Mega-Churches, wealth, and double standard..

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Protestants often accused the Pope as being rich. The truth is, the Pope is not rich and he has no income or bank account. The Church’s income for the most part are from donated charities.

However, no one seem to concern about Protestant’s mega churches which cost about 48 million dollars. There seem to be a double standard here…
 
you are right. Millions of $ are spent on expanding mega churches when the money could be used elsewhere - for crisis pregnancy centers, women’s shelters, homeless shelters and homes for unwed mothers that chose life and not abortion.
 
really? no one shows concern for this?? i think you need to read more. there are many that speak out against wasteful spending within protestantism. an expensive building however isn’t necessarily wasteful. in cincinnati, there is an enormous church that spent millions on new facilities. that statement makes it sound wasteful, but when you consider what is in those facilities you might change your mind. there is pregnancy counseling (very pro-life), food and clothing bank, a car garage to give free mechanic help to those who can’t afford it, shuttle services that take people without transportation to work (not just to services), and much more. there are greedy people on both sides. it’s just that the catholic church has (on the entirety) much, much, much more money that any other organization in the world. plus they are the largest religious organization in the world. they also espouse charity more than any organization in the world. therefore, they will be held to a higher standard. like it or not, that’s the way it is.
 
Have an expensive church building is not a problem in an of itself. We in the Catholic Church have some pretty grandiose churches ourselves. The difference is, ours are meant to focus us on celebrating Mass with Jesus Christ, Mary, and the entire Communion of Saints. It is our way of building a house for God that is truly worthy of Him. They are our gifts to Him. Just think of Christmas gifts. Do you buy your loved ones something inexpensive or something that you like or do you think of them, spare no expense and try to get them something that they will truly enjoy and thus display your true love for them?

The Mega churches, however, adorn themselves with items that glorify man instead. Large screen TV’s, fancy lighting systems, etc. How does any of that remind you of Jesus. These are just gifts to people, not Jesus.

One way to truly measure is to walk into the various church buildings when they are empty (of people). Which building makes you feel that you are truly in the presence of holiness and lifts your soul to be more aware of Jesus: an expensive Catholic Church with the Altar and Tabernacle being the ultimate focus of all who are there or the expensive Mega church with the Jumbotron and rock concert atmosphere?
 
There are Protestant ministers who criticize Mega churches.
Critics of megachurches claim that such churches are more concerned with entertainment than religion,[4] earning them the nickname “Disney Church”.[2] Rev. Al Sharpton has claimed that such churches focus on personal morality issues while ignoring social justice.[5] Certain megachurches are however highly involved both in their community and in overseas mission
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An illustration of the divergence from evangelicalism and pentecostalism that occurred recently was the failure of a number of US megachurches to hold worship services on Christmas Day in 2005 where it fell on a Sunday. However, many of these churches preferred to hold a service on Christmas Eve, out of consideration for their volunteer team, so they were able to spend Christmas Day celebrating with their family and friends.[6]
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Critics have raised issues with the application of secular business models,[7] e.g., from Wal-Mart, a humanist or seeker-friendly approach, intensive market research and heavy reliance upon opinion polls, polished advertising targeted at affluent young professionals, unconventional worship styles, and Eastern influences
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Wikipedia, Inc source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megachurch
 
I don’t think millions should be spent on ugly churchs, but if you need to spend that to make a beautiful church go right ahead. Just look at EWTN’s new church. It cost millions and is absolutely beautiful. I know of a man who converted because he saw a 1000 year old church that was stunning. So God moves in mysterious ways. Just don’t spend money on ugly things.😉
God deserves the best :highprayer:
 
Its not just the wealth of the church buildings that come into question here. Lets look at the salaries. In the diocese of Knoxville Tennessee, ALL priest who serve a parish, no matter how long they have been ordained, receive a salary of $12.500 per year (as of 2005). Google some of the salaries of the pastors of some mege-churches and see the difference.
 
