How is the RCIA process compared to other church's?

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I’m in RCIA and I know when I become a full member of RCC it will be a year and half including the inquiry period. Anyone else currently or in the past change churches besides joining the Catholic Church, was it comparable in structure and and length. I know I was raised in evangelical/interdenominational, and never heard of a program for people to join the church, if they were there every Sunday I assumed they were XYZ denomination. Just based on word of mouth, memories, books etc, I remember missionaries baptizing new converts very shortly after they became Christian.
 
waxwing said:
I’m in RCIA and I know when I become a full member of RCC it will be a year and half including the inquiry period. Anyone else currently or in the past change churches besides joining the Catholic Church, was it comparable in structure and and length. I know I was raised in evangelical/interdenominational, and never heard of a program for people to join the church, if they were there every Sunday I assumed they were XYZ denomination. Just based on word of mouth, memories, books etc, I remember missionaries baptizing new converts very shortly after they became Christian.
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Just over two years as an inquirer/catechumen before I was chrismated in the Orthodox Church. From what I understand it’s a lot less structured than the Catholic Church. The typical Orthodox inquirer (at least in this country) takes anywhere from one to three years before fully entering the Church depending greatly on the individuals spiritual state. For instance a person coming from an Evangelical background would probably take longer than a person converting from one of the Eastern Catholic Churches.

Yours in Christ
Joe
 
I just recently read an article online written by my childhood (Episcopal) priest lambasting the EC with regard to their sloppy instruction for converts and stating that they should more closely emulate the Catholic RCIA program.
 
When I first became Christian I joined an evangelical church I got nothing, when I got baptised I didn’t even have it explained what baptism meant (though in all fairness to evangelicals it means less than to normal Christians)
 
I am a former Southern Baptist who attended RCIA a few years ago and was confirmed in 2006. As a life long baptist I never saw anything that compared to the RCIA program in teaching of the Christian faith. In most Baptist churches it is a quick three step process. First, you “Accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord & Savior”. Next, you make an altar call and lastly you are Baptized to become a member of the congregation. That pretty much covers the initiation process in Baptist churches.

The Catholic Church rightly puts a lot of care into ensuring you know what it means to be a Christian. Without good orthodox teaching the faithful are bound to slip into heresy.
 
1ke said:
I just recently read an article online written by my childhood (Episcopal) priest lambasting the EC with regard to their sloppy instruction for converts and stating that they should more closely emulate the Catholic RCIA program.
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I don’t think it has anything to do with sloppiness just a very different approach to catechesis. The Orthodox Church doesn’t have an official catechism like the Catholic Church. Catholics and Protestants as much as you disagree are much closer to each other than you realize. To some extent you both tend to believe that correct faith is something to be derived and interpreted from a set of written texts. Whether that text is the Bible or the CCC or both you place a disproportionately high value on textual analysis. So high of a value in fact that Protestants for the most part and Catholics to a lesser extent tend to look at any theology that talks about a mystical experience with great suspicion.

Christianity is first and foremost a life to be lived and experienced in communion with the Holy Trinity and with each other. We learn just as much if not more from experience as we do studying. Everything about Church life is in sense pedagogical. The liturgy, icons, architecture, ascetic struggles, liturgical calendar and even our prayer life teach us about who God is and about who we are and how God created us. You can read and take all of the classes you want and may even intellectually come to the conclusion that Orthodoxy is correct but until you actually experience it you can’t really understand it.

That’s why our catechumens are instructed the way that they are. Intellectual ascent must be accompanied by a true conversion of the heart and that can only be accomplished by a direct experience with the Living God.

Yours in Christ
Joe
 
josephdaniel29- I’m pretty sure 1ke wrote EC for “Episcopal Church”, not “Eastern.”
 
MrStain said:
I am a former Southern Baptist who attended RCIA a few years ago and was confirmed in 2006. As a life long baptist I never saw anything that compared to the RCIA program in teaching of the Christian faith. In most Baptist churches it is a quick three step process. First, you “Accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord & Savior”. Next, you make an altar call and lastly you are Baptized to become a member of the congregation. That pretty much covers the initiation process in Baptist churches.

The Catholic Church rightly puts a lot of care into ensuring you know what it means to be a Christian. Without good orthodox teaching the faithful are bound to slip into heresy.
Click to expand...
In GARBC Baptist Churches it is not at all like this. In our churches we have Bible study classes before the morning worship services (called Sunday School) and on Wednesday evenings. Sometimes even more,
We rightly put a lot of care and time in ensuring that you know what it means to be a Christian. For Baptist it is a life long process of learning not just a year or two
We also know that one is not save by accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior or making a altar call or being baptisted.
It is God that starts the process and does the saving He is the author and finisher of our faith.
 
