I'm a convert , but there's something miss from my Protestant church

[Jennifer123]

:
Please explain, too, how the need for fellowship is a weakness. I thought we were supposed to live together in close-knit Christian communities and share each others’ burdens.
We were part of such a large, dynamic church, and I can tell you, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that our friends has wonderful family lives, and children were nearly always included in any scheduled event. It’s hardly fair to generalize from the negative impression you have of your in-laws and their church to the entire evangelical Protestant population.
These folks aren’t working their way into heaven. They serve and join together in this manner because they LOVE being around the people of God, love learning more about Him and growing in sanctity. On the whole, they’re not trying to show off to their friends, but are genuinely inclined toward sharing a common Christian experience.

And further, they most certainly DO understand a balanced life and the idea of vocation, at least if they have a decent pastor.

Generalization wasn’t my intent but while you have your experiences, and I appreciate them, I have my own, and to say that these things aren’t ever a detriment to family life may not quite be accurate. I have heard these things from other Protestants, active and former, as well.
I’m just trying to say that the grass isn’t always greener, as has been my experience. It’s not meant to label or judge anyone and I’m sorry if that is how it sounds.

 

[chewchoo]

mikeledes;3182038:

Yes, I feel this way and have for a long time. I’m still trying to adapt to the Catholic way. In our Protestant Church we took our Sunday service very seriously and reverently just like a Mass but afterward there was always coffee and time for conversation. Most of our events promoted a close connection and created many opportunities for interactions. The events were not always at Church. Many times they were camping trips, all sorts of different parties in homes, Christmas gatherings, Halloween parties etc…we had “all Church retreats” every year up at lake Tahoe for a whole weekend. If you couldn’t afford to go, the Church would help you out. We were right on the lake. It was so beautiful. Another cool thing we did every year was have sign ups for the dinner club ( I have actually forgot what it was called it now) anyhow, it was a rotation thing. It was set up for four couples to attend and you would have to host it in your own home at least once. When you were the host all you had to supply was the house and something to drink. The main meal, salad and dessert was brought by the other couples. Then the next weekend you would go to a different house bringing whatever you were assigned to. You can get to know different people very intimately under those settings. My husband and I had the privilege of having one evening with three other couples where the men all had been in WWII, it was amazing and education evening.

I would say every weekend, something was going on if not at the Church, in different homes. Another thing we did that I feel is different from the Catholic faith is that we would have what was called a “all Church clean up day” everyone came and helped clean the Church. I met some of my best friends helping out with that. There wasn’t any…men do this, women do this. Everyone was involved equally and it was fun.

I don’t have an answer as to why the Catholic Church isn’t like that. It just isn’t. I am involved and go out of my way to help promote more of a connection within my own parish. So it’s not for a lack of trying. But Catholics in general seem more interested in getting their kids sacraments and heading out the door to the parking lot as fast as they can. This is what I’ve found, not always but for the most part.

Now having said all that, I realize that many will say “well, Church isn’t a social club” etc…but you asked if I missed that and yes I do miss the closeness. Our own parish can’t really accommodate coffee and hanging out after Church right now due to the parking lot issues. We will be breaking ground this spring for our Church, once we build it, I’m sure we will have more going on and I’ll be there serving coffee

just curious, what percentage of your parish participated in the dinners and the camping and the coffee after service?

we have coffee after mass at our church. but we don’t usually go.

we have group clean up of the church and the grounds. again only a subset of the parishioners participate.

basically what i am saying is things are there if you are interested in that activity

 

[chewchoo]

My wife and I have volunteered for plenty of service opportunities at the parish, but that’s not at all what I’m talking about. That’s gone quite well - it’s life outside of formal parish activities that’s not gone as well.

And then when we’ve suggested outside activities, nobody’s interested. It’s like they’re satisfied in knowing us only as fellow parishioners, and only within the confines of some formally-structured activity within the parish, and that’s enough for them.

what kind of activities are you talking about here? friendship type stuff, get together and chat. or friends where you have bible studies?