love4mary said:
Its not just the wealth of the church buildings that come into question here. Lets look at the salaries. In the diocese of Knoxville Tennessee, ALL priest who serve a parish, no matter how long they have been ordained, receive a salary of $12.500 per year (as of 2005). Google some of the salaries of the pastors of some mege-churches and see the difference.
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And out of that $12,500 annual salary they pay for food, housing, transportation, entertainment, housekeeping, kids education/health care, etc., etc…? :hmmm:
 
rstegeman said:
Have an expensive church building is not a problem in an of itself. We in the Catholic Church have some pretty grandiose churches ourselves. The difference is, ours are meant to focus us on celebrating Mass with Jesus Christ, Mary, and the entire Communion of Saints. It is our way of building a house for God that is truly worthy of Him. They are our gifts to Him. Just think of Christmas gifts. Do you buy your loved ones something inexpensive or something that you like or do you think of them, spare no expense and try to get them something that they will truly enjoy and thus display your true love for them?

The Mega churches, however, adorn themselves with items that glorify man instead. Large screen TV’s, fancy lighting systems, etc. How does any of that remind you of Jesus. These are just gifts to people, not Jesus.

One way to truly measure is to walk into the various church buildings when they are empty (of people). Which building makes you feel that you are truly in the presence of holiness and lifts your soul to be more aware of Jesus: an expensive Catholic Church with the Altar and Tabernacle being the ultimate focus of all who are there or the expensive Mega church with the Jumbotron and rock concert atmosphere?
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judge not lest ye be judged.

how do you know those things don’t help the people in the building focus on God, Jesus, the saints who have gone before them, etc.? answer… you don’t! just because it is not your taste, don’t assume some evil, selfish motive behind it. it would be very easy for me to assume that because there is so much gold in the catholic church, the parishoners must be show offs and want attention drawn to the “building they built for God”. see, it’s easy to criticize, much harder to understand. you should try the latter in this situation.
 
I feel very sorry for Benny Hinn and people like him. The devil has ways of blinding human beings.

My sister and bro in law are pastor and wife and were taken in by the Bakkers long ago, only to come to the realization later after they were caught.

They have been pastor and wife of several non denom churches all believng something different. they are now in the midst of trying to bring about apostolicity by making themselves apostles. they call it apostolic restoration. something new and different every time.

yipes.
 
love4mary said:
Its not just the wealth of the church buildings that come into question here. Lets look at the salaries. In the diocese of Knoxville Tennessee, ALL priest who serve a parish, no matter how long they have been ordained, receive a salary of $12.500 per year (as of 2005). Google some of the salaries of the pastors of some mege-churches and see the difference.
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yes, google some of their salaries…

rick warren is a great example. when his book took off, he stopped taking a salary. when he was able, he paid back every penny the church ever paid him. now, he and his wife practice a “reverse tithe” (they live off 10% and give away 90% of their income).

do i agree with the high salaries? not really. although, some of these guys do have $40-60,000 in loans for their education (i know because i know the cost of seminary first hand… lol), they have families and many mega-churches are in large cities with very high costs of living (L.A., Chicago, etc.). i am not excusing over the top salaries, but let’s try to get away from judging. didn’t this thread start by saying that protestants judge catholics for this reason? so why not shut up and let them judge and you take the higher ground? is it because you feel guilty about how much money the catholic church has as well?
 
like I always say…the weakness of priests is sex. the weakness of pastors is money. though there are few occassions when a priest steals money and a pastor who commits sexual assault. but its mostly the other way around. 😃
 
I don’t feel guilty at all. I just become frustrated at these mega churches because the lure people in including many former Catholics that I have encountered. Often the message I hear is that they enjoy that church, it’s “fun”, they don’t have as many rules as Catholics, etc. I’m quite sure that there are some folks out there that do get closer to God thanks to these types of churches. But I fear that most are just being led farther away from the Truth.

You are right that I was being judgemental and for that I apologize. It’s just hard when you see them lure people, including friends, away from the Church (in spite of my best efforts). It’s also hard when some of those same places, at least around here, didn’t even offer services on Christmas a couple years back. They said they didn’t want to “interfere” with family time and gifts, etc. To me, a Christian family would want nothing more than to be with their parish and Church family to celebrate the birth of our Lord. Gifts and the rest of the secular grandeur of the season should come well after that.
 
rstegeman said:
Have an expensive church building is not a problem in an of itself. We in the Catholic Church have some pretty grandiose churches ourselves. The difference is, ours are meant to focus us on celebrating Mass with Jesus Christ, Mary, and the entire Communion of Saints. It is our way of building a house for God that is truly worthy of Him. They are our gifts to Him. Just think of Christmas gifts. Do you buy your loved ones something inexpensive or something that you like or do you think of them, spare no expense and try to get them something that they will truly enjoy and thus display your true love for them?

