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
These are your Statements?
Revelation 4:2-11 At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne. And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald. Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders, clothed in white garments, with golden crowns on their heads.
From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God, and before the throne there was as it were a sea of glass, like crystal.
And around the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind: the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight. 8 And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say,
“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!”
9 And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, 10 the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying,
11 “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.”
Revelation 5:8-14 And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying,
“Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.”
Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice,
“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!”
And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying,
“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”
And the four living creatures said, “Amen!” and the elders fell down and worshiped.
Revelation 7:9-12 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”
In heaven, Jesus is seated on HIS throne.
Common. NO. The point is that God Christ was going to be born according to prophecy. Period. The credit goes to God, not to Mary. That’s the point. Catholics just don’t get the concept of giving glory to God rather than man do they.
And He certainly doesn’t need a stand in here on earth.
>> “And He certainly doesn’t need a stand in here on earth.” <<
.
Especially one that mimics Zeus/Mithra.
Hebrews 10:12-18 But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.
And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying,
“This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,”
then he adds,
“I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”
Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.
Um, God is the Creator and does have the right to do what He chooses with His creation.
And no, that doesn't make Him a tyrant. That is just faulty argumentation slandering the character of God for carrying out his plan in His sovereignty.
BTW, GOD does not have a mother. Jesus had a mother and the Holy Spirit in the Scripture He breathed out calls her *mother of Jesus*.
.
John 2:1 On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.
John 2:3 When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.”
Acts 1:14 All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.
Scripture is clear in calling her *mother of Jesus* not *mother of God*.
But, you’re not trying to troll it up. Sure.
It can not stop because the actual fact is he has a mother now? When we honor it has to be special? Otherwise why do we honor?
How does a God man honor his mother?
These are the questions that brought me back to the church many years ago. Just so you honestly know.
So God does not want a mother? If Jesus is God he did not have a mother to obey the commandments which declare to honor your mother and Father? So if he is sinless? How is he sinless? He has to obey at least the ten commandments?
Just a gentle reminder, metmom, that the commandment also says that you can't even make them.
“You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth." Exodus 20:4In that commandment, before God says that you can't bow down to them, He says that you can't even make them.
Crosses, paintings of Jesus, other paintings, etc. are all examples of "likenesses of things in heaven, on earth, or in the water". Other than a "Friends" (Quaker) Meeting House (which is pure simplicity) I have never seen any Protestant churches without crosses or paintings of some kind, and I've been in many Protestant churches of many different denominations in many different cities.
Do you think they are all breaking that commandment by having those "likenesses" (crosses/paintings) made, and keeping them hanging there in their churches?
God is God. He doesn't HAVE a mother. Why would He WANT a mother.
Jesus needed a mother to be virgin born.
If Jesus is God he did not have a mother to obey the commandments which declare to honor your mother and Father?
That makes no sense.
So if he is sinless? How is he sinless? He has to obey at least the ten commandments?
He is sinless because He does not have a human father. God is His father. so there was no sin nature to transfer to Jesus from God. He remained sinless because He obeyed the ENTIRE LAW, not just the Ten Commandments AND He obeyed them in their intent, from the heart, as He taught in the Beatitudes.
How incredibly sad. The “queen of heaven” concept is purely of pagan origin. Not once in scripture did the apostles or Jesus condone such a practice as the Catholics engage in.
So your saying Jesus is not God? Just to clarify.
Why was Mary chosen by God/Jesus/the Holy Spirit?
Just curious to hear your thoughts on that.
How about we use the whole concept God was intending here.
Genesis 20:3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me. 4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
God said not to make them to bow down to them. Surely you aren’t insinuating that there are now 11 commandments are you?
They “left” the Catholic Church for the grinning Joel’s megachurch because they want to know how to make money. That’s what the grinnng hyena is good for. He’s not a preacher, never been to any kind of seminary. He’s an Amway salesman. They want to make money. They were never church going Catholics to start with.
HaHaHa
Can you imagine at the Last Supper the Apostles refusing the cup Jesus offered because others had drunk from it?
LOL
The Hebrew word that is sometimes translated *image* is also the word for *idol*. An image is not by default an idol.
http://biblehub.com/exodus/20-4.htm
In the Hebrew....
http://biblehub.com/text/exodus/20-4.htm
http://biblesuite.com/hebrew/6459.htm
pesel: an idol, image
So the command is to not make oneself and idol nor to bow down before it.
Even if the argument is made that the statues of Mary are not idols because nobody is sacrificing to it or *worshiping* it, people are still breaking the second part of the commandment by BOWING DOWN before it.
Bowing is bowing.....
Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
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