Evangelical/Fundamentalist Becoming Catholic

[CatherineofA]

These are questions for people who were raised Evangelical/Fundamentalist OR defined themselves this way for a long time. You can also answer if you know someone who was in this situation.

1. What made you convert to Catholicism? What was the lightbulb moment?
2. How did your former church and church members react?
3. How did your family react?
4. Did you decide this alone or with a spouse?

 

[Roman_Catholic_1]

Hello, I am on my fiance’s account (I dont have my own) and I saw this and wanted to asnwer.

1. What made you convert to Catholicism? What was the lightbulb moment?

The beautiful worship of our Lord in the Liturgy… Of course the Eucharist is not too bad either My light bulb moment was noticing that most (not all) protestant denominations had become complacent with their views on divorce, abortion, birth control, and homosexuality. I loved the fact that the Church considered marriage a sacrament and held it to the high regard that it does.

1. How did your former church and church members react?

Don’t know becasue I havent been back to the state where my old church is (I am away at school), and in reality I wouldnt care either way what they thought. Me becoming Catholic was not a popularity contest.

1. How did your family react?

Everyone accepted it just fine othe than my father who has made it his life long goal to convince me of my “mistake”.

1. Did you decide this alone or with a spouse?

My fiance and I were accpeted into the Church together last April. His family is Catholic but he was never confirmed nor did he ever take his first communion until last Easter.

 

[Corinne]

1. What made you convert to Catholicism? What was the lightbulb moment?
2. How did your former church and church members react?
3. How did your family react?
4. Did you decide this alone or with a spouse?

1. It was a lot of things, but I was really surprised when I found out that the Catholic Church came directly from the apostles and could trace its roots all the way back, where as my evangenical church was founded by some guy who was following some other guys who broke from the Catholic Church.
2. Mostly negatively. One of my friends even decided to go on a missionary trip to “convert Catholics to Christianity”. But, it was worth it, and I think some of them are seeing that I’m still me and I still am a Christian. So, hopefully, that’ll have some kind of an influence on how they feel about Catholics.
3. My family was okay by it. They didn’t really care one way or the other. They were not very strong in their faith.
4. I converted on my own, prior to marrying my husband, who is a Catholic.

 

[ChristIsTheWay]

These are questions for people who were raised Evangelical/Fundamentalist OR defined themselves this way for a long time. You can also answer if you know someone who was in this situation.

1. What made you convert to Catholicism? What was the lightbulb moment?

The Holy Spirit. To be more detailed, I felt this strong calling to the Church, despite my Fundamentalist background. Then I found CA and began reading the tracts that they have here. In the end, it convinced me of the truth of the RCC. That and the Holy Spirit.

1. How did your former church and church members react?

Mixed, some thought I was crazy while others were fine with it. I think alot of the negative reactions are fueled by their misconceptions of the Church.

1. How did your family react?

My sister converted with me. My parents and brother were cool with it. They become nominal Christians along time ago. However, my mother is interested in learning more and we are making arrangements for her (she has health issues) to attend RCIA. Pray for her.

1. Did you decide this alone or with a spouse?

Alone. I’m single and very grateful because I feel a strong calling to the priesthood. Pray for me.

 

[Veritas41]

1. What made you convert to Catholicism? What was the lightbulb moment?

I don’t know that there was one “lightbulb moment”, but there were several important ones. The first one was an article I read in an Eastern Orthodox publication that completely blew away the Bible-only stance of Protestantism by simply telling the history of *how *we go the Bible. I was literally trembling after reading it, and it led me to pursue learning more. I guess the second big one was reading Scott Hahn’s *Rome Sweet Home *and Patrick Madrid’s Surprised by Truth. I was Presbyterian, so reading about Scott Hahn’s journey to the Catholic faith really opened me up to it. He gave clear biblical and historical reasons. The same with Patrick Madrid’s book – I saw striking parallels between the journeys of the converts whose stories were in the book and my own journey --similar questions, doubts, etc. Once I became convinced the Catholic Church was the true Church, I knew I had to become Catholic out of obedience to the Lord.