 

[djrakowski]

what kind of activities are you talking about here? friendship type stuff, get together and chat. or friends where you have bible studies?

My wife suggested a loose fellowship of women to discuss Christian topics, not necessarily tied to a curriculum, and nobody wanted to come because “we already have a Bible study.” They wanted a party time instead.

We’ve invited quite a few people to our home, and nobody’s taken us up on the offer. They’re interested until we actually suggest a date and time, but no matter what we offer, everyone says they’re busy.

We had one couple who agreed to do a Bible study with a good Catholic apologetics book. They had me buy the books for the study, and suddenly all their free time disappeared, and they haven’t tried to re-schedule.

I struck up a conversation about Christian living topics - how to be a Christian father, husband, employee - with a guy from our men’s choir. As soon as I started talking about the faith, he suddenly remembered he had to be somewhere else. The conversation was going just fine as long as I was interested in listening to his rant about political candidates, but as soon as I wanted to get his opinion on religious topics, the conversation was over.

 

[Jeanette_L]

Please explain, too, how the need for fellowship is a weakness. I thought we were supposed to live together in close-knit Christian communities and share each others’ burdens.
.

I don’t believe a need for fellowship is a weakness at all, but as for my part in this idea, what I mean to convey is that there are times when we can become too “addicted” to “being” with other people too often. And I don’t mean that fellowship doesn’t have it’s place, a very real place and need, but I have noticed at times in my own life, and seen this with other people as well, that we can become addicted to the socialization, the fellowship, and feel as though life would end for us if it diminished. Maybe part of a co-dependency - if you will - that becomes out of balance.

I have seen in my own life in particular, that God has had to ween me away from some of these dependencies at times, because He should be always the center and at times activities and “fellowship” became the center for me instead.

I’m just talking balance here, that’s all. I’m not saying we should abandon community and fellowship, just maybe not be as dependent upon it for our joy or sense of well being in Christ.

I mean, even as we are working our way through this dilemma in this thread, I can look back and see how things have developed in my own life in this area and it’s interesting to me, that’s all. The longing vs. the balanced participation of the good in community.

:grouphug:

 

[djrakowski]

I don’t believe a need for fellowship is a weakness at all, but as for my part in this idea, what I mean to convey is that there are times when we can become too “addicted” to “being” with other people too often. And I don’t mean that fellowship doesn’t have it’s place, a very real place and need, but I have noticed at times in my own life, and seen this with other people as well, that we can become addicted to the socialization, the fellowship, and feel as though life would end for us if it diminished. Maybe part of a co-dependency - if you will - that becomes out of balance.

That’d be fine if I got any Christian fellowship outside of the internet. But I don’t. Believe me, my life was quite well in balance before I converted, although with all the opportunities available at the old place, one could easily have over-committed (but we didn’t).

 

[chewchoo]

I also think that we shouldn’t expect every encounter with a fellow Catholic to be deep and meaningful, espcially as we get to know people. A casual get-together where the conversation includes sports, what the school board is up to, and the weather is not necessarily a bad thing. From these humble beginnings come the great friendships that support us.

so true
as someone has already said, most cradle catholics go to church purely out of a sense of obligation. it is only by the grace of God that they truly become catholics with a fire for their faith.

so developing a friendship with a fellow catholic where the main topic of discussion is the faith is something that must be approached delicately. most cradle catholics don’t even know the gravity of their sinful existence. a group presentation or listening to father corapi as a church activity are good ways to introduce these catholics to the truth of their faith, and then they may slowly be more receptive to personal faith discussions.
just my :twocents:

 

[chewchoo]

as someone interested in the Catholic faith, this is the one thing that worries me: the inability to form fellowship with other practicing Catholics and talk about the faith in depth with them, and simply make friends.

