How many denominations??

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chris_molter

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In Stylteralmaldo’s poll post on what denominations folks have converted from, I found it very interesting how many people not just church hopped, but denomination hopped.

So, for those of you who have come into the Catholic Church via Protestantism, Orthodoxy, or outside Christianity altogether, please tell us how many different “denoms” (or religions!) you’ve joined before arriving. For those of you who are still outside the communion of the Catholic Church, I’d love for you to add your experiences as well!

Please feel free to explain the progress in your “hopping”, why you switched, and why you are where you are now. 🙂

I was born Episcopalian and came into the Catholic Church in 2005. Never considered joining another denomination, although I did explore becoming Orthodox prior to coming into Catholicism.
 
I was born and baptized into a non-practicing Catholic family, joined the Episcopal Church after graduation from college, followed by a short stay in a Lutheran-Missouri Synod congregation, and finally two different non-denominational evangelical churches, before coming home to the Catholic Church.
 
I chose “changed once” but technically I went from no religion to Catholicism.
 
I was born a Methodist, raised a Pentecostal/Baptist mix. Now I do not belong to any denominiation because I am no longer part of the divisions. I am Catholic. We are not a division. We are Christ’s True Church. All others have parts, we have it all.
 
God saved me with the trouble of converting (though I’m sure that it can be a blessing as well). I was born Catholic, lost God (yet didn’t become atheist or agnostic - basically only a VERY and indifferent Catholic) but then I found Him once more. So in fact I remained in Catholicism my whole life! Praise God for that! 🙂

Pax Domini,
~G
 
Genghis said:
I chose “changed once” but technically I went from no religion to Catholicism.
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I’m with Genghis, I was raised in a family where my parents had gone to high school in the 60s and college in the 70s… “new age” style thought was the norm at that time, and to this day my mom (despite her conversion) keeps copies of some of the great heresies of the time (and i’ll admit that they DO make interesting reading material).

When I was nine my dad remarried and, following my stepmom’s faith became catholic. i started attending mass shortly thereafter during weekends spent with my dad.

My mom, in opposition to my dad (and perhaps due to misled catholic experience as a child, but mostly, i’m guessing, to be contrary) joined a most… eh… interesting protestant “church” called calvary chapel. I was also taken to their services on weekends with my mom.

Even at nine years old it didn’t take me long to realize that the catholic church felt and seemed (logically) to be the right church. by the time i was ten by my own choice i was baptised into the catholic church and received confirmation when i had just turned 13.
 
chris_molter said:
In Stylteralmaldo’s poll post on what denominations folks have converted from, I found it very interesting how many people not just church hopped, but denomination hopped.

So, for those of you who have come into the Catholic Church via Protestantism, Orthodoxy, or outside Christianity altogether, please tell us how many different “denoms” (or religions!) you’ve joined before arriving. For those of you who are still outside the communion of the Catholic Church, I’d love for you to add your experiences as well!
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That’s a tricky question for me, since I have only ever been formally a member of one communion–Anglicanism. I was confirmed in the Episcopal Church in 1998, and am officially still a member of my parish in NC, even though I haven’t lived there since 2003.

However:

I grew up in what amounted to a house church consisting of my family and a small group of sympathizers/disciples. We were from a Wesleyan Holiness background (the broad movement, not the denomination), and attended different churches off and on without joining them: Methodist (and rarely Anglican) in England; Nazarene, Church of God (Anderson), and occasionally United Methodist in Indiana; and Free Will Baptist, Southern Baptist, Independent Baptist, Nazarene, Alliance, and nondenominational in Tennessee (this is not quite an exhaustive list!). I was baptized at 18 by a Southern Baptist pastor (as were my parents!) but we did not join his church. In my first two years in grad school, I visited a wide variety of churches, but the two I attended most regularly were a Reformed Baptist congregation and the Catholic student Mass at Duke (I also attended Anglican churches of various kinds on a fairly regular basis, particularly the one I wound up joining in 1998). Meanwhile, I travelled frequently to Romania and lived there for the last half of 1997–I had some dealings with the Romanian Baptists (and of course visited Orthodox and Catholic churches when I got the chance), but mostly attended “assemblies” of the “Christians According to the Gospel” (a Romanian variant of the Plymouth Brethren) and in 1997 sometimes also the infant-baptizing branch of that same movement.

In 1998 I became Episcopalian, but I continued to explore Catholicism, and for two months in 1999 was an official candidate for admission to the Catholic Church. Finally, in 2003 I married a United Methodist, and for the past four years have been regularly attending United Methodist as well as Episcopal congregations.

So while I’ve only ever belonged formally to one denomination, I actually have a record of “church-hopping” to rival anyone! I’m not proud of this, though it is of advantage to me as a church historian.

Edwin
 
I was born and raised United Methodist and attended various United Methodist Churches up through college. In graduate school, I started with the Methodist Church, but attended for several months (without joining) a Southern Baptist Church attended by my roommate (they had the best choir in town and I wanted to sing in the choir–great reason, huh? 😃 ).

Later in graduate school, I married my wife and converted to her Church, the Episcopal Church. For a year or two, however, we worshipped in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) (due to the very liberal nature of the Episcopal Parishes available to us where we lived). We then moved to a location where there was a wonderful Episcopal Parish which we remained --with a brief exception–as members for eighteen years. The ordination of the openly homosexual V.G. Robinson as the Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire, along with some other national and local issues, led my wife and I to reevaluate our membership in the Episcopal Church. After some time, we determined with much anguish that we could no longer remain in the Episcopal Church. Our little evangelical Episcopal parish lost between 15 to 20 very active families during this time.

After becoming a refugee from the Episcopal Church about 18 months ago, we spent some time looking at other Churches, including a number of non-Episcopal Anglican Churches, the Catholic Church, and the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS). We are currently attending a LCMS Church, but for now have refrained from formally joining the Church.

Our long term plans? Eventually, we will need to make a decision and commit by actually joining a Church again. I suspect that this will be a LCMS Church, a non-Episcopal Anglican Church, or the Catholic Church…but God himself only knows.
 
Born Catholic, went “Jesus Freak”, then Southern Baptist, then Assembly of God, then nothing…then home. 🙂
 
GandalfTheWhite said:
God saved me with the trouble of converting (though I’m sure that it can be a blessing as well). I was born Catholic, lost God (yet didn’t become atheist or agnostic - basically only a VERY and indifferent Catholic) but then I found Him once more. So in fact I remained in Catholicism my whole life! Praise God for that! 🙂

Pax Domini,
~G
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This is pretty much my story as well
 
8 :o

I was baptized Episcopalian as an infant. Then I bounced across the following: Presbyterian, Baptist, Wiccan, Pentecostal, a smattering of “non-denominational Christian”, Methodist, and Lutheran.

I’ve been searching for “home” my whole life. I never thought that I’d find it in the Catholic Church at the age of 35. 🙂
 
Went to a Baptist church as a child, fell away as a teenager, in my 20’s I studied everything from Buddhism to Judiasm to Wicca and everything in between (does that count for 10+ 😉 ) even though I never officially joined any of them. After a crisis, I came back to Christianity through a Nazarene church, then continued to study and found the One True Holy and Apostolic Church, the Catholic Church. Thanks be to God!
 
Umm… well I am not a cradle catholic, nor have I really converted or reverted. My parents are divorced, and before I finally moved in with my dad (Catholic), my mom would take me to either Unity or Christian Science.
 
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