1. How did your former church and church members react?

It varied. Surprisingly my pastor came to my home for dinner and discussed it with me and my husband, and even though he didn’t agree with what I was doing, he was cordial and respectful. A few people in the church wrote me letters or notes expressing their concern at what I was doing. They were expressing the typical Protestant misconceptions about the Church, and I could tell their intentions were honest and sincere. I did lose some friends, though, and I had some strained relationships with others afterwards.

1. How did your family react?

That was kind of interesting, actually. My brother, who had become Catholic many years before when he married his Catholic wife, was thinking about leaving the Church at the same time I was entering. I was able to share with him apologetic materials I had, and he became a convinced Catholic. My mother was supportive, eventhough she had left the Church years before after my father died. My sister wasn’t very enthusiastic, but she wasn’t negative, either. Eventually she and my mother went to RCIA and my mother came back to the Church and my sister entered. My husband, even though he wasn’t crazy about the Catholic Church, respected my decision to convert and even went to RCIA with me and eventually entered with me.

1. Did you decide this alone or with a spouse?
   I decided on my own initially because I had been studying it without anyone’s knowledge. I didn’t want anyone else to know in case I discovered the Catholic Church was wrong.

 

[Jeanette_L]

1. What made you convert to Catholicism? What was the lightbulb moment?

More of a process than one particular light bulb moment. I started with the depressing realization for many years that Protestantism/Evangelicalism/Fundamentalism had sometime, somewhere gone very, very wrong. There were too many sects/denominations espousing too many different takes on Christianity using the same Bible to get there. There was no way to know which one (because there can only be one truth) had the correct interpretation of Scriptures when contemplating the salvation message of Christianity and who were the rest that were going down the wrong path. And it wasn’t as though knowing the truth about Christianity wasn’t important, salvation was at stake.

I started studying the Reformers, what/why they disagreed with each other right from the start. I wasn’t comforted at all in this study. They were each adament that the Holy Spirit was guiding them alone in their interpretations and people were following these individuals without any kind of legitimate affirmation. Frightening.

I went from there to the Early Church Fathers, the earliest Christian writings from the Apostolic age to the Middle Ages. I found their beliefs to be completely different from modern Evangelicalism/Fundamentalism. And they believed in the Real Presence in the Eucharist, to the point of not communing with anyone who denied this presence, the true Body and Blood of Christ in the Sacrifice of the Mass. This is only one in many, many beliefs that were wholly Catholic. There was no denying it. And then I had to make a decision on whether I wanted authentic Christianity or a modern imitation that was not only lacking very important truths, but vehemently denying them.

1. How did your former church and church members react?

Disbelief. Severance of fellowship.

1. How did your family react?

Horrified. Severance of fellowship.

1. Did you decide this alone or with a spouse?

Alone. Not easy, but no regrets.

 

[SemperJase]

I was raised in a “non-denominational” Bible Church. I was received into the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil last year.

1. What made you convert to Catholicism? What was the lightbulb moment?

My wife was raised Catholic but never confirmed. I agreed to go to RCIA classes with her. While attending the classes, I sought out a message board to help me find arguments about why the church was wrong.

I quickly realized that the people on the message board were misrepresenting what the church taught (some misunderstood, some clearly were intentional in their misleading statements).

After seeing their arguments fall flat time and time again, I had to seriously consider the why the church taught what it did and where their teachings came from. Once I was honest with myself about church teachings, it was not long until the truth convinced me.

1. How did your former church and church members react?

I had stopped attending church. Prior to my going to RCIA, I was unhappy with how the church handled some events I was connected to. I also had become disillusioned with its style of worship (seemed fake and entirely based on emotion).

1. How did your family react?

Even though my parents still go to the church I attended when I first moved to this area, they were accepting if not supportive. They even attended the confirmation.

I think I’ve been blessed in this area. Even though my parents do not accept the teachings of the catholic church, they did not try to talk me out of it. Not even once.

My mom has even said, “Well at least they are going to church.”

1. Did you decide this alone or with a spouse?

As I mentioned, my wife wanted to come back to the church. She had taken her first communion years ago but had not been confirmed. We were confirmed together at the same Easter Vigil.

 

[RonRule]

1. What made you convert to Catholicism? What was the lightbulb moment?

My dad is an elder in a non-denominational bible church with plymouth brethren influences that he started and maintains.

Growing up, I was always interested in other denominations and why they believed differently than we.

