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
Snort.
The challenge was to give me one Jewish source that says they believe in the Trinity.
Whether we, as Christians who believe in the Trinity, can see it in the OT writings was not the challenge.
The Jewish people do not believe in the Trinity. They do not believe that the Messiah, who is still to come, is the second person of that Trinity.
I’m getting dreary eyed. Night all.
Honestly, think about what you are saying.
For what you are saying to make any sense, the Holy Spirit would have to have sperm which contained it’s DNA. Did the Holy Spirit conceive Jesus with His sperm?
They didn't reject Him for nothing. He had to be rejected to fulfill prophecy. They were fulfilling prophecy and didn't know it.
And not ALL the Jews rejected Him. He had quite a following, if you recall. It was only the religious leaders who rejected Him.
This conversation is getting more and more ridiculous.
Especially in light of the Scripture I posted to you to prove otherwise. It is ridiculous that you would persist in that misunderstanding.
I think you had better think about what you are saying. YOU made the statement the ALL of Jesus DNA came from Mary. Mary would have had no Y chromosome. Jesus had the Y chromosome or He would not have been male. Jesus did NOT get all His DNA from Mary.
What again is wrong in that statement?
EVERYTHING. You don't believe that the God of the OT is the same God YOU worship?
And yet your catechism says that Catholics and muslims worship the same God, the God of Abraham, which just happens to be the God of the OT.
Sheesh......
HELLO!!!!!
St. Paul wrote of what was revealed to him by Jesus through the Holy Spirit.
If he only wrote what he knew based on the OT, then he would have never written of grace.
Oh, and Paul never wrote about the Trinity.
I’m done with this.
Obstinate ignorance and continued mangling of my words is getting to be a waste of my time.
I NEVER SAID THAT I DON’T BELIEVE THE GOD OF THE OT IS THE SAME GOD!!!!
For the last time, I said that the God the Jews knew and understood from the OT was not the same God that Christians know and understand.
THEY DID NOT AND DO NOT BELIEVE IN THE TRINITY!!!!
When Jesus claimed to BE GOD they found it blasphemous because the God they knew and understood from the OT was ONE and only ONE and not one in three persons.
There was only one source for Jesus to have gotten human DNA and that was from Mary. She was the only human in the conception.
Think what you want, I really don’t care.
Genesis 15:6 And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.
Oh, and Paul never wrote about the Trinity.
Bangs head on desk......
Romans 8:9-11 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
What you say is true that Scripture was used to prove the deity of Jesus.
What developed was the understanding of how the God the of OT had become man. God was not human and could not be human as far as the Jews were concerned.
What also developed was the concept that there was one God in three persons.
Scripture does not clearly lay that out. It came from theology. Based in Scripture of course, but not found in Scripture in the terms and the way we know and understand it.
I'll have to remember that reasoning next time some Catholic attacks the idea of sola scriptura.
If it's good enough for Catholics to defend THEIR doctrines......
Except HERE....
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3059418/posts?page=1299#1299
>>As I said in my previous post, the God that we know and understand today is not the one of the Jews of Jesus’ time, the God of the OT.<<
Make up your mind, then.
Catholics have always based their theology and doctrine in Scripture, but we have also understood the role of Sacred Tradition in that theology and doctrine.
The Catechism is replete with Scripture citations to support the teachings within it.
But, please, snark on.
I made my point.
Continue to mangle it, it makes no difference to me.
That does not lay out the teaching of the Trinity.
There are people still today who use that passage to argue that the Holy Spirit is not God but merely OF GOD.
And, there are people still today who use Scripture to argue against the Trinity.
If it was clear and laid out without any ambiguity, there could be no different understandings of it.
That is why one must have a sure guide to turn to know.
Jesus would be an impossibility based merely on human physical science. He would have to have been conceived by a male’s human sperm, but He wasn’t was He.
Oh, and I am still waiting for your citations from Jewish sources that confirm they believe in the Trinity.
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