What's the difference between believers of Catholicism and the people of Grace Community Churches?

Question

What's the difference between believers of Catholicism and the people of Grace Community Churches?

Answer 1

You are correct! Christianity SHOULDN'T branch out like that. It wasn't meant to be that way. A true religion doesn't break off from the central beliefs after the fact.

The Catholic church is the only organized religion which can trace its roots DIRECTLY back to the original disciples that Jesus spoke to. The Catholic church is thus.. 2000 years old and counting. Its "founding fathers" - for lack of a better term -- are Jesus's original Apostles.



I think its suppicious when a religion is founded and THEN thousands of years LATER.. a new "revelation" occurrs which says the original religion was in error and only NOW do we know the TRUTH.



That doesn't sit well with me. -- seems more likely that the revelation was likely motivated by something in the original religion and wanting to change it.



All other christian relgions splintered off from Catholicism after 1517AD -- after christians had been practicing the same faith for over 1500 years. -- Suddenly the Catholic church was wrong about a ton of stuff??? Does that make sense? -- I guess it does make sense if you say the Catholic church had everything wrong since the get-go and changed the teachings of the disciples.. Except that the Catholic church didn't change its teachings over time AND since it has traditions from the original disciples.. you'd have to say that Jesus's own apostles had things wrong. -- Does that make sense?



Most churches like Grace Community -- have only been around since the 1950s and was started by 1 guy.

New churches sprout up all the time. I personally know of Churches being held in people's living rooms, elk lodges, community centers, shopping malls, movie theatres, etc. Most aren't more then 10years old.



Again... which seems more logical to follow.. a church founded by 1 guy from the 50s OR a church founded by a group of apostles, which thousands of people keeping things in check and spanning 2000 years?



As for the differences.. Entire books have been written on these topics.

Answer 2

The church was produced from the Lord Jesus Christ death and resurrection. His death accomplished full redemption for man,

When His side was pierced out flowed blood and water, His blood for the washing away of mans sins, and the water represents the holy life giving spirit, that produced the church

Because the church is not a physical building but is made up of all those who have received Christ as their savior, meaning Christ as the life giving spirit comes into man, that man may receive God's divine life.



Christ is the head of the church and all the born anew believers make up the church which is also His body.

However not long after the Lords death and resurrection defiling things of the world or meaning, man started to bring in different teachings to degrade the church.



But it was after the dark ages when the Bible was closed

to man because of the Roman Catholic church decided that only priests or ones with training should tell man whats in the Bible.



Now the reason for so many different denominations is because starting around the time of Martin Luther God raised certain ones up to recover the truths in the Bible.

Marting Luther who recovered man's salvation is not based upon good works as the Catholics taught, but that man 's salvation was based upon the justification of faith, meaning man only had to believe and receive Christ.



And those who followed Luther became the Lutherans, however they did not recover many of the other truths.

Then later some recovered that man's baptism is total immersion in the water representing the old man has been buried and when we come up out of the water we come up as new creation in Christ. This is the Baptist. originally they all had the basic fundamental understanding that man has to believe and receive Christ and to be baptized this is salvation Mark 16:16 This is just a rough example, however

the Roman Catholic church teaches that man is saved by doing good works paying money for family in purgatory, they believe in the worship of Mary and praying to the Saints(Apostles) 1 Timothy 2:5 for there is one God and one mediator between God and man this man Jesus Christ, they also have the clergy system, the work of nicolaitans which Christ hates Rev 2:6 which is to have priests bishops cardinal and the Pope, This is against God's way of salvation.



In Acts 11:26 and they were first called Christians, was a label of ridicule to those who were born anew and followed Christ, True born again Christians as I said earlier make up the Church which is the body of Christ and he is the head.

This is what will consummate at the end of this age into the New Jerusalem, where God and man dwell eternally.

Answer 3

First of all, unless I have been wrongly instructed, the 2 Christian faiths are Catholicism and Protestant. Protestant includes the Baptist, Methodist and most others that are not Catholic.

The Catholics look up to a Pope as the head of their church. We don't have any human heads over the church with that much power. Our leader is God.

The Catholics have 7 extra books in the bible that never could pass the test for having been written through divine inspiration.

The Catholics have a lot of rules that are not in the bible. Like, not eating meat on Friday. Giving something up during Lent. Making the sign of the cross when they pass in front of a church. Baptising infants.

They pray not only to God, and Jesus, but also pray to Mary and the Saints.

I used to be catholic. I am now (27 years) a member of a non denominational Bible Church. We have Sunday School, AWANA, missionaries, services on Sunday, bible studies, small groups, women's ministry, men't ministry, youth groups. And lots of other outreaches. Our pastor preaches awesome sermons, and everything he preaches is backed up by scripture. We believe that Jesus came to earth and made the ultimate sacrifice. The bible says, "one sacrifice for all time". We do not believe in the sacrafice of any mass, because at least to me that is saying that Jesus' sacrifice was not sufficient.

He said, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes unto the Father except by me." So that is telling me you cannot get your prayers up there by any one that has been dead for centuries like Mary and the Saints. Only through Jesus. There is so much more, but I need to get going for an appt. I hope this helps.

Answer 4

First you need to understand that there is no organization called "Grace Community Churches".



Every local church named, "Grace Community Church" is a separate entity not related, except by Jesus, with the others.



So there is no denomination named that.



And unlike one of the people who replied to this question citing thousand of denominations, in reality there are about 500 to 600 different Christain denominations in the world.



The reason some groups claim there are over 30,000 denominations is that they count the same group again each time it appear in another state or another country.



Now about the other part of your question, let me share this:



Prior to the 1500's the corrupt Roman Church was about the only church in Europe and they claimed to be the only true church. They did not allow the Bible to be translated into the common language of the common man and when others tried to this such as William Tyndale and Martin Luther, they tried their best to have them murdered.



