Boring homilies driving faithful away
Charismatic movements 'are charming people
with more upbeat preaching'
by
June 4, 2012
The El Shaddai
House of Prayer in
The feilds are white unto harvest for all bible beleiving and spirit filled churches and house meetings
The atmosphere in traditional churches needs to liven up
as more and more faithful, disenchanted with boring homilies
being delivered by priests, are defecting to charismatic movements,
a retired bishop said.
Bishop Emeritus Teodoro Bacani of Novaliches said at the
weekend that people now prefer going to services conducted by Catholic
charismatic movements because the preaching is much livelier, more topical and
interesting.
“You’ll notice that even if speeches by charismatic preachers are
long, people are alert, but when [priests] give long homilies, people are
nodding off,” Bishop Bacani said during the 6th
National Charismatic Congress in Manila’ s Pasay City.
He pointed to the number of attendees of a group called El Shaddai.
“A lot of people attend these gatherings,” said Bishop Bacani, who is a spiritual adviser to the group.
El Shaddai claims a following of three
to seven million people in the country, although independent estimates put it
much lower at two million.
Bishop Bacani said the Church doesn’t
find the situation alarming, but it is a warning to priests to change the way
they preach.
“There is a need for priests to have the same kind of spirituality
to support their preaching, to study the Bible and to effectively communicate
it to people,” he added.
Catholic charismatic movements emerged during the 1970s, offering
spiritual renewal seminars, which have evolved under different names.
Among these groups are the Assumption Prayer Group, Soldiers of
Christ, Couples for Christ and the El Shaddai.
In documents released by WikiLeaks last
year, the
power of “two to three million.”
Clergy
should follow Jesus’ example