Wasn’t this the rationale for megachurches and Praise & Worship worship?
“The church’s teaching is quite clear,” said Wuerl. “But the church’s pastoral life is the application of the teaching to where people are. And that’s always been the pastoral challenge of the church.”
“You have to speak with clarity, but then knowing what the fullness of the teaching is, you go out and meet people where they are,” he continued. “And the Holy Father keeps saying to us, ‘Accompany them.'”
“You don’t go out to meet people where they are to scold them,” he said. “You go out to bring them the truth but sometimes to be heard you have to let the person know you know their struggle if you’re going to accompany them at all.”
Giving as example his own ministry as a bishop for nearly 30 years, the cardinal said a church leader must first listen to know what people need in their lives.
“You have to listen in order to know how to say what you want to say so that you’ll be heard,” said Wuerl.
“I think that’s what the tension is between those who put the greatest emphasis on simply saying it — and saying it over and over again — and those who are saying if it’s not being heard, we have to go out and begin to listen so that we know how to say this in a way it will be heard,” he said. “That’s the difference. In neither case are we changing the teaching.”
Exactly. Bill Hybels and Rick Warren changed no doctrine.
Old Life 