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

[SoothingDave]

Yes, i do know. That is the argument i am making.

[paladinan]

Elsie wrote:

"John 6:28-29: Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”"

Oh, come now! Jesus Himself said far more than that... and many commenters (including the very good list in post #329, just above this) lay them out for you.

Think about this, for a moment: would the "goats" who are damned to hell for not feeding the poor, clothing the naked, etc., "saved" because they "believed in the One God had sent"? No... belief, in and of itself, is not enough... and Jesus' own comment in John 6:28-29 assumes that all His OTHER words will be taken seriously (especially His words about the Eucharist, in the very same chapter!). If one doesn't do good works, and if one deliberately (after coming to an adequate understanding) refuses to eat His Body and drink His Blood in the Eucharist, how can they be said to "believe in Him" truly?

For example: is simple "belief" enough, or are we supposed to LOVE Him, too? (Catholics believe the latter.) And those who love Him will obey Him (John 14:15), yes?

The Gospel is not meant to be whittled away to a crude lump of a reductionist bumper-sticker; if it were, then the Bible would be 1 page long, for all that!

[Mrs. Don-o]

" He (Jesus) CAN'T do that... He came to fulfill the Law, not abolish it."

I don't think you're getting how He fulfilled it.

Of the 613 mitzvot of the "Law of Moses" (Torat Mosheh, תורת משה), there are three different kinds of law. The Mishpatim are universal moral laws, like the ones against murder, theft, and sexual violation. The Edot ("Testimonies") are ritual laws concerning separation from gentiles and ritual purity, like circumcision and eating kosher and the details of temple sacrifice. The third category is the Chukim, which have no known rationale but are said to stand for G_d's sovereign right to decree what He wishes.

In case after case, Jesus confounds his Pharisee critics by apparently violating the Edot, for instance by not fasting at prescribed times, by healing on the Sabbath, in fact showing that He is the Lord of the Sabbath. Later, as Christ teaches us through the Church (Acts), circumcision and the kosher laws were abolished altogether for the Gentile Church.

The law against blood is not a moral law, but a ritual law. Its meaning is apparently that God is the Lord of Life, and one should not presume to appropriate and consume "life" itself, but treat it with a kind of hands-off respect.

This law is not violated, but fulfilled when Christ says --- shockingly, repeatedly, unmistakably -- "drink my Blood." He is the Lord of Life! He is offering you Life. All the abstaining from blood in the OT is a kind of preparatory fast that underline's Christ's transcendent decision, in the fullness of time, to give us His true blood, precisely because He wants us to absorb His life.

What a priceless, unprecedented Gift!

The OT abstaining from Blood prepares a whole culture with the deeply-rooted, gut conviction that blood is sacred. Christ comes and shows us, "Here's why." This is why He can command us, "Drink His blood. If you do not drink my Blood, you will not have life within you."

If He is not God, He had no right to say such a thing: He is a madman and a piece of filth.

If He is God... and He is here to give us eternal life ... and He says "Drink My Blood" --- the response of faith is not "I can't do that! YOU can't do that! It's not kosher!"

The response of faith is: "Amen."

[paladinan]

BipolarBob wrote:

I'm speaking, of course, of the contra-Biblical doctrines. Such as infant baptism, use of statues (graven images), forbidding of priests to marry, and Marian worship (under any label).

It's only fair that you prove your case, friend. Can you explain to me, step by step, verse by verse, and explanation of verse by explanation of verse (i.e. don't just throw Bible verses at me, like popcorn; please do explain why your reading is correct, and why mine is not), how any of these (aside from the nonsense about "Marian WORSHIP", which is your own incorrect term) are "contra-Biblical"?

[Not gonna take it anymore]

One verse and that’s it? Then why the Bible? Who needs it? After all you have that one all important verse.

[MamaB]

Two sites I have found which discusses tv ministers are:

deceptioninthechurch

pimppreachers

I already knew some of what these sites discusses but some info was new.

