HasahZ
Dona Nobis Pacem
Global user
Registered: 12-2006
Location: Bless my enemies!
Posts: 970
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
How I led Catholics Out of the Church - STEVE WOOD
quote:
How I led Catholics Out of the Church
Step 1: Get Catholics to have a conversion experience in a Protestant setting.
Most Fundamentalist, Evangelical, and charismatic Protestant churches have dynamic youth programs, vibrant Wednesday and Sunday evening services, and friendly small-group bible studies. In addition, they host special crusades, seminars and concerts. At the invitation of a Protestant friend, a Catholic may begin attending one or more of these events while still going to Sunday Mass at his local parish.
Most Protestant services proclaim a simple gospel: repent from sin and follow Christ in faith. They stress the importance of a personal relationship with Jesus and the reward of eternal life. Most of the Catholics who attend these services are not accustomed to hearing such direct challenges to abandon sin and follow Christ. As a result, many Catholics experience a genuine conversion.
Protestants should be commended for their zeal in promoting conversions. Catholic leaders need to multiply the opportunities for their people to have such conversions in Catholic settings. The reason is simple. About five out of ten people adopt the beliefs of the denomination where they have their conversion. This percentage is even higher for those who had profound conversions or charismatic experiences that were provided by Protestants. (Believe me, I know; I was a graduate of an Assembly of God college and a youth minister in two charismatic churches.)
Protestant pastors, evangelists, youth leaders, and lay ministers are acutely aware that conversion experiences in Protestant settings often lead to a Protestant faith and church membership. Why do so many Catholic leaders fail to see this? Why are they so nonchalant about a process that has pulled hundreds of thousands of Catholics out of the Church?
(Continues here; How I led Catholics Out of the Church - STEVE WOOD
---
...Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.
Amen
|
|
12/31/2007, 10:44 am
|
|
AndyS333
Global user
Registered: 03-2006
Posts: 1133
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
Re: How I led Catholics Out of the Church - STEVE WOOD
Great info. Much good stuff to learn about helping others convert.
When people are hungry, they'll go where they get fed. Even if they don't get the complete menu of healthy food there.
|
|
12/31/2007, 11:51 am
|
|
Augustine35
Administrator
Global user
Registered: 11-2006
Posts: 61
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
Re: How I led Catholics Out of the Church - STEVE WOOD
Hello everyone! Happy New Year been away for a long time miss u all!
Indeed it is right that the dynamism of a charismatic worship appeal great to people especially to those who are marginalized Catholics or nominal ones. They feel the sense of belongingness and brotherhood due to the personal and one on one strategy of the protestant fundamentalist prayer meeting.
But there exist in the Catholic Church such movement and it is very active in my country the Catholic Charismatic version of the same type of prayer meeting.
The only problem with it is that after the emotions and the feeling of remorse and repentance people tend to return to their same old self because for all you know these kind of worship if it is called worship in the protestant setting is self limiting due to the appeal to the emotions and when the feeling of spirit filled prayer is gone in days or months people reverts to the same situation facing every believers. I myself is a member of the Catholic Charismatic group in my own parish back in the Philippines but the difference between the Protestant version and the Catholic one is that the latter stresses not on the emotional experience but on the continued journey even though the feeling is gone. It is comparable with the account in the Gospel regarding the transfiguration of Jesus whereby Peter and the other disciples seems caught in the transcendence of Jesus that they want it not to end Peter even suggest that they build a tent for Jesus, Moses and Elijah, but Christ tell them that everything must be fulfilled about Him.
I have seen people come and go in my community just because they no longer feel the presence of the Holy Spirit everytime they attend the prayer meeting.
And that is one of set backs of the Charismatic movement.
God bless all!
|
|
1/12/2008, 1:51 pm
|
|
HasahZ
Dona Nobis Pacem
Global user
Registered: 12-2006
Location: Bless my enemies!
Posts: 970
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
Re: How I led Catholics Out of the Church - STEVE WOOD
I felt that presence at every AoG service I went to but different from the reverence in a Catholic Church. I don't know exactly how to word it. I think I'd be taken aback if a Catholic Mass turned into an AoG type service. I really can't picture it. I hope that doesn't sound negative, I'm not trying to make it sound that way. I've known a handful of ex-Catholics for several years here and then one Catholic who used to sit next to me at work, I'd love to meet up with him again some day. He's the one that gave me holy water for my eyes, put up with my talking about my 'spirit guides' in my dabbling days. I remember even if he had an overly irate troublemaker customer... you never EVER saw him get mad.
---
...Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.
Amen
|
|
1/30/2008, 9:24 am
|
|
