Perhaps instead of renouncing your Evangelical church and leaving it, you can stay and work to try and reform it from within. Unless you think they’d disfellowship you and kick you out. Do you have an idea of how much you could do while maintaining unity?
This will not work at all.
First of all, the new Catholic should be in a Catholic parish, not in a non-Catholic church. The new Catholic should be establishing friendships with other Catholics, getting involved in parish life to whatever extent they can, and developing a close relationship with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Very few people in the U.S. have the luxury of time that stretches to allow them to be involved in more than one church, especially if the purpose of being in one of those churches is to “reform them from within.” That’s a huge undertaking.
The Evangelical Free Church in America has “autonomous” churches, meaning that there is no central denominational council or convention or consistory. Each church is “free” (hence the name “Evangelical FREE Church”) to run their own church, establish their own rules, support their own ministries and missions, etc.
What this means is that each EFree church will take a different approach towards members who become Catholic. It’s possible that some EFree churches will kindly welcome a Catholic who is obviously trying to reform them from within.
But based on my 47 years of enthusiastic involvement with Evangelical Protestant churches, the last 7 of those years in the EFree denomination, here’s what I think is more likely to happen.
The local EFree church would go on High Alert. The word would go out among the congregation, probably through public announcements, regular letters, and perhaps emails, that there is someone in their midst, mingling with them and their children, a former member who has fallen to the “enemy”, who is threatening their church, attempting to “reform it” and destroy all that their church teaches, and steal them away to a “church” that is questionably not even Christian.
The local EFree church will eventually oust the intruder and shun him/her. The ousting might be done privately, in a meeting or “tribunal” done with the former member and several members of the pastoral staff, and probably some of the higher-up officials in the EFree church will be called in to join this meeting. (Even though the EFree churches don’t have a central denominational council, they still have people who are on staff at their denominational headquarters.)
It’s also very possible that the ousting could be done in a public way, so that everyone in the church will be aware of the danger posed by the intruder, and will take care to stay away from this person in the future.
If some of you think I’m being melodramatic, I’m not. I know what I’m talking about. My husband and I, along with our daughters, were ousted and shunned by our EFree church. It was hellish. It’s been 11 years now, and I still have the occasional nightmare about it. My younger daughter does not attend any church–she doesn’t trust them after what happened to us.
My advice to the OP is the same as everyone else–brief and cordial letter, thanking them for their Bible teaching which laid a foundation for them to convert to Catholicism. I would add that the OP should emphasize the BIBLE over and over again. Make sure that they know that the conversion to Catholicism is occurring because the Catholic Church and her teachings line up perfectly with the BIble. That would be the best “evangelism” that the OP could do–plant a seed in the hearts of whoever reads his/her letter so that they might someday start investigating the Catholic Church and comparing it with the Bible.
Both are excellent btw…Ray - Crossing the Tiber and Currie - Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic. You are in my prayers on your continuing journey to the fullness of the truth.