BrendanD said:
josephdaniel29- I’m pretty sure 1ke wrote EC for “Episcopal Church”, not “Eastern.”
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On second look you’re probably right.:o (those wacky Episcopalians:p )

Yours in Christ
Joe
 
MrStain said:
I am a former Southern Baptist who attended RCIA a few years ago and was confirmed in 2006. As a life long baptist I never saw anything that compared to the RCIA program in teaching of the Christian faith. In most Baptist churches it is a quick three step process. First, you “Accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord & Savior”. Next, you make an altar call and lastly you are Baptized to become a member of the congregation. That pretty much covers the initiation process in Baptist churches.

The Catholic Church rightly puts a lot of care into ensuring you know what it means to be a Christian. Without good orthodox teaching the faithful are bound to slip into heresy.
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This sounds exactly like the Baptist church I grew up in. Wanted to add that Baptists believe that baptism is only a ‘declaration of faith’ and nothing else.

And with all respect to allischalmers, don’t forget the potluck! 😃
 
josephdaniel29 said:
I don’t think it has anything to do with sloppiness just a very different approach to catechesis. The Orthodox Church doesn’t have an official catechism like the Catholic Church. Catholics and Protestants as much as you disagree are much closer to each other than you realize. To some extent you both tend to believe that correct faith is something to be derived and interpreted from a set of written texts. Whether that text is the Bible or the CCC or both you place a disproportionately high value on textual analysis. So high of a value in fact that Protestants for the most part and Catholics to a lesser extent tend to look at any theology that talks about a mystical experience with great suspicion.

Christianity is first and foremost a life to be lived and experienced in communion with the Holy Trinity and with each other. We learn just as much if not more from experience as we do studying. Everything about Church life is in sense pedagogical. The liturgy, icons, architecture, ascetic struggles, liturgical calendar and even our prayer life teach us about who God is and about who we are and how God created us. You can read and take all of the classes you want and may even intellectually come to the conclusion that Orthodoxy is correct but until you actually experience it you can’t really understand it.

That’s why our catechumens are instructed the way that they are. Intellectual ascent must be accompanied by a true conversion of the heart and that can only be accomplished by a direct experience with the Living God.

Yours in Christ
Joe
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Joe, You’ve gone WAY out in left field. I was not discussing the Orthodox at all. I was referring to the **Episcopal ** church in my post. My former **Episcopal **priest lamented the sloppines of **Episcopal **convert instruction and suggested the RCIA model as a solution.

And, I disagree that the Catholic RCIA process lacks the lived experience of the of the Faith. RCIA includes integrating catechumens and candidates into the life, prayer, and liturgy of the Catholic Church. Having gone through RCIA, I can assure you it includes all of these elements as well as catechetical instruction.
 
allischalmers said:
In GARBC Baptist Churches it is not at all like this. In our churches we have Bible study classes before the morning worship services (called Sunday School) and on Wednesday evenings. Sometimes even more,
We rightly put a lot of care and time in ensuring that you know what it means to be a Christian. For Baptist it is a life long process of learning not just a year or two
We also know that one is not save by accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior or making a altar call or being baptisted.
It is God that starts the process and does the saving He is the author and finisher of our faith.
Click to expand...
I think you misunderstand me. Yes, it is all by Grace. I was answering the inquiry from the OP which I thought was about how you go about joining a particular Church. The three things I mentioned are what I would call the normative way to join a Baptist congregation.

Trust me. As a mostly lifelong baptist I am very familiar with Sunday School (taught more than a few classes) and Wednesday night bible studies. Those were all great things in helping me grow in the faith & knowledge of Jesus Christ and are something I know more of our Catholic parishes could benefit from. I am thankful to God that we just started a Wednesday night bible study in our Parish and the interest was so high that we had to schedule three separate classes. I also should mention – and I’m sure you already know this – Catholics also have the ability to be fed their daily bread each day in daily Mass. I don’t know any good Baptist who would not want to be in Church everyday if they could.
 
I understand both Mormons and JWs require a period of study before one is admitted to those bodies. Some would call it indoctrination, but let us call it study or preparation or instruction. whether or not there are also formal religious rites to mark conversion, I cannot say.
 
puzzleannie said:
I understand both Mormons and JWs require a period of study before one is admitted to those bodies. Some would call it indoctrination, but let us call it study or preparation or instruction. whether or not there are also formal religious rites to mark conversion, I cannot say.
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As a former convert to Mormonism and a former Mormon missionary, I can tell you that the instruction prior to baptism tends to be minimal. The missionaries’ primary goal is to get you baptized, not to educate you about Mormonism. They are trained to schedule a date for baptism at the 2nd missionary lesson, and will tell you whatever it takes to get you in the water.

The entire set of missionary lessons takes about 6 hours, and many go into the waters of LDS baptism after having 6 hours (or less) of contact with the missionaries and attending sacrament meeting once or twice.

Most know next to nothing about LDS doctrine when they are baptized. They usually join based on emotion. True to the principle of “milk before meat”, many aspects of Mormon doctrine and practice are not told to a prospective member until after they have been baptized, and usually not even then. This is evidenced by the many Mormons who come to this forum and have no clue about their church’s doctrines or history.

I believe that is one reason for the poor retention rate of Mormon converts. Once they learn what they’ve gotten into, many of them jump ship.

Paul
 
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