When it came time for me to figure out where I fit in this Christian spectrum we find ourselves in, I began to see the weakness of a Sola Scriptura protestant ecclesiology.

I came accross Suprised By Truth at the giveaway shelf on my college’s library and read it in one sitting. There were many other lightbulb moments, but this was a big one.

2. How did your former church and church members react?

I had moved from my hometown and parents’ church almost 2 years before I converted. I’m not for sure how many of them even know about it. When visiting one Sunday however, one older woman asked me what church I was going to while away. I told her Catholic. “So…do you believe…Mary…never had…you know…never did it with Joseph???”

After moving, spent some months in an evangelical Anglican church, but didn’t make many friendships or connections there to necessitate a response.

3. How did your family react?

My dad thinks I’ve been deceived by clever arguments from a cult-like “church”.

My mom “doesn’t know how to talk to me anymore about christianity cause we’re so different now”

My sister doesn’t seem to care much either way…whatever works for me. She likes Vineyard-type non-denominationalism.

My wife was disappointed and frustrated. She read a chapter of Rome Sweet Home and put it down, calling it stupid. She is quite happy as a reformed baptist. Things have settled down and we discuss a catholic doctrine now and then. We joke around a bit, teasing each other about being Papist or Sectarian Individualist, etc.

My son, who is 16 mos. old, is not catholic yet. But he does give me a big smile when I take his hand and help him sign the cross or give him a fatherly blessing with holy water.

4. Did you decide this alone or with a spouse?

Alone. Too alone. I read tons of books without talking to many people. By the time I had opened up about it, I had made up my mind about many things. I should’ve discussed it more along the way, I guess.

 

[homewardbound]

These are questions for people who were raised Evangelical/Fundamentalist OR defined themselves this way for a long time. You can also answer if you know someone who was in this situation.

1. What made you convert to Catholicism? What was the lightbulb moment?
2. How did your former church and church members react?
3. How did your family react?
4. Did you decide this alone or with a spouse?

1.) I never understood Catholicism, so when I began dating my best friend in March I began asking a lot of questions, simply so we could understand each others faith. Instead I ended up studying and reading all summer because as I got my questions answered, it all started making way too much sense. I’d have to say my lightbulb moment was while I read “The Catholic Church Has the Answer” I was so shocked to find the answers to all the questions I had, and biblicial reference for everything!

2.) Former church members and such don’t know yet that I am converting

3.) My family isn’t very pleased. Right now they just avoid the issue.

4.) I’m doing this alone. But I have my boyfriend and his mom for support and have met some great people at the campus church and in RCIA.

 

[Cairisti]

1. What made you convert to Catholicism? What was the lightbulb moment?
   I had always had a curiosity about Catholicism, mainly due to having friends who were Catholic. Years ago, I finally picked up some books about the Catholic Faith - usually written by former Baptists . I’m not sure there was just one lighbulb moment. There were several. One of the things I found was that for every question I had about certain doctrines, there seemed to be a very reasonable and scriptural answer for it.(Not to mention that I felt that the HS was gently leading me toward the CC. )
2. How did your former church and church members react?
   I’m not sure. I hadn’t attended the Methodist Church I had attended for the last 10 years in several months. The church I grew up in (S. Baptist), didn’t know and the members don’t as far as I know. Though when I wrote to the pastor asking for confirmation of my baptism, his secretary called my parents about it! (How’s that for professionalism? )
3. How did your family react?
   Well, initially my parents had a tizzy. They acted like I was joining a satanic cult or something. I then quit RCIA . This past year, when I started RCIA again, I decided not to tell my parents, who in the past two years have been having health issues. My sister I told, and she was happy for me. (She’s married to a non-practicing Catholic, but her MIL is a practicing Catholic) My brothers I haven’t told.
4. Did you decide this alone or with a spouse?
   Alone. It was kinda sad not having family there for my confirmation, but figured they’d not come if they had known. (Funny thing is that my mother once said that she could understand my converting if I was married to a Catholic. She just couldn’t understand my telling her the HS was leading me to the CC. Sheesh!

 

[John_Henry]

1. What made you convert to Catholicism? What was the lightbulb moment?

Many things. Some noteable ones… worship was a spectator sport geared towards eliciting an emotional experience from me. Sermons alone weren’t helping me grow. They just fed my knowledge (not a bad thing). And everyone believed something different…how could we all be right?

