Evangelical Mega-Church Leads Congregation in Consecration to Sacred Heart of Jesus Prayer

Church POP ^ | 12/11/17

[marshmallow]

This is certainly surprising!

During a recent Friday night service, a pastor at New Life Church, an evangelical Protestant megachurch in Colorado Springs, CO, reportedly led the congregation in something you wouldn’t normally expect: the Sign of the Cross and a prayer of a consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Redditer /u/MarvelDCgoodwithme, who is Catholic, explained on the /r/Catholicism subreddit that his Protestant mother attends the church and thought the prayer sounded Catholic. So she took pictures of a few of the slides with the prayer, which you can see at the bottom of this article.

And sure enough, it’s a prayer for consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus composed by Pope Leo XIII in 1899! The slides also have a picture of the statue of St. Peter in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican.

“She said it happened after the sermon,” the redditer explained in a private message, “the pastor presented the slides and asked the congregation to read the prayer and if they agreed with it to pray it with him. The pastor also closed his prayers with the sign of the cross.”

We’ve reached out to New Life Church to learn more about their thinking in using the prayer but haven’t yet received a response.

New Life Church was founded in 1984 and has about 10,000 members. It was in the news in the early 2000s when its founding pastor Ted Haggard admitted to using drugs and regularly visiting a male escort. He was also later accused of making unwanted sexual advances on a young man in his 20s at the church. After Haggard was dismissed from his position, the church appointed a new pastor Brady Boyd who has since greatly expand the church’s reach.

[metmom]

Many people over several years have asked him for darker font and larger citations because they have difficulty with their eyes and have trouble reading what he’s posted and yet nothing changes.

Those are good reasons and it takes no more effort to do as they request than it does to post things the way they are.

And yet he persists in ignoring them.

And we’re supposed to want to swim the Tiber for what reason again?

[af_vet_1981]

Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, lust, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is the service of idols. For which things the wrath of God cometh upon the children of unbelief, In which you also walked some time, when you lived in them. But now put you also all away: anger, indignation, malice, blasphemy, filthy speech out of your mouth. Lie not one to another: stripping yourselves of the old man with his deeds, And putting on the new, him who is renewed unto knowledge, according to the image of him that created him. Where there is neither Gentile nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian nor Scythian, bond nor free. But Christ is all, and in all. Put ye on therefore, as the elect of God, holy, and beloved, the bowels of mercy, benignity, humility, modesty, patience: Bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if any have a complaint against another: even as the Lord hath forgiven you, so do you also. But above all these things have charity, which is the bond of perfection: And let the peace of Christ rejoice in your hearts, wherein also you are called in one body: and be ye thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you abundantly, in all wisdom: teaching and admonishing one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual canticles, singing in grace in your hearts to God. All whatsoever you do in word or in work, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.

Colossians, Catholic chapter three, Protestant verses five to seventeen,
Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition (DRA)

[metmom]

There's another Roman Catholic poster who at one time claimed to be a priest that says the RCC has defined only one verse. So which of the two of you is correct? LOL...ya'll don't even know what your church has or has not defined. And after "2000" years you think the RCC might have gotten around to that.

Especially considering the church claims its the only one which can *correctly* interpret Scripture.

Well, if they are the only ones, then why haven't they defined more? Seems like they don't want people to know what the book they take credit for has to say, does it?