I have a nondenominational friend right now, and I don’t like to say this but I fear that I can’t stand her these days. I don’t like to spend time with her anymore because I think her goal is to bring me away from the Catholic Church. We have had debates on Once Saved Always Saved, Salvation by Faith/Works, etc. that not only have not gotten anywhere, but have left me feeling livid inside, even though I had kept my temper. She knows I’ve been interested in Catholicism, and she is doing her utmost to bring me to her nondenominational Bible studies and nondenominational church, claiming that she knows many Catholics who attend both the studies and the church she attends, etc. Shouldn’t those Catholics she talks about be going to a Catholic Church, unless it were absolutely necessary that they don’t?

All I want to is find some Catholic friends and be able to learn more about the faith from Catholic people, but if there is not enough fellowship, or if there is not enough knowledge of Catholicism among the laity, my journey to Catholicism is going to be so lonely that I fear that I will lose my motivation to stay on that journey to Catholicism.

Any helpful ideas? Thanks.

right here in the forums is good fellowship

at a face-to-face level, you’ll have to weed thru a lot of catholics at your parish to find someone. i don’t mean that as discouragement, just the truth

 

[katy]

I have found some of the friendship I was missing by becoming a small part of the Prolife mission of the diocese. That wasn’t necessarily what I was planning, but it turned out that way. I met a few people who were on the same wavelength as me, and they knew a few as well. This has improved things considerably.
As an observation, I think the turmoil of the past few decades has taken its toll. Priests and other leaders didn’t seem too on fire for the faith, so why should anyone else? I see hopeful signs of that turning around, but for now finding a few like minded fellow Catholics is a priority. I may not have time to see the fruits of the turnaround.

 

[Jeanette_L]

so true
as someone has already said, most cradle catholics go to church purely out of a sense of obligation. it is only by the grace of God that they truly become catholics with a fire for their faith.

so developing a friendship with a fellow catholic where the main topic of discussion is the faith is something that must be approached delicately. most cradle catholics don’t even know the gravity of their sinful existence. a group presentation or listening to father corapi as a church activity are good ways to introduce these catholics to the truth of their faith, and then they may slowly be more receptive to personal faith discussions.
just my :twocents:

It’s funny, because even when I was in RCIA, I falsely assumed that the reason most were there was because of their excitement over having found the truth, and I was embarrassed at my assumption when several looked at me as though I had gone off the deep end for expressing that kind of joy.

But, I did meet a couple of people who understood where I was coming from and felt the same way, unfortunately after the RCIA experience, our parish being so large, actually running into them again has been rare.

We have a lot of people who are very active in the parish and many activities, but I still don’t find too many who share the same enthusiasm that I crave.

Here I find it easier to connect in that way, so I am learning to be content for now until God sees fit to change that for me. Maybe that’s what he really wants right now from me anyway, to be content in Him until life takes me in another direction.

 

[mikeledes]

My opinion, and I mean this as politely as possible, is that you shouldn’t solicit responses on other threads.

Is this a violation of a rule? Since the threads I “solicited” responses from were general discussion threads, I thought that asking for assistance was not a problem.

God Bless,
Michael

 

[anamchara]

just curious, what percentage of your parish participated in the dinners and the camping and the coffee after service?

we have coffee after mass at our church. but we don’t usually go.

we have group clean up of the church and the grounds. again only a subset of the parishioners participate.

basically what i am saying is things are there if you are interested in that activity

No, I’d say there really isn’t the activities that you can join in that even come close to what we had as Protestants. It’s hard to compare because of all the variables.

There is a few things going on here that I can see create confusion. Our church was not nearly the size of the parish I now attend. Being smaller will lend itself to more intimate relationships. I couldn’t give you a number chew, frankly I don’t remember. It was a huge amount though in the 80 people range maybe for the dinner club and then the fall retreats was normally over the 100 people.

Another aspect of this is that Catholics have schools often attached to the parish. I know this topic of converts feeling out of place has come up a great deal, I’ve seen these types of threads so many times but I remember a cradle once writing that if your child is in the Catholic school, that is where you get that family sense as you are constantly working and doing stuff with the other parents. So this creates some opportunities for friendships.