1. How did your former church and church members react?

A spectrum from hating it to indifferent. No positives, though.

1. How did your family react?

My parents aren’t religious…they didn’t care. My in-laws are “house churchers”…they freaked out, called a meeting, and had a very tense discussion…they calmed down eventually…

1. Did you decide this alone or with a spouse?

With spouse. It was the CCC hat sealed the deal for her…

 

[Verita]

1. What made you convert to Catholicism? What was the lightbulb moment?

Actually, alot of the real lightbulb moments happened after I decided to convert. Before I made the decision there weren’t really any moments like that. It was a gradual process that happened over a few years. It started when I married a Catholic. We spent alot of time in friendly and sometimes (ok, alot of the time) not so friendly discussion of our faith. Slowly but surely he showed me where my own beliefs and interpretations were lacking. Whenever I didn’t know the answer to something he had one and it was always very logical and most complete. I began to realize that Catholicism just made sense. I came to support the beliefs of Catholicism long before I realized that I needed to join the Church. For a long time I thought I could just agree with the Church without actually becoming part of it and that would be ok. It was the Holy Spirit I think that convincted me that this was wrong. I felt restless and unsatisfied with my sort odf in between position. I wasn’t really a Catholic and I was no longer Protestant. I realized (ironically enough during my last sunday at my old Protestant Church) that I had to choose and the only real choice was the Catholic Church.

After I decided I received nermerous lightbulb (or alarmbell) moments. On that last sunday at my old church the Pastor conducted the communion by saying “Jesus said, ‘Think of this or see this as my Body.’” When he so grossly misrepresented the words of Christ I knew I was in the wrong place. And when I told my husband of my decision we began studying Church teaching in earnest. We read the writings of the Early Church Fathers and that was a huge lightbulb going off. They were so completely Catholic that it left no room for interpretation. Also, when I read Scott Hahn’s The Lamb’s Supper and began to truly understand the nature of Christ’s sacrifice and the Mass and the Eucharist… it was an amazing revelation.

1. How did your former church and church members react?

Well, I had stopped regularly attending my protestant church long before I decided to convert. For a long time it had left me dissatified and feeling incomplete. So I had lost touch with most of the people there. The Pastor took a very indifferent approach to the news. He basically said “It’s your life you can do whatever you want.” It was quite puzzling since he is extremely against the Catholic Church and is also my uncle.

1. How did your family react?

At first, my mother was horrified. (though I think she was more concerned for the future of her granddaughter than me.) Then she talked to my uncle and adopted his attitude. She doesn’t like to talk about it. I’m not aloud to mention it at all around my younger brother and sisters.

1. Did you decide this alone or with a spouse?

I decided alone, though he did his part in convincing me. He was actually quite suprised when I told him. It was a battle that had been raging in my heart and mind and soul for a long time. When I told him of my decision he helped me greatly through study and support. He’s my sponsor now.

 

[djrakowski]

I love reading all of these stories!**

1. What made you convert to Catholicism? What was the lightbulb moment?**

My wife and I started studying Catholicism together when we became disillusioned with evangelical Christianity. There were a number of factors at play, and I remember more of them every time someone asks a question like this. In short, we were growing tired of the theological contradictions between evangelical pastors (sometimes even between pastors on the same staff), and started looking into Catholicism.

We started RCIA, but dropped out within 6 weeks due to frustration at the lack of knowledge demonstrated by the deacon in charge of the class. Later, I came to understand that I was guilty of leaving Peter because of Judas.

My wife just reminded me of a particular lightbulb moment over the weekend. One day, while doing daily devotions and Bible reading, I came across this verse:

Colossians 1:24 (NAB) - “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflications of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church.”

My wife says I stopped dead in my tracks, looked up, and said, “We have to become Catholic!” The realization that the Catholic Church teaches that suffering is meaningful and redemptive sent me back to the Catholic Church, and we were received into full communion on Sept. 9, 2006.
**2. How did your former church and church members react?
**
One person wasn’t upset at all, because she knew we were looking into conversion, and she’s a bit of an indifferentist. I used to teach Sunday school with a lady, and she sent me an email asking for suggestions on how to improve the children’s program at our former church. When I gave her suggestions from a Catholic perspective, she never wrote me back.

