MegaChurch or Catholic Church?

taylormarshall.com ^ | August 26, 2013 | Dr. Taylor Marshall

[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.

Why the Megachurch?

When I asked why they exchanged the Catholic Church for the megachurch, they gave me a number of reasons:

1. “My new church has an iPhone app. I can go on my iPhone and get Bible studies, sermons (video and audio). When I travel I can still watch the sermon, either live or later. I feel apart of the community.”
2. “The preaching is dynamic and speaks to my life. I find practical encouragement.”
3. “I felt judged at the Catholic Church.”
4. “People were not friendly or welcoming at the Catholic Church. The first time I went to my new church, I was welcomed by so many people.”
5. “My new church has classes and courses that are interesting and helpful.”
6. “The music is better.”
7. “In the Catholic Church, they use a lot of words that I did not understand.”
8. “People pray for each other and know each other (in the megachurch).”

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:

1. “There are not any crosses in my new church. I know it makes some people feel uncomfortable, but I wish we had crosses.”
2. “What will I do when I die?” They were both unclear about whether they could get anything like Last Rites at the megachurch.

What About the Eucharist?

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.

The Problem

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

[smvoice]

Are you speaking of the RCC using their "God-given sense to understand the BIble"? Why the need for catechism and doctrines, and traditions, and magistrates, and popes, and cardinals, and saints, and rosaries, and visions, and pomp and circumstance if you use your "God-given sense to understand the Bible." ??

No really. I would LOVE a good, honest, well-reasoned answer to that question. From Scripture ONLY, if that is possible.

[terycarl]

What makes you think I am a “Protestant”? Are you so narrow minded as to think that anyone not a Catholic is a Protestant?

yes...if you claim to be a Christian, and are not a Catholic, you are a Protestant.....Catholics are true Christians....those who "protest" the Catholic Christianity are therefore "Protestant"

[metmom]

Protestants will beat up on Catholics for having a highly exalted infallible leader who is treated like a celebrity.

Catholics will beat up on non-Catholics for following a man who lives off the money of others who follow his church and don't see the hypocrisy of the fact that they are doing the same thing they are condemning in others, and those televangelists don't have anything on the power and opulent lifestyle of the pope.

[paladinan]

smvoice wrote:

One question: How long are you all going to let that poor, beaten, starving, mangy dog hunt?

(*sigh*) I suppose I might ask, in return, how many times you (and those with like sympathies) will use emotionalism, banal rhetoric, and threadbare canards to try to attack the Church...

The one named “the catholic church gave us the Bible”.

All right: you've made the claim that (if I understand you correctly) the Catholic Church did NOT give you (and us) the Bible (since you object so strenuously to the idea that the Church DID just that, and since there are no other possibilities--either She did, or She didn't). Now: would you be so kind as to prove it? The positive proof is already well-established (and recited on this forum, nearly to death); the following Google search terms might be of use:

Council of Carthage
Council of Hippo
Canon of Scripture

If you gave it to us, why don't you use it?

You are, of course, assuming that I do NOT use it... right? Can you please explain how you came to that (wrong) conclusion?

Why gather together and dust off a table of “wise” magistrates to tell you what God meant to say?

I suppose you might just recognize the fact that you're using flamboyantly rhetorical "fluff words" to evoke an emotional effect, rather than using calm reason to make your case? Care to try again, using logic and reason?

Don't you think God gave you enough sense to understand what He is saying?

God gave NO ONE (including you) an infallible ability to know positively what every last word, phrase and section of Scripture says; nor did He give anyone an infallible ability to know positively how any given Greek or Hebrew word/phrase/idiom translates best into any other language (which will always lose something in the translation, anyway). God gave us a limited understanding by which we can know, with reasonable certainty, many of the easier and clearer meanings of various Scripture passages--but to assume more than that would be foolish... and unbiblical:

"So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, speaking of this as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures. You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, beware lest you be carried away with the error of lawless men and lose your own stability." (2 Peter 3:15-18)

I must ask: do you presume to know more than Holy Scripture, in this matter?

I'm also assuming that you don't quite understand the Catholic teaching on the infallibility of the Church (in the formal teachings/dogmas of the Pope, councils, etc.); it's not a "positive" infallibility which gives knowledge of this-or-that passage of Scripture; rather, it's a "negative" protection which prevents the Pope, Church Councils, etc. (after they've done the normal hard work of academic research, prayer, etc.), from formally teaching any error as truth. That's how Catholics know that they haven't been misled in any fundamental matter of salvation.

[Jvette]

metmom, is it your contention that the Blood of Jesus is equivalent to the blood of sacrificed animals?

The life is indeed in the blood and we are never to partake of the blood of anything other than Jesus for our eternal life. We do not want to take on the life of any animal or other living thing for they are not our savior. Jesus and Jesus alone is our Savior.

[CynicalBear]

Please go back to my post comparing the popes prayer to scripture and explain that to me.

