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
Funny how some who say you have to work out your salvation to be saved, use only part of that verse.
Philippians 2:12-13 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
The love of God doesn't allow for anything harmful in the life of His beloved and it should give one pause to think of the lengths He will go to to remove it.
Oh good grief. NOT for unrepentant, ongoing refusal to abide by His word. I’m beginning to wonder if you and I use the same scripture.
It will not BE what you style as “unrepentant, ongoing refusal to abide by His word.” Do you fail to believe God has enough deterministic power to carry out a sealed salvation? That He already has those repentance ducks lined up in a row when He begins the task?
You talk with Satan’s accusing tongue!
“DO NOT JUDGE BY APPEARANCES... BUT MAKE A RIGHTEOUS JUDGMENT”
Once again I would like to see your scriptural support for this.
>>Maybe Satan is charging your mind with so many accusations you can’t scope out what really is happening?<<
Prophesy recorded in scripture does not come from Satan.
It should be clear to any objective viewer of this discussion here that you are richly indulging in the “begging the question” fallacy. It’s sure clear to me. So I see no need to continue it... go ahead and accuse me... your accusations simply fall on Christ.
Wow! Zombies is how you see what we will be feeling only joy, happiness, and praise?
You beg the question of the final encounter with truth. I’d personally be tickled if it DOES turn out that way... as the eternal optimist I never say never... but ultimately we have to BE there to know. But the passage about being whipped with few or many stripes comes to mind. A final reconciliatory encounter seems to be the best reading to me. YMMV.
By the way... as quite often I find when I’ve been arguing with someone about these kinds of things... we may BOTH be right!...
It may be a final encounter of “overcoming.” The last dings and dents of sin get forced out. But now we have a maximally advantageous vantage point. So the “rejoice through trials” ideal WILL occur and we may cry... but with joy and relief and gratitude. As we see each sin that we sinned and did not reconcile on earth (there is no way we could confess them all there, we don’t even KNOW what they all are... and the scripture DOES say to confess your sin, can’t escape THAT), clearly being cast upon the Lord down to the last iota.
Now you may ask what scripture backs this up and I readily confess that we really can’t point to anything definitive. Whatever it is will, however, doubtless reflect the glory of God to the maximum. My, or your, less than perfect readings of the Bible won’t constrain God from being God. But I am very cheerful because God has proven Himself very gracious to me. I do not believe for a moment that this grace will stop.
Wish I could say I am surprised. NO SARC
Meow, meow, meow!
There’s more than one way to skin a cat (and to sew its skin back on).
Confucius say: man who stand on proud soapbox in the rain slip back off in a lather.
I.e. the way to scrutinize the question is to ask: how is the Lord getting glorified here?
Once we realize that’s what’s important, we realize that both approaches have strengths and both have limitations and pitfalls. There are home school children who later go to community schools and generally they do great. Others continue through end of high school level. God can also make a prize of someone who completely went through public school from the word go. That’sa me... it was a hard life but ultimately it did not stymie God’s gracious purpose.
Really... (as I muse to myself) we got to be careful when dealing with a system of theology that we disagree with, that we don’t inadvertently throw ourselves upon some of that system’s own assumptions without even thinking.
In this case the assumption may be that the organization in question has to be simon-pure or else it is lower than the devil’s poop. The possibility of a fallen, flawed embrace of God’s grace through which God still manages to operate, in SPITE of and not BECAUSE of the flaws, never enters the mental model here. That’s how, I believe, some enter into the fallacy that a system with problems that some claim to be perfect, has to be the lousiest thing since Satan if it isn’t perfect. And they hang on and on when you challenge those people; they vigorously beg the question. When the ultimate problem, completely gone unexamined, was the frame of mind!
The frame of mind when working with Scripture matters so, so much to what you will get out of it. I haven’t just studied the airplane operating manual, reinforcing my preconceptions as I went. I’ve also flown the airplane!
And, that “airplane” does far, far more than I ever dared to dream... and it was all there in the manual but nobody wanted to believe it... they kept thinking it would act like their motor cars and read the manual with that mindset... and thus endeth my parable....
I didn’t think it necessary to explain, but since you insist on trying wrest incorrect meaning from what I wrote I will spell it out for you.
The Jews did not know God as One God with Three Persons, as in the Trinity which we Christians have come to know Him.
The Jews did not and do not believe in the Trinity. To them, and according to what was revealed in the OT there is God, the Father; no God the Son and no God, the Holy Spirit.
It is the same God, but He revealed to us through Jesus that He is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
So, God is the same, He is eternal and never changing, but the God we know through Jesus is not the God that the Jews knew.
******The doctrine of the Triune God is taught throughout the ENTIRE Bible -******
So, then the Jews believe in the Trinity based on the Old Testament?
As for Christians being taught the Trinity from the beginning. I think you are wrong about that. We can certainly see the elements are there, but in all the writings of Paul, he never it tied together.
I think the doctrine became clear as God revealed it over time as the questions came up regarding how Jesus was God and whether the Holy Spirit was God.
For the last time....
I did not say that the Bible does not teach that Jesus is God.
To continue to snottily act as if I did is truly childish.
There is actually a great deal about her, but non Catholics do not accept those things which the Church did not include in the Canon of Scripture.
That’s okay, we are happy to keep her for ourselves.
Um, the Jews most certainly know about the Son and the Holy Spirit and they certainly did have the Scripture that told about them both.
The Holy Spirit is mentioned by name in the OT and all the prophecies about the Son revealed Him as well.
Psalm 51:11 Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
Psalm 2:7-12 I will tell of the decree: The Lord said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.”
Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.
Isaiah 7:13-14 And he said, “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
Isaiah 9:6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Honestly, we’re going to talk science and DNA regarding a supernatural miracle?
If the Holy Spirit came upon Mary to conceive Jesus, then there is only one source from which Jesus could have gotten His human flesh and blood as the Holy Spirit had no flesh or DNA to give to Him.
It is beyond ridiculous to even to have to debate that.
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