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
And the rest of the Quote: AFSD
I do so appreciate the science lesson, however it is not needed. I do remember my basic human genetics.
We are speaking of the Son of God here and not the normal conception and birth of human. There obviously are some things which cannot be explained by physical science as we know it.
Also, no apology. It is not my fault she doesn’t seem to think her children are a part of her.
You are not giving God enough credit...It is impossible for a human female to get pregnant without the cooperation of a human male...But it happened...
Apparently modern science has proven that that a female can not provide the necessary chromosome to create a male of the species...That chromosome had to have been provided by a human male, or God...
While that flies in the face of what the Catholic religion teaches, there is no other way around it...
For CB and others, the Word of God is literal, except when it isn’t.
Glad to hear your tests were good.
Very nicely done. Casting pearls before swine, but still very good.
We can see many times in the books of the Old Testament where the LORD God revealed Himself as Triune in nature. the very first verses in Genesis are an example, where God said, "Let us make man in our image..." This link does a good job of demonstrating the triune nature of the Almighty God in the OT The Triunity (Trinity) of God in The Old Testament. In it we learn:
How can a statement of oneness imply plurality? In the Shema, the word translated "one" from the Hebrew is echad, which demonstrates compound unity of oneness.
These are a few of the many examples of how echad is used to show the unity of oneness. How would the Hebrew be different if God had wanted to express absolute oneness? There is another Hebrew word, yachid, that is used to express the idea of absolute oneness.
The Hebrew word translated "God" is the word El or Elohim. Elohim is the plural form of El. The plural form is used 2607 of the 2845 times the word "God" is used in the Old Testament. Not only is the word for God usually used in the plural form, but several verses refer to God as "Us":
•Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." (Genesis 1:26)
•Then the LORD God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, lest he stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever"-- (Genesis 3:22)
•"Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech." (Genesis 11:7)
•Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?" Then I said, "Here am I. Send me!" (Isaiah 6:8)
Not only is the plurality of God found in the Old Testament, but the members of the triunity are also defined. Several Old Testament verses tell us that God is our Father.
The Son is also found in the Old Testament.
The third member of the triunity of God, The Holy Spirit, is also found extensively in the Old Testament.
Finally, there are a number of verses in the Old Testament in which the triunity of God is directly expressed:
•Who has ascended into heaven and descended? Who has gathered the wind in His fists? Who has wrapped the waters in His garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is His name or His Son's name? Surely you know! (Proverbs 30:4)
•Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, And a branch from his roots will bear fruit. And the Spirit of the LORD will rest on Him, The spirit of wisdom and understanding, The spirit of counsel and strength, The spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD. (Isaiah 11:1-2)
•"Behold, My Servant, whom I uphold; My chosen one in whom My soul delights. I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the nations. (Isaiah 42:1)
•"Come near to Me, listen to this: From the first I have not spoken in secret, From the time it took place, I was there. And now the Lord GOD has sent Me, and His Spirit." (Isaiah 48:16)
•The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me, Because the LORD has anointed Me To bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to captives, And freedom to prisoners; (Isaiah 61:1)
•In all their affliction He was afflicted, And the angel of His presence saved them; In His love and in His mercy He redeemed them; And He lifted them and carried them all the days of old. But they rebelled And grieved His Holy Spirit; Therefore, He turned Himself to become their enemy, He fought against them. (Isaiah 63:9-10)
Conclusion Some of the verses above include all members of the triunity (Isaiah 42:1, Isaiah 48:16, and Isaiah 61:1). Therefore, the Old Testament does reveal the Christian concept of the Godhead, with God being one God, consisting of three persons. How can God simultaneously exist as both singular and plural? It is a logical impossibility if God were restricted to the three dimensions of space and one dimension of time of our physical universe. However, the attributes of God, given by the Bible, provide a reasonable explanation of how this paradox can be resolved.
I hope you will take a peek at the link as it gives ALL the verses throughout the OT that speak to the triunity of God. That the modern Jew rejects the Trinity, and specifically the Son of God, Jesus, does not disprove that the LORD revealed Himself as this always.
I think you are wrong about Paul "never tied it together", because we have many verses throughout his epistles that speak to this. Just the very fact that Jehovah was ALWAYS known as the ONE, TRUE, God and Jesus also called God as well as the Holy Spirit, is proof that Paul understood the trinity and accepted it by faith - as we all must.
I believe it is customary to ping someone if they are the subject of a post.
But, please carry on.
I am done trying to explain to those who seem to take such delight in twisting things in order to puff themselves up by ridiculing someone who is trying to have an honest debate and may not be very good at explaining their understanding or position.
I am done with this thread.
Please, feel free to continue mocking me without pinging me as I have no further interest in this conversation.
All well and good, but DO THE JEWS BELIEVE IN THE TRINITY? Did the Jews believe in the Trinity in Jesus’ time?
No, they did not then and do not now.
See my post 1284.
Concerning the Old Testament and references to the Trinity, this is my personal favorite:
That all-clear was certainly an answer to prayer.
BTW I have never hesitated to ask my friends for prayers --- both those on earth and in heaven!
Thank you, my dears! G'night now!
pap indeed....did you ever read a history book???? Did you ever look into the origin of almost every major European university....you will almost always find that the Catholic church was instrumental in their origin....
The apostles appeared to...The were Jews...
probably very little.......if you can do it(read and write) yourself...If you are a parent in the year 500 AD chances that you could read or write your contry's language was practically nil. First of all there was nothing to read....books were in palaces, libraries, and monastaries (Catholic) they were all handwritten and very expensive. There were no newspapersw nor periodicals....local news was forwarded, if at all, by a town crier. You had nothing to write because you had no reason to do so. If you wrote a letter to grandma in Athens, how would you have expected it to get there???
MUCH later in history, as the church helped establish libraries and monastaries where people had access to the written word, educators began to teach using books and written documents. It was not untiltheprinting press was invented that the average person even considered owning a book.
Pap indeed!
Perhaps you should venture out of the papist echo chamber...
All well and good? But you still reject that the triunity of the Godhead was not found in the Old Testament? Weren't the FIRST believers in Jesus Jews? Weren't ALL the Apostles followers of the Jewish religion? Do you imagine they did not believe in the Godhead which meant that Jesus was God incarnate? What did the angel tell Joseph? "You will call his name Immanuel, which is God with us."
No one denies that the Jewish religious people of today reject that Jesus is the Messiah, much less that he is God incarnate, in the flesh, but there is no denying that the Old Testament prophets are replete with verses that state He would be God. For example:
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6)
There are many others, but you cannot know the hearts of the Old Testament saints who DID believe in the coming Lamb of God who would take away their sins. Even though the word "Trinity" from the Latin, trinitas, meaning "the number three, a triad", is not found specifically in Scripture, the concept is all over the Bible and I believe that all those who seek to know the true God WILL accept this is His divine nature. As the Apostle John said:
Thank you! Mine, too.
Philippians 3:3-5 For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh— though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee;
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