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

[HiTech RedNeck]

By the way the approach to bringing spiritual cleansing to a problem like this is often “lather, rinse, repeat.” You might not get the whole shebang in one shot. Don’t quit, though. You WILL make progress if you exalt the Lord and ask Him to be exalted in the trouble situation. The Lord guarantees it. My tag line is not facetious, though it’s put in children’s terms.

[Uri’el-2012]

There is only one church.

Is that the one mentioned in Deuteronomy 4:10 ?

Where to start; you have been misled on many issues.

How does YHvH define "church" i.e.Ekklesia ?

Is it all those called out by YHvH ?

A study of the word "church", in the Koine Greek : Ekklesia.

Was the "church" started at the YHvH commanded
Feast day of Shavuot (pentecost) as some say ?

or

Did the "church" exist earlier ?

Using the LXX as a guide we see that the Ekklesia
is first used in Deuteronomy 4:10

NAsbU Deuteronomy 4:10 "Remember the day you stood before YHvH, your God
at Horeb, when YHvH said to me, 'Assemble the people to Me, that I may let
them hear My words so they may learn to fear Me all the days they live on
the earth, and that they may teach their children.'

Also see : Deu 4:10, Deu 9:10, Deu 18:16, Deu 23:3, Deu 23:4, Deu 23:9, Deu 31:30,
Jos 9:2, Jda 20.2, Jda 21:5, Jda 21:8, Jdg 20:2 Jdg 21:5, Jdg 21:8, 1 Sa 17:47,
1 Sa 19:20, 1 Ki 8:14, 1 Ki 8:22, 1 Ki 8:55, 1 Ki 8:65, 1 Ch 13:2, 1 Ch 13:4, 1 Ch 28:2,
1 Ch 28:8

What was the purpose of the Ekklesia(church) ?

Was it a temporal corporation to rule on earth ? No !

Was it to have a temporal head ? No !

It was a gathering of YHvH's chosen people to hear His Word ?

and learn to Fear YHvH all their days ?

And to teach their children the same ? Yes.

-------------

Ekklesia is from the Hebrew Qahal (kof, hey, lamed)

(kof => The HOLY ONE
hey => grace, breath of G-d
lamed => teaching and learning)

which is haQahal The assembly (hey, kop, hey, lamed)
In scripture it is always used to describe
those who have been assembled by YHvH.
It begins in Exodus 16:3 ( the bread from heaven )
and continues to Nehemiah 8:17 (living in Booths)

NAsbU Nehemiah 8:17
The entire assembly of those who had returned from
the captivity made booths and lived in them.
The sons of Israel had indeed not done so
from the days of Joshua(Yehoshua)
the son of Nun to that day.
And there was great rejoicing.

Did Yah'shua repudiate the Tanach
(or the pejorative term: "old testament")

Did Yah'shua celebrate His commanded feasts ?
Did Yah'shua say ignore what is in My WORD ?

As such, celebrating the birth, crucifixion, death and resurrection

If you were familiar with the WORD of G-d
they all occurred on YHvH commanded Feasts.
None occurred on Pagan feast days.

Do you believe that you have been called to
be grafted into the vine ?
See: Romans 11

Seek YHvH in His WORD.

shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach

[Elsie]

Hey folks can we cut out the cattiness.

And MISS all the FUN?

[Elsie]

God blesses even failed attempts.

The road to Heck is paved with... WHAT???

[HiTech RedNeck]

It’s the devil who tells us it’s fun.

[HiTech RedNeck]

And you will find this in exactly what scripture?

The key is centering the attempts around exaltation of the Lord. Even if you do a horrible job of it the first time you try. This is to venture into the positive gospel promises. So many Christians play rope-a-dope in the prohibitions. Jesus did not die for our sins on the Cross so we could be chicken.

2 Thessalonians 1:11-12 With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may count you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may fulfill every good purpose of yours and every act prompted by your faith. We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

[Mad Dawg]

Thanks for the ping. So we’re doing this one again?

[HiTech RedNeck]

Well, sticking stubbornly to a set of peculiar nomenclature is one sign of a lack of agape (I think of Paul who would “be all things to all people” to be able to share the gospel on the most effective level in the situation), though I believe I can begin to grasp what you’re intending.

You got to divide that word of truth accurately or you only get muddled mush.

Jesus said not a jot or tittle would be dropped from the Law “until all was accomplished.”

Now fast forward to His last moment on the Cross. What did He say.... YUP! Tetelosthai... IT IS FINISHED.

The Gospel work of Christ on that Cross sealed the salvations of all who will or did believe on Him for it... for all time. The role for the Law has changed to that of illustration. A saved life can fulfill the Law better and better, and in that sense the Law serves as a useful measuring rod for progress and correct direction, but the saved life does not look to what is behind but to what is ahead. The power of holiness comes from the promises and the Spirit of promise when claimed. Galatians backs this up further and so does Hebrews.

