Preachers and Priests

Another excerpt from Rebuilding a Lost Faith.

"Protestants have once a week a sermon and that is sufficient for them. Is it? I have known many Protestants whom the sermon alone did not satisfy, and who were painfully aware that, while Catholics regard their churches primarily as sanctuaries of prayer and worship, Protestants often look on theirs chiefly as places for pulpit orators and pleasing music. Serious Protestants are, therefore, frequently conscious of a spiritual hunger that is not appeased by a good sermon, however eloquent it may be. They are also haunted by the thought that the reason why the principle feature of the service has thus become the sermon, is that - through their rejection of the Mass - the role of Protestant ministers has been reduced from that of priests to that of preachers."

It has often struck me just how dependent Protestant churches are on the personality of the minister and popularity of the music. Mind you it has to be that way because these 'churches' are 'founded' by the ministers themselves after they have come out of their theological seminaries and the only way to keep worshippers interested is if you put on a show for them, throwing in some 'merchandise' for them to take home to listen, read or wear.