Once the printing press was invented and people like Luther and Tyndale and Wycliffe translated the Bible in common languages such as German and English, people could, for the first time read the Bible for themselves.



Most learned from reading the Bible that the Roman church wasn't following the Bible so they began to start churches in their own countries and each evangalical church started up in a different European country got translated into a different protestant denomination in the USA today.



So the word "Protestant" applies to any non Roman Catholic group which protested against the Roman Catholic Church.



Examples of that would be Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodists, Baptists, etc.



As men freely read the Bible, groups would get togher and decide, "You know what the most important thing the Roman Catholics are doing wrong, is baptizing babies, we need to start Baptizing only adults after they have been born-again."



That group of people came to be known as Baptists.



The group in Germany which followed Martin Luther's teachings were called Lutherans.



The group in England who preferred the methodology of John and Charles Wesley were called Methodists.



One group believed the most important thing was that the local church should be ruled by local Elders instead of the Pope. Since the word in the Bible translated into the English as Elders, was the Greek word "presbyterous" they became known as Presbyterians.



Since you mentioned Mormons, they were started by a man named Joseph Smith who claimed to be prophet and who claimed all othe churches were wrong and claimed that God had told him that each man should have more than one wife.



The main difference between Cathlics and the groups are that Roman Catholics believe Peter founded their church and that they wrote the Bible and that they alone have the right to interpret the Bible.



The rest of the Bible-believing groups believe that Jesus founded the church and not Peter, and that the rules for running the church are in the Bible and the Holy Spirit wrote the Bible and not the church, so that church can and should only do what the Bible says they can.



I fall into this latter group.



We believe the Bible is God's Word and it is our only and absolute authority on all issues of faith and morals and practice.



We believe Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to lead the church on earth in His absence.



If you have any more questions, feel free to ask.



Pastor Art

Answer 5

The myth of the 30,000 denominations can be explained by the fact that the one authority this number is based on is "World Christian Encyclopedia: A Complete Survey of Churches and Religions in the Modern World AD 1900-2000"



"if Roman Catholic apologists want to argue that Protestantism is splintered into 8,196 “bickering” denominations, then they must just as readily admit that their own ecclesial system is splintered into at least 2,942 bickering denominations (possibly as many as 8,000). If, on the other hand, they would rather claim that among those 2,942+ (perhaps 8,000?) Roman Catholic denominations there is “unity,” then they can have no objection to the notion that among the 8,196 Protestant denominations there is also unity." - that is, if you want to use this book's system of deciding what makes a denomination.

Answer 6

Basically, a diffference in doctrine (what the members believe). The basic beliefs of Christianity say that Jesus was God and came to earth and became man, died for the sins of the world so that people could be reconciled to Him, and rose from the dead and that one must receive His sacrifice and have a personal relationship with Him. Religions have various man-made rules which has lead to different churches.

Answer 7

oh well basically the core of christianity is a set of ridiculous beliefs. Talking snakes, zombie men who you telepathically talk to about stuff, a giant father figure in the sky and a ribwoman in a garden wearing a leaf or something and the different branches just differ because they cant really agree on little things - certain bits of the story people dont like etc etc. best to just try to keep out of it. Some branches of the religion like to wear gowns and hats and decorate their buildings with more gold some prefer not to. depends where you are i guess.

Answer 8

Just read a little church history and you will find the answers you need on the differences in theology these hold.

It is curious that you used 'branched out', have you ever considered that as an analogy?

Answer 9

Christianity in itself is not free from problems,many ppl had diff ideas n views which was the reason for it's many diff branches.It's not appropriate to say which is best but i think Baptist Protestant is Best.

Answer 10

Catholicism came first after Jesus instituted it. That's why he made Peter the Pope of the catholic Church. Then Luther came along and had many people convert to Protestantism, which is what God didn't want. There are many differences between Protestantism and Catholicism:

Catholics pray to and honor (not worship) Mary, God's Mother; Protestants just look up to her as Jesus' mother and nothing more. Catholics recieve the Eucharist because it truly is Jesus' body; Protestants regard it as a symbol. There are 7 books in the Catholic Bible that Protestants reject. Another thing is that when Catholics are truly sorry for their sins, they have to go to a priest in a confessional and confess all their sins (since Jesus can't physically be here with us, the priest acts as a "stand-in" for Him); Protestants say they're sorry during their service and think that God will automatically forgive them once they say they're sorry. There's more, but you can look up the rest online or in books. Please consider Catholicism, especially the Latin Mass. Oh, and don't think that we worship the Pope ----- before Jesus went to Heaven, He knew that there had to be a leader to continue His work and keep Catholicism going, so He appointed Peter as pope, or head of the Church, other wise, people would be led astray (Jesus says in the Bible, "You are Peter, and on this rock (which is what Peter means) I will build My Church". Of course, our leader is God, but we need someone to guide us and the Church on the path to God. True, there have been bad popes before, but that is because the people chose the wrong person ---- without God's help. About the Mass, the priest is just repeating what Jesus did on the cross for us, but in an non-bloody way, and that's through the Eucharist. Again, please take my suggestions (like read the Catholic Bible and the Catholic Catechism, if I haven't told you already)!

Answer 11

For Catholic Beliefs, that is easy, we have a book, it is called the Catechism of the Catholic Church as well as the New Testament.



Grace community? I have no idea, they are one of the 30,000 Protestant groups, I never heard of them.



Peace be with you

Answer 12

Catholics are Purple.....GCC Are Blue.







There is no difference in believers, just the beliefs...and while they vary greatly in practice. In core belief they are not THAT far apart.

Answer 13

About $30,000 a year average salary

Answer 14

One reason my dear! They all want the money for themselves.