I suspect that not too many people know we’ve left, as this is a very large church, and we didn’t have a ton of very close friends there, anyways.

** 3. How did your family react? **

My sister-in-law was certain that we were converting to spite her, since she can’t receive the Eucharist in our church (as though we’d go through something as life-changing as conversion to spite her!).

Last Friday, my wife shared with her mother about how Mary’s intercession had helped her through some recent trial, and her mother responded, “So, do you pray to Jesus, or just Mary? 'cos when I looked into the Catholic Church over 30 years ago, all they did was pray to Mary.” This, after months and months of indifferentism - go figure! (just wait 'til my 6-year old prays the “Hail Mary” before Thanksgiving dinner!)

My dad is OK with it, but has little interest in coming back to the church he left as a young man. He hated Catholic school, and has held it against the Church ever since.

** 4. Did you decide this alone or with a spouse?
**
I started studying on my own, much to her consternation, but eventually, she came on board, and started reading some of the books on my shelf. We were received into the Church together, on Sept. 9th.

 

[woodyww]

These are questions for people who were raised Evangelical/Fundamentalist OR defined themselves this way for a long time. You can also answer if you know someone who was in this situation.

1. What made you convert to Catholicism? What was the lightbulb moment?
   My wife and I had become disillusioned with our Baptist faith. There was no unity. There were 8 Baptist Churches in our town of 8000 people. They split over every disagreement. We had seen Baptist doctrine change over the years. Sometimes even between the 8 local churches. The first lightbulb was “The Four Witnesses” by Rod Bennet which I read about 2 years ago. There have been 2 many light blb moments since then to number.
2. How did your former church and church members react?
   At first it was just mild shock and a lot of people thought I had coerced my wife into it since she was the daughter of a deacon and played the piano in the church . Gradually we became ostracized. We have lost most of our friends from that church. These are good Christian friends but they don’t know what to think about us anymore.
3. How did your family react?
   All of our children are grown. They are a mix of Baptist/Assembly of God/Agnostic. They all reject the whole notion of our becoming Catholic. They refuse to have any discussions with us about our beliefs. They will only say that they will “pray for us”
4. Did you decide this alone or with a spouse?

Initially,my wife was about a year behind me on the journey. While she was unhappy with her Southern Baptists Traditions, she was not convinced that Catholicism was the answer. I remember many times I would print something about Church beliefs off of the Catholic Answers website and give it to her. I would find it on the table unread or she would throw it back at me. She did finally read “The Four Witnesses” and “Home Sweet Rome” She was really beginning to struggle. One night when she woke up and was restless she began to earnestly pray about what should she do. She said she heard the small still inner voice of God say" Remember all the times you would pray and ask that I make your husband the spirtual leader of your home like you wanted him to be? Well he is becoming that spiritual leader and your are refusing to follow!" From then on it was all down hill from there. She is fully committed and convinced of her new Catholic faith. We have been attending Mass regularly since January. We started RCIA 3 weeks ago and hope to enter the Church at the Easter Vigil.

 

[MariaG]

Thanks for posting this question. I love reading the answers myself.

1. What made you convert to Catholicism? What was the lightbulb moment?

I had gotten tired of people asking me what Catholics believe (baptized as baby, parents got mad at Catholic church, left. No parochial school. No church until 15. Then I got mad at God for allowing homosexual perversion in his priesthood.) I finally bought a Catechism of the Catholic Church so when people asked what Catholics believe I could tell them.

Usually it was along the lines of people looking for validation that what they thought the Catholic church taught was right.

Q: Do Catholics worship Mary?

My A: Well, I don’t know.

Questioner: Well they do worship Mary good thing you are not Catholic anymore.

When I got the Catechism, these people were always wrong in what they said the Catholic Church taught.

But “the Moment” was when I was sitting in the pew of an Evangelical Church with tears running down my face and realized I could not recieve communion with my brothers and sisters in Christ because they did not believe in the Real Presence of Christ.

2. How did your former church and church members react?

My pastor was very supportive. He is like Billy Graham in the fact that he wants people to love God and Catholics can love God. He was sad but supported what I believed God was calling me to do.

