Belonging to a religion/church/faith

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Born raised and received all the Sacrements in the Roman Catholic church. Was married in the Catholic church and my son was baptized Catholic. After marrying, my wife studied briefly to become Catholic. A few months later I became disenchanted with the Catholic faith and my doubts and ultimate disagreement with dogma and doctrine came full circle as my wife struggled with her new found beliefs. We left and after a short time begun attending an Anglican church. Ultimately she was baptized and confirmed Anglican and I and my son were received into the church.
God is there and he is great. A mighty fortress is our God!
 
Born and raised loosely Methodist. Didn’t go to church as a family much at all unless someone married or died, but if anyone asked me, I said I was Methodist. After I got married dh and I decided to clean up our act and started attending a Baptist church, where we met Jesus, but we had some very Catholic ideas (we wanted our baby daughter baptized and our new house blessed, thought God should decide our family size…) that quickly got squashed.

When we got the Internet, I started researching different Protestant denominations, because I was talking to lots of different Christians online and I wanted to know where they were coming from. This led to my disenchantment with Sola Scriptura. All these opposing doctrines, and we’re all reading the same book. :confused:

On a whim, I got a Book of Common Prayer, my first real look at liturgical worship, and I was hooked. Liturgy is so very rich in Scripture, I couldn’t understand why someone would dare call it “ritualistic.” I was all ready to be Episcopalian until I found out what a liberal diocese I’m in. 😦 My friend recommended the ELCA Lutheran Church (which is surprisingly conservative around here) and I was there for nearly two years, saying the whole time, “I’ll never be Catholic, this is close enough!”

Another friend introduced me to the Bible Christian Society, where I ordered CDs and listened to “One Church.” It was like a burning bush, but I tried to ignore it. The more I prayed and studied, the more I realized that God had been nudging me towards the Catholic Church the whole time. I entered the Church in August '07.

So, in a nutshell: Methodist, Baptist, Lutheran, Catholic.
 
Birth to 31 yrs. old - Very Strict Seventh-Day Adventist.
31 yrs old to death - Catholic.
 
churchcamefirst said:
Would you mind telling how you became a Catholic? I love hearing these stories.🙂
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Why did I become a Catholic? Well, here it is in a nutshell.

It was twenty-seven years ago (when I was 30 ½ years old) that I was baptized and confirmed Catholic. Sometimes looking back I find it difficult to distinguish between what prompted the change then and what would have prompted the change now if it hadn’t then – if you know what I mean.

I had been born and raised Seventh Day Adventist. I was teaching the kindergarten Sabbath School Lesson when I was ten and the Youth Sabbath School Lesson when I was 18 and the Adult Sabbath School Lesson by the time I was 22. I attended Broadview Academy and Andrews University (where I minored in
religion), served in my local church as Sabbath School superintendent and Dorcas Leader (community services). I gave Bible studies and assisted in Evangelistic series. Occasionally
I was even asked by the pastor to preach in his absence. Just as Paul could say that he was a Pharisee among Pharisees, I could safely say that I was an Adventist among Adventists.

Was I happy? No. No matter how hard I tried, no matter how much I prayed and read the Bible and read EGW, I experienced no spiritual growth. I could stand in a corner with my eyes closed and my hands folded and still fall into sin. It occurred to me that if I was in a constant state of sin no matter what I did, why bother? I was tired of always being different from my friends and
colleagues and since I constantly sinned anyway, why continue being different, why always be an outsider? So I left the denomination.

Now as I am sure you know, to have been a member of the One True Church and to have left it, meant that I was damned. But I figured, I was damned even before I left anyway.

I had a friend who was a devout Catholic who had a close friend who was a priest. And it happened that some months after I left the denomination, we had lunch with Fr. Tom and he and I fell into conversation. He was probably the first priest I’d ever spoken to in my life. Of course, the subject turned to religion. In the course of our discussion, I learned something that I had never thought possible – many of the Catholic beliefs that SDAs scoff at as the
traditions of man were in fact based in Scripture. This interested me greatly. Now since I knew that I was already damned, I didn’t think that I could get anymore damned by studying with a priest, so Fr. Tom and I began to study together. (Of course, you need to remember that the SDA denomination teaches that the Catholic Church is the Whore of Babylon, the Pope is the Anti-Christ, and Sunday worship is the Mark of the Beast.) We had a great time, he would prove a point by quoting a text of Scripture and I would supply the text and quote another.

As we studied together, things like transubstantiation and confession and the role of Mary were just so obviously true, that I couldn’t understand how I could have been blind to them in all my years of Bible study! Actually, in my youth as I studied the Bible some of these doctrines seemed to be true and these questions occurred to me, but since the SDA denomination had provided an
explanation (even though it didn’t really satisfy me), I had not questioned further. After all, why would I question the teachings of the One True Church?