[paladinan]

metmom, if you're capable of writing "and those televangelists don't have anything on the power and opulent lifestyle of the pope, then... forgive me... I have to say that, at least on this specific point, you have no idea what you're talking about.

No modern pope has "lived in opulence"... and only ignorance could lead someone to say otherwise. But for anyone to say such a thing about Pope Francis, of ALL people...! Honestly... I'm at a loss. Just... Google some information about him, before you comment on that point again. Heavens, one might as well (and just as nonsensically) have accused St. Francis of Assisi of being a rich miser!

[Jvette]

****Tons of people left him over the parables.*****

Scripture to support this assertion, please.

[metmom]

Such as? And can you tell me HOW you know they're "MIS-translated" (and not simply translated in a way you and/or your pastor happen not to like)? Such a charge needs to be proven.

Genesis 3:15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

http://biblehub.com/genesis/3-15.htm

The Douay-Rheims Bible is the ONLY one to translate the personal pronoun *he* as *she*.

Acts 2:38 And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

http://biblehub.com/acts/2-38.htm

The Catholic church takes the word *repent* and changes it to *do penance*.

For all your criticisms of sola scriptura as not being valid, the best Catholicism has to offer is *because we say so*. And then try to appeal to a verse or two to support themselves, which is ironic if they consider sola scriptura invalid for the reasons you mentioned.

By your reasoning, you did not render sola scriptura invalid, but the word of God itself.

[paladinan]

No really. I would LOVE a good, honest, well-reasoned answer to that question. From Scripture ONLY, if that is possible.

It doesn't bother you that insisting on "Scripture only" is not only not necessary, but unbiblical, self-contradictory nonsense? You might as well ask me to balance my checkbook using only those digits which are neither odd nor even!

[Jvette]

*****The Holy Spirit calls her *the mother of JESUS.*****

Nowhere in Scripture is Jesus called God. Through many passages we come to understand that He is indeed God, but nowhere does Scripture call Jesus, God.

[SoothingDave]

Please see my post 436.

Those who believe in Sola Scriptura disagree amongst themselves. They all just read the Bible and get guidance from the Holy Spirit.

And they disagree.

So either:

1. Truth is unknowable and God is the author of chaos

Or

2. God left us a teaching church, with the authority to settle disputes.

#2 is what i see in the New Testament.

[metmom]

Self-proclaimed authority as the Catholic church has done, is not valid either.

Authority must be conferred to one from a higher authority.

So the *Church* appeals to the very Scripture they tell us cannot be trusted on its own.

So Scripture declaring itself to be authoritative doesn’t work in the eyes of Catholics, but the Church declaring itself authoritative does work in the eyes of Catholics?

Say what????

[metmom]

Remember, He also apparently said something like “this is my body, true flesh which will profit nothing”.

If you're going to try to quote Scripture, do try to quote Jesus accurately.

It's easy to look up Bible passages online.

John 6:63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.

[smvoice]

First of all, you show a GREAT ignorance of the meaning of 2 Peter 3:15-18. It must be something your church gave you their "infallible" definition of. It doesn't even come close, paladinan.

Second, you said "God gave NO ONE (including you) an infallible ability to know positively what every last word, phrase and section of Scripture says...". Does that include your "infallible" magistrates and pope? Last time I checked they were part of NO ONE. Unless they have recently over-ridden God and declared they were SOME ONE. I ask you for SCRIPTURE to PROVE your point. You give me Councils of MEN, INFALLIBLE MEN to "prove" your point. Not good enough.

The ONLY thing I truly believe that the Catholic Church is solely responsible for is writing the Apocrypha. I DO believe your church ancestors wrote it. WHY? Because it is so full of deceit, lies, half-truths, tall tales, and nonsense it could only have come from a group of self-appointed "infallible wise men" playing Ouija Board to come up with their doctrines of "faith"...for the "faithful".

[SoothingDave]

I suppose some of the Protestant churches bless the rings at a wedding.

Honestly, it never occured to me that someone would hold a wedding and put rings on and not ask God to bless the rings.

I guess i am hopelessly sacramental and non-Gnostic.

Matter, like humanity, has a role in our spiritual life.

[NYer]

No modern pope has "lived in opulence"... and only ignorance could lead someone to say otherwise. But for anyone to say such a thing about Pope Francis, of ALL people...! Honestly... I'm at a loss.

Pope Francis' residence.

Pope Joel Osteen's residence.

[metmom]

The church is called the pillar of truth.

Which church?

Of the seven listed in the book of Revelation, which one is the pillar of truth? Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, or Laodicea?

Ooops. I guess Jesus forgot about Rome, eh?

[metmom]

yes...if you claim to be a Christian, and are not a Catholic, you are a Protestant.....Catholics are true Christians....those who "protest" the Catholic Christianity are therefore "Protestant"

Well, then. We non-Catholics reserve the right to define Catholicism for you all.

[terycarl]

Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus........ And how is that praying? Just what is it petitioning God for?

we use that portion of the prayer to acknowledge that we are asking her to petition for us....the remainder of the prayer is Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of our death....amen