Some I found out were former Catholics who then started telling me what Catholics believed. The one that sticks in my mind is “Catholics don’t believe that you and I are saints. They believe that only the people in heaven are good enough to be called saints. That is directly contrary to scripture that says otherwise.” ie, they are not Christian if they contradict scripture.

She too is wrong about this. Catholics do in fact believe that those who believe are saints even while here on earth. We just have a new category of capital “S” saints that are intended for us to see how to live a Christian life.

**3. How did your family react? **

A little relieved since she was Catholic in the first place if not a seriously practicing one. She had been worried when I was going to those “fundamental” churches.

But she was slightly worried because as she put it, "you don’t do things by half. How are you going to be a practicing Catholic with the teachings they have about things like Birth control? Also had to deal with comments to children about things like, “Why do we have to believe she was virgin all her life? How stupid.”

So no one was exactly thrilled.

4. Did you decide this alone or with a spouse?

Alone. My husband did not and does not attend Church with me whether Evangelical or Catholic.

But I did bring my kids with me!

God Bless,
Maria

 

[jburgherr]

There are several very good books and CD’s that answers all your specific questions extremely well.

Scott Hahn - Conversion story
catholicity.com/maryfoundation/hahn.html

Steve Ray - Suprised by Truth
surprisedbytruth.com/shop/shopexd.asp?id=26

David B. Currie - Born Fundamentalist - Borne Again Catholic
ignatius.com/ViewProduct.aspx?SID=1&Product_ID=404&SKU=BFBA-P&ReturnURL=search.aspx%3f%3fSID%3d1%26SearchCriteria%3dDavid+Currie

These are all great resources!

 

[Cat]

1. Lightbulb moment–

After 40 years of practicing enthusiastic evangelical Christianity, my husband and I were kicked out of our evangelical church for questioning a procedure. At that point, I stopped believing in sola Scriptura because the pastors of that church used the Bible to justify their cruelty to us.

We had been studying Catholicism for a year before this happened, just to learn more. I can’t remember exactly when my “lightbulb moment” occurred, but I remember the Lord telling me very quietly and clearly, “This is something I want you to do. It’s the Truth. If you don’t do it, you will be disobeying Me.”

So I obeyed Him.

1. Church response

They had kicked us out and cut off all contact with us.

1. Family response

I’ve never told my dad. He never attends church anyway. I think he would be mad.

My inlaws are accepting, but they occasionally try a “dig.” But they know we are intelligent and discerning people. To question our decision would be to question the Holy Spirit, and they don’t dare do that.

1. Alone or with spouse?

With spouse, thank God.

 

[Della]

1. What made you convert to Catholicism? What was the lightbulb moment?

I was received into the Church 19 years ago but I can still remember the “light bulb moment” that came after much study, prayer, and agonizing. It was when I realized that if the Church was right about Mary and her place in our Christian lives then it had to be right about everything else. Because, only if the Church has the authority to declare dogmas about Mary (or anything else) could it be the “right” Church.

1. How did your former church and church members react?

One fellow from the Assemblies of God was frankly shocked, and gave me a look akin to my telling him I’d become a prostitute, I kid you not. A gal from the Episcopal Church I’d returned to after 20 years in the AoG came screeching up to my house, parked her car halfway out into the street and ran up to my door and demanded to know if what she had heard was true–that my dh and I were leaving the ECUSA for the Catholic Church. Even at the time I thought the situation humorous, but I quite seriously explained our main reasons, which I really don’t think she understood, bless her. She wished us well and we never heard from her or anyone else at our former ECUSA parish again.

1. How did your family react?

Mostly with indifference. But, in the 19 years since my sil returned to attending Mass and my brother started going along with her and now they are what I call “average” Catholics. My sister is engaged to a Catholic guy (who is more “spiritual” than orthodox) and she ushers at his parish (which is another whole story). My brother sidled up to me soon after I’d been received to inform me in a deep whisper that he had no intention of becoming a Catholic. He was set back on his heels when I told him I didn’t expect him to do so–I believe his wife put him up to it, filling his ears with how I was going to try to convert them or some such thing. They are now non-practicing Lutherans. My parents had died and no one else in the family cared one way or the other.