Go read some of the info.

[MamaB]

Me, too.

[paladinan]

fwdud wrote:

Sorry, but Catholic doctrine and practice contradicts scripture in numerous ways. Case in point: "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (including Mary.)

...and including unborn children, yes? And infants, and the mentally handicapped who don't have the use of reason? All of them have sinned, and recognizably so (and that if they die before making a sincere profession of faith, they'll go to hell)? Surely you see that this is nonsense!

Yes, it's a general rule that all have sinned (in the sense that man, in general, sins while living his life... and in the sense that man, in general, inherits Original Sin from Adam, our first earthly father). No, one can't run off with a simplistic, ultra-literal reading of it and "disprove" the sinlessness of the Blessed Virgin Mary... any more than you can run off with the same sort of simplistic reading of Romans 3:10 ("there is none righteous, no, not one"--especially in the face of Genesis 6:9 [Noah = righteous and blameless], Job 1:1 [Job = righteous and blameless], and the like).

I'll stick with scripture, thanks.

By all means, stick with Scripture. Just don't stick to "sola Scriptura"! (Good heavens, man... the Bible can't even tell you what books belong in the Bible in the FIRST place! Why would you cling to such unbiblical, man-made, Luther-made nonsense in the first place?)

[paladinan]

metmom wrote, in reply to my comment:

[Paladinan] That's yet another flaw in "sola Scriptura", by the way: it can't tell you whether the original (Greek or Hebrew) "Scriptura" was translated properly, or mistranslated/mangled!

[metmom]
It's not a flaw of sola scriptura.

(??) How could it not be? If your English translation has the wrong word, and you're using the English translation to make your point, surely you see the problem? 2 Timothy 3:16 does NOT use the word "perfect"... though BipolarBob thought it did, and his entire argument (on that point) rested on that (incorrect) word. If a technique allows you to build your entire argument on a false word or bit of data, that's definitely a flaw in the technique.

And you know what? The Catholic church isn't going to tell you when it mistranslates something either. So much for depending on men and tradition.

Er... I'm not quite sure what you mean to say, here. Do you believe that there is NO possible way to get a true translation of Scripture, EVER? You seem to be saying, "Maybe Sola Scriptura can't give a good translation, but neither can the Catholic Church!" Is that what you're saying? I need to be sure, before I try a reply.

[Elsie]

The Jews knew very well that this is forbidden in Mosaic law...

And yet the GENTILES were told...

You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality.

---

Houston - we have a problem.

[Elsie]

Image yes, idol no.

EXODUS 20:4

“You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.

[Elsie]

Jesus Himself said far more than that

NOT to the guys who asked the QUESTION!

[Elsie]

...Jesus' own comment in John 6:28-29 assumes that...

Tut tut...

So much ASSUMIN' goin' on amoungst all the LITERAL bloodletting.

WHO can keep track of it??

[SoothingDave]

You have two images on your FR homepage.

[Elsie]

...then the Bible would be 1 page long, for all that!

Luke 23:40-43

40 But the other answered, and rebuking him said, "Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? 41 "And we indeed are suffering justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong."

42 And he was saying, "Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!"

43 And He said to him, "Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise."

[Elsie]

I know...

...but THAT was a 'special case'...

[Elsie]

All the abstaining from blood in the OT is a kind of preparatory fast...

And "Don't eat fish on Friday" is a prep for WHAT?

[SoothingDave]

And "Don't eat fish on Friday" is a prep for WHAT?

Abstinence makes the heart grow fonder.

[BipolarBob]

You live in a multi-dimensional existence which includes time right now. God never has. He exists outside of time. When the saints are caught up in Heaven and given their eternal robes, then they too will exist outside of time. Death, sickness and time will cease to have meaning.

[SoothingDave]

Is God in Heaven waiting for us to join Him? Is eternity unchanging?