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
Mary, and her role in salvation history, is hardly hindered by a very intelligent man’s narrow understanding of these things of which he does not yet know.
Be happy the devoutly Jewish girl said “yes” to Gabriel, sent by God. Otherwise, your argument might hold water, and we Gentiles would still be singing from the compost pile, rather than the fig tree’s branch. :)
The abomination is the manifest ignorance of our age. It’s enough to think some have been blinded and rendered deaf, over the course of the centuries. Much has been lost, redefined, minimized, personally interpretated, forgotten, mocked.
Not close and no cheddar goldfish for you. It was blessed graceful ...hyperdulia!
Please become familiar with these definitions. They will be on the quiz.
It's necessarily to make these important distinctions.
God's purposes were not beholden to the will of a young Jewish girl.
By the way, Mary didn't say "yes" to God's "request" because there was no request. This is a heretical fallacy. God said "you will" before Mary could offer her consent.
Christ "took upon himself the form of a servant," it was not "given to Him" by anyone.
21 But now the righteousness of God, has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. 27 Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. 28 For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.
Hmm. We don't have that in my Diocese. Are they in the Catechism?
Those definitions, or the ideas they imply, are no where hinted at in God’s word. Add all you want to it - the penalty for doing so is laid down.
Do you need more information on that?
How many of those millions partook of the “Sacrament” of Holy Communion lacking any scrap of meaningful understanding of its purpose, substance and effect?
Read First Corinthians 11:29.
Your Mexicans May Vary.
Pretty much what I said, but on your numbers you confused the percentage of foreign born Hispanics currently being Catholic in the United States, with what percentage they were on the day they left Mexico, when about 94% of them had been baptized Catholic.
Certainly, indulgences must be.
Oh, come on. “ BE IT DONE UNTO ME....” is hardly the act of a puppet’s meme, nor a refusal, but a soul magnified with assent and loving obedience.
Unless you are into the mental gymnastics of the vanity of predestination, of course.
I admire your savy posts, but you are making me think you are afraid of the early Church, or entrenched in only protestant resources, or a wounded Catholic. Your faith can stand the challenge to your initial fear and resistance. Mine did. :)
Perhaps you might explain what you mean by “FINANCIAL indulgences”?
TETZEL
Paying for Masses said for the dead.
What are the “other” sources of salvific truth?
Even if I were advocating “sola scriptura” that would not excuse the blatant violation of scripture.
As post 52 pointed out, that is "an unusual experience",to go farther, it is extraordinary, fantastically hard to believe, assuming one meets a few first generation Mexican immigrants at all.
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