As I studied with Fr. Tom I realized that I was not damned. I realized that the rules of conduct that the denomination held me too, were the traditions of man, not the laws of God – such irony since that is what the SDAs always accuse the Catholics of. I realized that God had provided avenues of grace for us that would draw us ever closer to Him.

The three doctrines that made me realize that I had to become Catholic, were Eucharist, confession and the role of Mary. Later as I came to understand other doctrines, the Teaching Authority of the Church and the Apostolic Succession also became important to me and made me glad that I am a Catholic.

Marsha
 
What a beautiful testimony…if only others can see what you saw.:blessyou:
 
I was baptized Catholic and went through crazy things (partly my fault and partly outside influences). I was also drawn to youth group of the non-denominations services. Parents are cafeteria Catholic. So I sought God by going to non-denominational youth group. Then stopped going to church altogether. I got married and asked myself, how was I going to raise the children? My husband is an athiest and I knew that I wanted to raise my children to believe in God. So I decided to look in to the Catholic religion(because that was the religion I was baptized in).
 
mrs_abbott said:
I sometimes wonder how many times the average person changes churches/faiths in their lifetime.
Leaving a church and coming back to the same church without joining another would fall under one church/faith because you didn’t join another while you were away.
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I discovered I was Catholic two years ago. That was at the age of >40 (by a good measure).

I’ve never been a “member” of a “church” until my baptism/confirmation at this last Easter.

I’ve been a believer in “God’s beauty and order” for my entire life, which has expressed itself in various forms, such as “beauty-ism” (whatever that is) “aesthetism”?], scientism, mythologism (“gods”, poly"pneumism" ?]), deism, etc.

Then all the truthful parts of all my former beliefs suddenly were discovered as ACTUAL truths in the Church (Catholic), which rather forced me to delve deeply into the teachings of the Church, which completely forced me to assume my newly discovered (not chosen!) identity as a Catholic.

So, tah-dah! I’m a non-cradle lifelong Catholic!
 
I was baptised Catholic. Then removed from the church by my mother who decided to leave over salvation issues. Then raised eve free, and baptist. I left those churches because I saw no value in them. Did not attend many years then came to the LCMS as an adult convert. I now am seeing faults and feeling pulling of the heart and soul to explore the Catholic faith and will be attending my first Catholic mass in many years since a young lad on Sunday. 👍
 
chworkman05 said:
I was baptised Catholic. Then removed from the church by my mother who decided to leave over salvation issues. Then raised eve free, and baptist. I left those churches because I saw no value in them. Did not attend many years then came to the LCMS as an adult convert. I now am seeing faults and feeling pulling of the heart and soul to explore the Catholic faith and will be attending my first Catholic mass in many years since a young lad on Sunday. 👍
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How very exciting for you! 🙂 Very cool indeed!

By the way, what does “eve free” mean? Just some random curiosity on my part.

Go raibh an Tiarna libh! (The Lord be with 'ya!)
(( The “answer”, of course, is “Agus leat féin!” [And with yourself!] ))
 
By the way, what does “eve free” mean? Just some random curiosity on my part.
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It is a term that has been used for evengelical (sp?) free church/ non denominational.
 
I was baptized with the proper Trinitarian formula by my grandfather, a Congregational minister. (Thank you, Granddaddy!)

I was raised in the Unitarian church, which even then, could have been called the Church of Lefty Liberal Thought. In spite of years of Sunday School, I never learned much about what they believed. The church youth group (Liberal Religious Youth!) was a great place to score weed and pick up guys. That’s #1.

In my 30s I was adopted by Lakota Sioux, and followed that spirituality for several years. That’s #2.

I had a conversion experience, and joined a local “non-denominational” church. There was a scandal, and the church split over it, but I’ll still call it #3. I left it over some hateful homophobia.

I searched for the real church for several years; I wanted true Christ-centeredness, and a cohesive view of the whole Bible. I never thought I’d become Catholic! I was raised with some subtle bigotry - Catholics were poor, uneducated, and had too many children. Through wanting to refute some Jack Chick-like attacks on Catholicism, I wound up at Catholic Answers, and as I read the tracts on Chick, I found myself saying over and over, “But that’s what I believe!” And here I am!

Ruthie
 
I was baptized, confirmed and married in the Catholic Church. I was a practicing Catholic for 38 years. I have been a Baptist for the last 12 years.
 
I was baptized Lutheran, confirmed Congregationalist, and went to a Seventh Day Adventist church from time to time. Now I am thinking about converting to Catholicism.
 
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