You could very easily start up gatherings in your parish for couples groups or families but I have to wonder, would they come? This is where it’s different I think. Now Dan is talking about more spiritual groups and to make it clear, that is not all I’m talking about, although I do feel spiritual groups are very important and I would join that as well. I am also talking about just socializing, having friends with like minds to do things with. Maybe couples that pull together and go to the movies, have dinner together, Christmas caroling with the families etc…As a Protestant, gathering together as a faith family is part of worshiping, it’s much more than showing up on Sunday. You are part of God’s family and you look out for each other. Sort of like “raising the barn” events. Once you start going, everything thing you do sort of centers around church. Not a social club but part of Gods family. You do so much together, it’s a given and you want to. This doesn’t mean that all Protestants are like this, sure we had our check book Christians, as we called them. Or pew-warmers but they were not the norm.

In my experience in training altar servers and teaching catechism, I’ve found most Catholic parents want nothing to do with being at the church outside of Mass and taking their child to catechism classes during the week. They do what is only required of them, nothing more. I really believe they feel they have what they want, they have their own family and are very happy getting their children the sacraments and the moving on. Maybe coming to Mass when they can.

I don’t get the impression that these people are interested in going on any trips together or spiritual groups and that’s fine.

What we are talking about in here, is what is missing as a convert. So yes, there is something missing. All we can do is get involved and help make a difference and be happy if it doesn’t always work out, know that you tried.

There is a cultural difference going on here, IMHO. My husband and I both find it interesting, in fact we were talking about it yesterday. I’ve been interested in this topic sense I converted just on a sociological stand point. Is there really a cultural difference? I think so.

 

[anamchara]

I also think that we shouldn’t expect every encounter with a fellow Catholic to be deep and meaningful, espcially as we get to know people.
Give your parish another chance. Invite a few folks over for a few apps and some chat and don’t expect everyone to want to be serious all the time.

No one is expecting every encounter to be instant friendship, we are speaking more in general terms about the differences and what is missing.

 

[anamchara]

Appreciate your comments, bro. But as good as you’ve been through my conversion and subsequent struggles, you don’t fill the void of having someone I can call and sit down over a coffee to discuss the challenges of raising a Christian family, or living as a Christian in the workplace. As fond as I am of the folks at CA Forums (particularly you, mikeledes, anamchara, Jeanette L and MariaG), you can never replace ‘real’ people.

 

[djrakowski]

As a Protestant, gathering together as a faith family is part of worshiping, it’s much more than showing up on Sunday. You are part of God’s family and you look out for each other. Sort of like “raising the barn” events. Once you start going, everything thing you do sort of centers around church. Not a social club but part of Gods family. You do so much together, it’s a given and you want to. This doesn’t mean that all Protestants are like this, sure we had our check book Christians, as we called them. Or pew-warmers but they were not the norm.

This is a perfect expression of my thoughts - thank you, ana We enjoyed spending time with the friends we made at our old church, and there was a feeling that we were doing the same things, moving in the same direction, sharing our joys and burdens, and growing together in sanctity. In short, we had the same purpose, and I often don’t feel that’s the case with my fellow Catholic parishioners.

What we are talking about in here, is what is missing as a convert. So yes, there is something missing. All we can do is get involved and help make a difference and be happy if it doesn’t always work out, know that you tried.

Yes, there’s absolutely something missing. It isn’t in the area of religion, either - our parish is quite well-known for its orthodox presentation and practice of the faith, which includes praying the Rosary and the availability of confession before each of our 27 weekly Masses, and a solid faith formation program for our youth. But it’s not translating, at least for us, into connections outside of these formally-sanctioned parish events.

Thank you Dan, it’s very kind of you say that. And I agree about filling that void. CAF friends are great but it’s not the same. :nope:

You’re welcome You’re all wonderful people, but I only have access to your companionship when I’m logged onto a computer. And believe me, when I leave work, I prefer to leave the computer behind. I need the sorts of connections I’ve formed here to be available to me in the ‘real’ world.