The Mega churches, however, adorn themselves with items that glorify man instead. Large screen TV’s, fancy lighting systems, etc. How does any of that remind you of Jesus. These are just gifts to people, not Jesus.

One way to truly measure is to walk into the various church buildings when they are empty (of people). Which building makes you feel that you are truly in the presence of holiness and lifts your soul to be more aware of Jesus: an expensive Catholic Church with the Altar and Tabernacle being the ultimate focus of all who are there or the expensive Mega church with the Jumbotron and rock concert atmosphere?
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I have to somewhat agree. for me it is hard to drive by the old summit/compaq center here in houston and see it as Lakewood Church. It’s were the Houston Rockets use to play basketball. Even when i see it on TV i automatically think back to the visit to watch the game. It doesn’t scream to me a church.

I am sure Joel Olsteen is a nice guy but i don’t get how people can scream and yell that the catholic church is so big that people get lost or don’t feel welcome. I’m sure that if you tried calling or seeing Mr. Olsteen that you would be patched through to someone else because the man is busy. He’s a father, preacher and business man.For me i can call or email my priest and set an appointment to talk or go to confession at any church across the city and feel welcome.

It just feels different see these mega-churches, like one is based upon Jesus and one is focused on which personality or verision of christianity you enjoy this week/year.
 
Margarite said:
I don’t think millions should be spent on ugly churchs, but if you need to spend that to make a beautiful church go right ahead. Just look at EWTN’s new church. It cost millions and is absolutely beautiful. I know of a man who converted because he saw a 1000 year old church that was stunning. So God moves in mysterious ways. Just don’t spend money on ugly things.😉
God deserves the best :highprayer:
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I love old churches. Have you ever read the book the Pillars of the Earth? It kind of shows just how much churches meant to the community. It’s not like today when you can build a church in a few months or years. Some of these churches took decades and generations to build. They were the centralizing point of a town. There were built by the people for God.

I loved visiting Notre Dame in Paris. It was amazing to go to mass and realize that millions of your fellow catholic throughout time had worshipped in the same place in the same fashion.
 
bengal_fan said:
judge not lest ye be judged.

how do you know those things don’t help the people in the building focus on God, Jesus, the saints who have gone before them, etc.? answer… you don’t! just because it is not your taste, don’t assume some evil, selfish motive behind it. it would be very easy for me to assume that because there is so much gold in the catholic church, the parishoners must be show offs and want attention drawn to the “building they built for God”. see, it’s easy to criticize, much harder to understand. you should try the latter in this situation.
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I think it all boils down to the double standard the OP mentioned. Other than a few people here I never hear complaints about mega chrurches and their wealth. Quite the contrary. If a church grows to mega church size (congregation of over 2,000 I think) then people think “Wow! God has surely blessed this church!” This may be true I don’t know.

However how many people say how God has blessed a Catholic Church because of the size of the congregation or the building? No, people say that the Church is hoarding their money that should be used for the poor, etc. This is a double standard.
 
My issue is not with the mega churches per se. I have seen a lot of them do good. I have two issues. First, the stuff arms race. People are picking a church not concidering the message but because of basketball, day care, and other such stuff. I mean come on. I had a kid in my Confirmation class ask me why we built the “Church part” but did not finish the gym. I told him that for 1,900 years, no one ever wanted a gym with the Church. After all, are you here for Jesus or to work on your 3 point shot? Second, and you do see this in a large number of mega churches, is the amazing correlation with the “calling” of the pastor and the pay. It seems like they are not “called by God” to another church until the money gets right. I know that that is a generalzation and there are some who leave for other reasons. I just have never seen someone “called” from a mega church to a poor church and take a $100,000+ pay cut
 
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