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
"Isn’t that fun! I grew up in a family of harmonizers. I also sang in a barbershop group for years. Praising God through song with others in harmony is a joy indeed."
Amen to both those thoughts!
Here's some harmony:
God Bless America - Heritage Baptist Church - Men's Quartet
Holy God, We Praise Thy Name - Irish Philharmonic Orchestra And Chorus
With Christ's approval surely!.....”because Lord, we're doing powerful works in your name!”
That is a symptom of shadow-laden thinking. When you trace how the blessings of God flow, then you see high light and low light situations. And you can work with the low light situations to bring them more light without damning them to hell....
When you want to find the most powerful works, look for situations getting UPLIFTED. Any Tom, Dick, or Harry could damn or kill. Who can save?
Nobody’s talking about telling Catholics, by the way, that the very best place for them to worship is where they are. But building the spiritual bridges takes time. Light leads them on. Railing at them doesn’t. We don’t have a situation which is as “in extremis” as the WoB described in the book of Revelation. THAT Whore will forbid ANY semblance of genuine Christian worship... please note that the Roman Catholic institution has not quite managed to do that.
In 20/20 hindsight the Pope would have done well in that situation to have politely but insistently refused it, instead offering to give advice to this now-believing emperor (in consultation with the wisest leaders of his church) as to how to bring the situation under control. Heavy gospel preaching should have been very close to the top of the agenda. But not dual-tasking the clergy with supervising goats in addition to sheep. THAT was asking for dilution of the church and vitiation of its effectiveness.
Still... we are not here to pan the Roman Catholic institution for bygones. We DO believe in a God who forgives without great folderol, requiring simple repentance (stopping the sin and acknowledging the need for help, which is an essential before the Lord) WITHOUT some kind of works penance or “living it down” first, don’t we, as good Crazy Evangelicals?? Let’s live that out in our own advice if God has filled us.
We do believe God has used us to show His favor? Well then show like favor by being as kind as God was kind to us. Kindness doesn’t excuse, but it has great patience and tact.
The reading of this situation depends very heavily on whether one takes a fundamentally grace view or whether you take a fundamentally damnation view.
I used to take much more of a damnation view than I thought. Now I take more and more of a grace view, as the Lord has shown ME more and more grace. Yes, the Roman organization went wrong when it EVER thought that resistance to the gospel per se must be met with the sword. That’s not what those swords were for. They were for physically defending the lives of their fellows and family in extremis, where even a martyrdom clearly did not make sense because they were dealing with not a possible gainful witness case, but pure concentrated obdurate evil murderers.
Anyhow that’s my read. YMMV but don’t forget that your fundamental world view DOES color your reading of the gospel. Be careful!
Also... Christians of all ages SO, so badly forget the lessons of the first gospel churches. That gospel sold itself!! You didn’t have to haul in secular measures to bolster it!!
Dear Christians where EVER your worship congregation may be: your God is as big as you are willing to believe. If you believe your God needs heavy secular help, your God will be very attenuated and weak. But if you believe your God is omnipotent and can push past any barrier that man has erected (beyond the individual obdurate refusal to believe all one’s life, which constitutes the ultimate blasphemy), and you come to your Heavenly Father asking for this power in love and in trust like a child... then you will get POWER like... crazy! COUNT ON IT! GOD HAS PROMISED!
I don't agree...That 'whore' is the counterfeit of the real church...It is and will be hard to tell the difference from the real thing; without the benefit of scripture alone...
But building the spiritual bridges takes time. Light leads them on. Railing at them doesn’t.
Been around long enough to know that that people respond to different things...Some respond to a tack hammer, some, it takes a jack hammer to get through...
You can not build spiritual bridges with people who do not acknowledge Christians being indwelt with the Holy Spirit...
Well, are they forbidding scriptural worship?
The answer seems to be no today. They are actually yielding to the evangelical view, if begrudgingly. The evangelical churches have made them jealous for effective worship of the Lord.
The situation was not as good a century or so ago. Reading the sermons of, e.g. Charles Haddon Spurgeon can be jarring in the sections where he pans the Roman Catholic system without mercy. I still think he missed how Christian worship continued to take place in the Roman Catholic church, quite markedly in remote settings where there was more local autonomy. (Ever notice how the most marked Roman Catholic saints, like the modern Mother Teresa, didn’t do their main thing in some big city cathedral? There’s a reason!) But Spurgeon had a better case than today. (I am actually a blood relative within the last couple hundred years to Spurgeon, incidentally. One of my aunts traced it.)
What you do NOT need to do to help here is to get puffed up and frankly you do look like you are getting puffed up.
Jack hammers do not need jerklike conduct to help them....
Incidentally, one does not have to hang on to a DOCTRINE to be a Christian. One has to hang on to CHRIST. There’s a difference here. Of course the most effective life as a Christian DOES get as many as possible of the doctrines straight. But we must not be arrogant. Arrogance really peeves me big time; it glorifies man’s way of doing things (yes that exists big time on the evangelical side and the sooner we confess and forsake it the better). God’s way of doing things is often more quiet and subtle and if you look at your own life and the lives of other devoted Christians you will see that played out. Remember God was not in the earthquake, the fire, or the whirlwind... God was in the still, small voice (even though He is quite capable of raising earthquakes, fires, and whirlwinds when He deems it suitable).
And what a stretch and misappropriation of scripture to apply that passage to killing people who disagree with the Catholic Church. Christ was plainly talking about self protection for those who were carrying the money. He was not talking about offensively attacking anyone who disagreed.
Ultimately... let’s have a witness-off. You witness your way which I still think is carnally energized. I will witness what I believe is God’s way and divinely energized. Let’s compare results.
I want the glory of God the Son and of God the Father and of the Holy Spirit. These entities exist independently of anybody’s teachings, though wrong teachings do grieve them.
Also about counterfeiting... you don’t know what counterfeiting is. Counterfeiting isn’t the dull, jaded situation of clumsy men trying to modulate the grace of God. Counterfeiting will be downright demonic and will clearly praise hell.
Why is it that Catholics don’t give scriptural support for statements like that? Could it be that those statements stem from man’s wisdom only?
Once again a statement with supporting documentation. What’s up with that?
True enough they sometimes do. I still believe in lighting candles. “You say.... but the bible says....”
Basically, the RC folks often miss the grace of God big time. But to bring an evangelical argument in their face in a spirit that also misses the grace of God big time... is little or no help.
Remember how Ford had a better idea?
Well, the LORD has a better idea. And that better idea even sells itself... all it needs is to be presented clearly. Better to light candles than to curse darkness.
Ultimately... let’s have a witness-off. You witness your way which I still think is carnally energized. I will witness what I believe is God’s way and divinely energized. Let’s compare results.
We just had a guy on one of these threads recently where it had to be his way or no way...This conversation sounds familiar...
Incidentally, one does not have to hang on to a DOCTRINE to be a Christian.
Joh 7:16 Jesus answered them, and said, My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me.
Joh 7:17 If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.
Joh 7:18 He that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory: but he that seeketh his glory that sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him.
Rom_6:17 But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.
Definition of COUNTERFEIT
1 : made in imitation of something else with intent to deceive
: forged
Merriam Webster Dictionary...
Counterfeiting will be demonic and will praise hell while appearing to praise God...
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