 

[anamchara]

“Fellowship”, as n-Cs generally practice it is not really something that I need or want. I mean, my wife and I meet and enjoy talking with a lot of different people at breakfast after Mass on Sundays and daily Mass, or at suppers at the church during the week, but I find that most of us are so busy that if we wanted such a fellowship that it would be a major scheduling pain. As a result we tend to just get it all together when we can and I’m fine with that.

 

[djrakowski]

I don’t know what “n-Cs” means. Sorry, can you explain ?
…
what the heck is n-c communities?

Shorthand for non-Catholic

 

[anamchara]

Shorthand for non-Catholic

never heard that one. How silly of me. I thought they were our “SB” shorthand for separated brethren

 

[mikeledes]

A call to cradle Catholics! You need to closely pay attention to what the converts in this thread are saying. What they have expressed is also the feeling of many cradle Catholics who have converted to Protestantism! I know Catholics who are attending Protestant churches or have become Protestants, and this is one of the reasons they cite. A combination of good catechesis and good fellowship will not only spiritually enrich Catholics, but will also help neutralize Protestant attacks. Remember, many Protestant churches consist of ex-Catholics. We need to wake up and smell the napalm! There’s a battle going on out there and it’s over Catholics. There are plenty of Evangelicals, Mormons, and JWS aggressively seeking Catholics and many Catholics do not have the spiritual weapons to fight back. Apologetics is not enough. We need to supplement apologetics with a vibrant spiritual life and not just be Sunday Catholics. We not only need to hear the Gospel in church, but also live the Gospel 24 hrs a day! Those who have a vibrant spiritual life must work to infect other Catholics with their enthusiasm.

God bless,
Michael

 

[Jeanette_L]

What we are talking about in here, is what is missing as a convert. So yes, there is something missing. All we can do is get involved and help make a difference and be happy if it doesn’t always work out, know that you tried.

There is a cultural difference going on here, IMHO. My husband and I both find it interesting, in fact we were talking about it yesterday. I’ve been interested in this topic sense I converted just on a sociological stand point. Is there really a cultural difference? I think so.

I think that there is absolutely a cultural difference and I think it causes a lot of stress, not only for us converts, but also for Catholics who are very comfortable with the culture they have, and they don’t like people coming around and trying to change the atmosphere or make demands on them.

I’ve seen this especially in the Traditional threads here. It inevitably comes up that the Church is caving in to Protestant converts. There is a real resentment that is taking place because of the cross over between the Catholic culture and the Protestant culture.

How this eventually all works out, I haven’t a clue. There are times when reading some of these things, I get the distinct impression that many Catholics would prefer that Protestants not convert and cause such stress for the Catholics in having to deal with all this.

It’s a changing world, and people don’t like change. We converts are finding it difficult to adjust to a culture that is completely foreign to us and where we frankly at times, don’t feel as though we are even welcome.

The cradle Catholics are feeling very stressed because the Church is recognizing:

1) it is losing a lot of it’s own due to it’s inability to change readily in the non-essentials, (such as disciplines and practices, not doctrine here. ), without causing major upheavals and even abuses;

2) the number of Protestants and Catholic reverts coming in from the Evangelical world with a hunger for both the Truth of Catholicism and the joy of Evangelicalism.

I don’t know that it will be resolved in our lifetimes, I doubt very seriously it will, but what we are seeing is growing pains, and they don’t call them pains for nothing.

And for some reason, we have all been called to come into the Church together at this place and time in history to try to sort it all out. I mean, is there anyone of us who even doubts that we were called by God to the Church? And I’m sure that we don’t any of us believe that what we had as Evangelicals/Protestants was all wasted, we bring some very valuable spiritual gifts with us that are meant for the whole Church to be edified by.

So the best we can do is be who we are and at the same time try to assimilate as best we can without causing to much stress on those around us, pray for our parishes and fellow Catholics, our Priests and Bishops and the Pope, who have the headache of having to try to make sense of all this and keep some semblance of peace and order, and let the Holy Spirit do His thing in the midst of it all.

Can I hear an Amen?