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
And I have Christ dwelling in my hearth through faith.
Ephesians 3:14-19 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
One word......
Annulment.....
Aside from the fact that you’ve been proved wrong already, that begs the question.
If the Bible doesn’t teach that Jesus is God, then why does the Catholic church teach He is?
Chapter and verse? Evidence? Or, could it be this is slander?
OK, so if non-Catholics deny that the pope is the vicar of Christ on the earth, you're OK with that too?
The church would have done better addressing the errors in doctrine of who Jesus was by better teaching, than inventing stuff about Mary that has no Scriptural support.
All that did was end up leading into more error and deception. The focus needs to be on Jesus. HE'S the one who died for us and is named above above every name in heaven and on earth.
Don’t think that only Catholics have issues with how some churches *worship* in trying to out do each other.
Matthew 1:22-23 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).
The Marian doctrines are also implicit in Scripture and not derived from whole cloth but from what we know about God and Jesus.
I have heard the same tired excuse, too. Perhaps, because the priest "reads" from the Book rather than waving it in the air. they don't recognize it as being scripture. I have also met several catholics who don't have a Bible. To wake up the congregation in my parish, I have been running a weekly series on the Bible (I am the editor of the bulletin). The series began with the history of the Bible and progressed through how the Canon was compiled, how Bibles were hand written, the invention of the printing press, etc. Last week, I introduced them to the Synoptic Gospels, beginning with the first Evangelist, Matthew. It's disheartening when there is no feedback but I am not abandoning this project.
It’s a shame because I can’t imagine leaving the Eucharist for any reason whatsoever and I love being Catholic.
The only explanation here is that those who left did not understand this. Who would walk away from the Presence of Christ?
Easy to say preposterous when you have the benefit of thousands of years of Scriptural scholarship and theology to point you in that direction.
Where in Scripture is the actual theology of the Trinity laid out for us to understand? It isn’t because it was not understood then in the way we understand it now.
The Jewish people fiercely rejected the notion that Jesus was God and were sure that these followers of His were polytheists as there is no clear presentation of the doctrine of the Trinity or God as one in three persons.
We have the benefit of all that the Church was led to declare as Scripture laid out for our study at our leisure. The early Church did not have that.
And speaking of it being well known and understood, that is a wrong assertion which is clearly seen in all the heresies that arose regarding Jesus. These heresies are alive and well today.
If all that Jesus taught was well known and understood, then the NT could have stopped at the four Gospels.
******If the Bible doesn’t teach that Jesus is God, then why does the Catholic church teach He is?******
As usual, you throw out a boneheaded question that on its face doesn’t deserve anything other than laughter.
But, for the edification of those who don’t see this for what it is.....
I never once said that Scripture doesn’t teach that Jesus is God. NOT ONCE.
I hope that answers your question.
My sis came to our Catholic church with us when she was in town. She is at a very solid, orthodox Protestant church - a good church, I think. She said, though -”I see. Our church is about the pastors, but yours is about Jesus.”
Actually, having been set free from that, I DO understand and I also realize that unless and until the Holy Spirit illuminates their minds, they will NEVER get it.
That is why former Catholics are so outspoken about it. They know what they have been set free from.
****And I have Christ dwelling in my hearth through faith.****
And therein lies the heart of the matter. Pride.
It’s a lovely and wondrous thing to have Christ dwelling in us, but there is no comparison as much as one might want to think there is, to bearing Him as one’s child.
Typical Catholic double speak. Your posting history makes it clear that you stated that the Bible does not outright teach that Jesus is God, that it must be inferred.
And you've been shown to be wrong on that by several posters and many verses.
Not Latin?
HMMMmmm...
*****The only explanation here is that those who left did not understand this. Who would walk away from the Presence of Christ? ******
They are the same as the disciples who left after Jesus told them about the Eucharist.
Acts 8:9 But there was a certain man, called Simon, which beforetime in the same city used sorcery, and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one: 10 To whom they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, This man is the great power of God. 11 And to him they had regard, because that of long time he had bewitched them with sorceries.
Notice the influence and following Simon Magus had already at that time.
One only needs to do a little study on the Samaritans and the influence of the Babylonian paganism of which Simon the Magus was a priest to understand the blending of paganism and Christianity. Simon Magus went on to Rome.
The Dictionary of Religion and Ethics says that Simon was "a false Messiah, who practiced magical arts and subsequently attempted, by the aid and with the sanction of Christianity, to set up a rival UNIVERSAL [Catholic] RELIGION" (Vol. 11, p. 514).
"When Justin Martyr wrote [152 A.D.] his Apology, the sect of the Simonians appears to have been formidable, for he speaks four times of their founder, Simon; and we need not doubt that he identified him with the Simon of the Acts. He states that he was a Samaritan, adding that his birthplace was a village called Gitta; he describes him as a formidable magician, and tells that he came to ROME in the days of Claudius Caesar (45 A.D.) [actually, 42 A.D.], and made such an impression by his magical powers, THAT HE WAS HONORED AS A GOD, a statue being erected to him on the Tiber, between the two bridges, bearing the inscription ‘Simoni deo Sancto’ (i.e., the holy god Simon)" (Dictionary of Christian Biography, Vol. 4, p. 682).
It’s rather interesting that the years that the RCC says Simon Peter was in Rome are the identical years history records that Simon Magus was actually in Rome and Peter was in Europe.
Uh...
...because I can?
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