[Mad Dawg]

(I think “pneumatically present” would be fun to examine some time.)

For better or for worse, we Papists have a kind of metaphysical quasi-canon in Aristotle through Aquinas. The good of that (again, if any) is that we have a baseline language for talking about questions like “What is knowledge?” and “What is a thing?”

What makes these contentions all the more futile is that there is neither common language nor a shared starting point for the comparatively simple questions. As I may say too much, I'm already stymied when we ask what bread and wine are. And IMHO without some way of talking about that sort of question, we're not going to get to talking about what the change (if any) is that takes place (or not) during the Mass.

---

As to the differing knowledge or ability of Catholics to discuss their faith, that accords with our idea (which we venture to propose is not only Scriptural but common sense)of what the Church is, and in particular the diversity of the gifts and vocations of her many members.

---

Without knowing or even wanting to know the context, I found your array of questions to be interesting. Thank you.

[CynicalBear]

>>Bad translation, I'm afraid; the Greek word for "perfect" (teleios) is nowhere to be found in that sentence.<<

Oh really? The Greek word actually used in that verse is ἄρτιος artios. Let’s look at what the “experts” have to say.

http://biblesuite.com/strongs/greek/739.htm
artios:
Original Word: ἄρτιος, ια, ον
Part of Speech: Adjective
Transliteration: artios
Phonetic Spelling: (ar'-tee-os)
Short Definition: perfect, complete
Definition: perfect, complete, fitted, ready.

http://www.biblestudytools.com/search/?q=perfect&rc=LEX&rc2=LEX+GRK&ps=10&s=References
Artios fitted complete, perfect having reference apparently to "special aptitude for given uses"

Isn’t that something? The experts say the word means perfect or complete. Now, if God says something is complete would you suggest it’s less then perfect? You really need to do more study before you say someone else is wrong. Makes you look bad when you don’t. Allows people to think that whatever you say has been poorly researched and studied.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Crazy Evangelicals (like me) point to the Aquinas phenomenon as a fellow who was finding a best approach, still imperfect, to the truth of the Lord as he was genuinely being saved as a believer. Studying his history is quite illustrative and helpful. The world would be poorer without that view into salvation. What would be wrong would be to ossify Aquinas’ recorded observations into canon. If I could myself be the best extant prophet of God on earth... I wouldn’t want my works to go into a canon either. The infallible canon’s closed... it says so at the end of the book of Revelation.

[Mrs. Don-o]

The "bloody, graphic picture" is sometimes a good way to go, for sure. But his particular office doesn't commit abortions, though they do refer for them.Their actual baby chop-shop is in Knoxville, 100 miles from here.

We consulted with Knoxville allies, and were informed that PP often uses opposition, even provokes it, in order to stir up a steady stream of free publicity. In other cities, they played the action/reaction news cycles so effectively they doubled their client stream. So we're trying to figure out a wiser way to do this.

As for me, I should be fasting.

Pray for us, please?

[CynicalBear]

>>Scripture never says, outright, i.e. in plain words JESUS IS GOD!<<

You are beginning to look really bad here I’m thinking. Let’s look at this again.

Hebrews 1:8 But of the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.

That right there my dear is scripture and it is calling Jesus God.

Acts 20:28 Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.

There again is scripture calling Jesus God since it was only Jesus who “obtained with His own blood”.

That is two instances in scripture that Jesus is called God.

[HiTech RedNeck]

The RC demurral to this, as always, takes the form of “scoping” arguments. Ah, if we scope this right we will see that this earthly organization is vested with what it says it is vested with. Ultimately that is a “dividing the word of truth” issue as well as a question of how to resolve the begged question.

The best defense here is not endless wrangles over words, but a good spiritual offense... living the life of Christ out in a visible, holy manner. Then questioning it becomes a matter of multiplying spiritual conspiracy theories, and will fall under its own insupportable weight. I humbly submit that the Crazy Evangelical model does win out here as it can explain the success of Jesus’ work in all the Christian communities where it is found. At the same time it has to be centered around exalting Christ. Not people’s egos!!

[Mrs. Don-o]

Not sure what you mean about “hoops.”

[HiTech RedNeck]

I have begun to view trouble as opportunity.

Satan is walking into what Christ can turn around to be an ambush. Use that ambush capability wisely.

[CynicalBear]

Oh that was rich! Nice catch! Sort of on their own petard kind of thing goin on there.

[SoothingDave]

Yes, you are correct. Like I said, there is only one church. Anyone who is Christ’s is attached to the one church.

Now, we may disagree on authority and visiblity of this church.

But inasmuch as anyone is saved, it is because he is a member of this one church.

[SoothingDave]

As for me, I should be fasting.

Right after lunch is a good time for fasting. ;-)

[Seven_0]

The role for the Law has changed to that of illustration.

The Law which was our master becomes our servant.