1. Did you decide this alone or with a spouse?

Both, kinda. I began researching the teachings of the Church on my own, but my dh had longed to return to the Church but didn’t want to push me. So, he patiently prayed and kept out of my way, so to speak, and let me work things out for myself. He knew I’d never just take his or anyone’s else’s word for it, you see. He was my sponsor and my hero in everything, the dear man! I’ll be forever grateful for his tact and calm support.

 

[scylla]

Hello djrakowski,

I remember reading about you on Singinbeauty’s forum, BTW do you ever post there anymore? I was thinking about posting in response to the Reaching Catholics for Christ post.
Anyways in response to the original post.

My wife was in Four Square Gospel when I met her and I started to go with her to church. Eventually we had problems as our group was too small and couldn’t afford to pay rent so the church moved into a house then a strip mall. Then it started to grow again and it came into Calvary Chapel. This is where I was uneasy as I had seen the church move and truth be very vague. This all started with a sermon in which the guy speaking said the words “I think” in regards to a belief.
#1.(the moment it took about 4 years to manifest fully)
This stuck with me and every time we attended I knew something was wrong.
The people were very nice and truly dedicated, yet I was unsure as I knew this wasn’t the Church Jesus started. This was a church (Calvary Chapel) which was started by Chuck Smith.
So what was wrong with all the churches before 1965? and if one was ok then why start another church? It was illogical, was I following man or God.
I was uneasy but not sure what to do until my brother became a raving fundamentalist which was different from my beliefs.
So what was truth?
I started reading and searching for the truth. I wanted to be honest with God so eventually after many many years my wife and I came back home to the Catholic Church. (#4) My wife and I were married last year in the Church and had our kids baptized.

My assessment is that there are many people who are very friendly loving, caring people. People with huge hearts in the Evangelical churches, who sincerely worship and love their relationship with God.
I am certain most would finally have their hearts at rest in the Catholic Church, but there is soooo much lies, misinformation and outright bigotry against the Church they never have a chance to give it a chance.
I know 1 pastor who is open to talking to me about the Catholic Church and about 30 who just have such a negative reaction to the Church they turn off and wont even listen.
I talk to someone everyday about the Church but 99% don’t listen.
Unfortunately, because people constantly reinforce lies such as,
Catholics worship Mary (a blatant lie read the prologue to the CCC)
Catholicism is against the Bible (who preserved the Bible and why don’t Catholic bible scholars figure this out?)
etc… etc…

enough lies make people not even willing to give Catholicism a chance, which is exactly the point of these lies.

#2\3 most of my family was happy as they are Catholic and were glad to see me practicing except for my sister in law who went into a closet when she found out and was very angry, and my brother who immediately tried to save me. When I responded with Scripture his wife admitted they might be mistaken about the invented Scripture he quoted, then they left and haven’t talked to me about the faith since. Church members wont talk to me about the faith anymore, even the pastor avoids the subject though I do try to sit close to him and strike up conversation whenever we visit.
I believe this is just a result of what I commented on earlier.

Hopefully that wasn’t too long,
God Bless
Scylla

 

[MariaG]

My assessment is that there are many people who are very friendly loving, caring people. People with huge hearts in the Evangelical churches, who sincerely worship and love their relationship with God.
I am certain most would finally have their hearts at rest in the Catholic Church, but there is soooo much lies, misinformation and outright bigotry against the Church they never have a chance to give it a chance.
I know 1 pastor who is open to talking to me about the Catholic Church and about 30 who just have such a negative reaction to the Church they turn off and wont even listen.
I talk to someone everyday about the Church but 99% don’t listen.
Unfortunately, because people constantly reinforce lies such as,
Catholics worship Mary (a blatant lie read the prologue to the CCC)
Catholicism is against the Bible (who preserved the Bible and why don’t Catholic bible scholars figure this out?)
etc… etc…

enough lies make people not even willing to give Catholicism a chance, which is exactly the point of these lies.

This is so true. There are so many good Christians who will be appalled when they reach heaven (probably purgatory ) to realize that they fell for the lies of Satan concening the Catholic Church.

The Father of lies greatest success since the garden of Eden has been to spread the lies about the Catholic Church to other God fearing Christians and keep the body of Christ separated.

God Bless,
Maria