on a golf course,<<
It has happened. If it’s a conviction and putting trust in Jesus alone it doesn’t matter where the conversion takes place.
>>no sense wasting time at Mass any longer<<
Those who truly depend on Jesus as their savior don’t consider it a waste of time to gather with other believers. Do you somehow feel it an obligation?
Whoa! No way. Israel still has seven years to go on the time God made a covenant with them for. That will be the seven years of the Tribulation.
It’s well past my bed time and I am getting dreary eyed so I will not go in depth here but would suggest you do more study on the seven years left.
It’s astounding yet so typical of Catholics. And refusing to answer questions but demanding answers to theirs. It’s rather telling really of their knowledge and grasp of scripture.
Good point. It is a salvational faith. And it is reflected in a once-for-all affirming decision. “Yes, I yield my life to accept the eternal Savior unto it.” And if you then (in time) turn your back or stumble away... here come the trials. Meant for LOVE, for your good! God will insist that you see the light even if it takes feeling the heat to get you there. But if you get on top of the game again, you will progress well and be a good witness, with satisfying conquests of sin and hell, and with joy.
It’s been 30 years of study here. I think that constitutes “some” educated Christian sense. OH, and I came out of a system of thought like yours about this matter.
Oh, I did study them and think at this point that you misparse, but I never say never to better understandings of God’s grace. Anyhow, you make your own bedtime choices, I cannot make them for you. Blessed dreams.
It's not the church that saves anyway. It's JESUS. The church can't save because that's not its job.
The church did not die for you.
I could do that on a golf course, no sense wasting time at Mass any longer. I can live whatever lifestyle that I choose...WOO-HOO, I'm for that. I have no idea what the Bible meant when it said many are called, few are chosen, or the mention of a narrow gate, or any of the other seeming hardships to enter paradise....Just express a belief that Jesus is the Lord and Savior (Satan does that) and all your obligations are superceded by salvation through grace alone.......O.K.
Mock away.
OK, To start with, show me the chapter and verse where it says that Satan expresses belief that Jesus is Lord and Savior.
And you know what? Accept Christ as your Lord and Savior and there are no obligations to keep. Salvation IS by grace through faith in Christ alone. It's free. Without cost. It's a gift. It's not earned or merited or deserved, or anything. Free means without cost or obligation.
Do you think that God doesn't know we're still going to sin after we're saved?
Of course He knows it and He saves us anyway. He knows we can't keep the Law. He never intended that anyone keep the Law to gain salvation. That's not what it was given for.
The Law was given to lead us to Christ that we would be justified by faith.
Galatians 2:15-21 15 We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; 16 yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.
17 But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! 18 For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. 19 For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.
Galatians 3:1-29 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. 2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? 4 Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? 5 Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith— 6 just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”?
Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. 8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” 9 So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
10 For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” 11 Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” 12 But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— 14 so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.
15 To give a human example, brothers: even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. 16 Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ. 17 This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. 18 For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.
19 Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. 20 Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.
21 Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. 22 But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
23 Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. 24 So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, 26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.
No, nobody has to go to mass, or church services on Sundays. Missing them is not a sin. That is not taught ANYWHERE in the Bible.
That's what true freedom is all about.
1 Corinthians 6:12 “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything.
1 Corinthians 10:23 “All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up.
Romans 14:5-8 5 One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. 6 The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. 7 For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. 8 For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's.
Church attendance is useful and helpful but not mandatory. That's what freedom is all about. Being free in Christ, free from the bondage of the Law and rules and regulations.
And I have had 55 years of TRIALS... I consider myself the one on which the Holy Spirit has concentrated. Hard.
LOL I can empathize there. It’s been 65 years for me and it started with polio at the age of 2 and now has progressed to post polio syndrome. .
Mere polio? How about wrestling with deep sin and coming out with a stunning conquest over what the sin had controlled?
It’s not important to salvation but will help you understand current events. It’s very enlightening when it’s finally understood. I can't stress enough the peace it gives.
Incoming in
3.....
2......
1.......
I agree with you, but this will rankle the RC's.
You dissed their favorite mom.
In some senses past events foreshadow future ones and future events echo the patterns of past ones. I can appreciate these truths without deeply committing to making these foreshadowings and echoings into doctrine. In general I see God’s M.O. without having to commit to a “EEK! The Roman Catholics we know now are the Whore!”
My spiritual philosophy used to be “trace the shadows.” Now it is “trace the light.”
Once more, Whoa! Something I did prior to age two caused polio? Seriously? I’d stay away from that nonsense if I were you. Challenges and circumstances are not always because of sin. Sometimes God has a special purpose for those He allows to go through challenges. It wasn’t Job’s sin that caused his challenges.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.