03/30/20 Keith Nester

[Music] good evening and welcome to the journey home I'm Marcus Grodi your host for this program I know if you've watched the journey home you know I've said over the years that I work for an organization called the coming home network International which part of our work is to help non Catholic clergy discover the beauty of the church and so often the guests that I have on this program are not just those who've come home to the church but they were pastors they were ministers they were involved in ministry and that in itself offers unique challenges for those that are looking at the Catholic Church such is the story of our guest tonight which I'm looking forward here in the details of the story I guess is Keith nester former Methodist pastor he's got a website Keith master dot-com Keith welcome to the journey home thanks for having me Marcus it's great to have you here I know from hearing from some of my staff that you've had some context with us over the years yeah I did I had a conversation with Jim Anderson a few years back when I was discerning all of this and we had a couple of really helpful conversations to me well at least some part to play a big part well we're we're there to be beside people like yourself we were on the journey but let me back up and invite you okay let's start us off from from the beginning well okay so as you said you know I was in ministry I've been in I've been in lots of different things I'm kind of a jack-of-all-trades mutt of ministry I've worked as a youth pastor in the Methodist Church a worship leader I was a pastor in Assemblies of God Church for a little while and and Evangelical Free after a serve churches in that so I've kind of been around but for me it started when you know I grew up in the home of United Methodist pastor my father was a was a pastor and and so you were good PK I was a I was a stereotypical PK to a point you know I was I was running around the church acted like I probably owned the place when I was a little kid you know and and and everything but I grew up going to church I had an experience with Jesus Christ at church camp you know where the you know the pastor said anybody wants to accept Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior come down and do so and I was 10 or 11 years old and I did so and and at that moment was when I would at that time you know say that's when I became a Christian you know and I grew up with it but that was when it became real to me and then was it a real thing it was yeah it was an absolutely was it changed my life I mean I granted I was 10 but that was the the thing that centered me the most through my teenage in high school years was this idea of I'm a Christian you know I love Jesus he's he's he's my Lord my Savior so I I grew up in the you know the 80s so that was kind of the height of of like Christian youth group culture and things like that so I listened to a lot of Christian music and that's where I got my theology from and even though my dad was the pastor I I didn't always go to church didn't go to youth group very much my dad was pretty good about not pushing me into things because I was the pastor's kid he just let me be me and so for me music was a huge thing you know I was a drummer in different bands and so so that was really where I put a lot of my focus but while I was doing that I was going to different youth groups across town so I went to in some ways of God youth group I went to you know non-denominational churches and and I always kind of felt like I didn't really fit in with my parents Church maybe that's the typical PK thing but you know so I grew up with the faith in my life in an authentic changed heart I mean you really had met Christ yeah yeah I mean that was my relationship with God as a teenager was what kept me away from the typical things that teenagers would do that was you know I didn't I didn't drink I didn't have sex I didn't do all those things you know I tried to be as good a good boy that because I was trying to like you know be a good PK but because I really believed in Jesus now obviously I wasn't perfect but that was the reason for a lot of what I did or didn't do growing out all right all right all right and brought up essentially Methodist though you were kind of sticking your toe and of these other groups yeah you know for me this church camp I went to was really formative in my life and it it was it was a Methodist Church camp and and so I was really heavily involved with that all the way up until probably I was 18 or 19 years old when I started college and then then I was a little bit too old for that but it was it was a huge part of my life so it wasn't that I grew up knowing everything about what it was to be a method that's just the world I lived in you know you know but it is significant you mentioned that you went from being an attendee to a leader yeah and and that often for Protestant ministry especially is the places where you learn your gifts in leading and teaching and preaching well it was something I wrestled with because you know growing up as a PK a lot of people would say to me oh you're gonna be a pastor someday you're gonna be a parent I was like no way I don't want anything to do with that I I have no desire to do that I hated school I didn't want anything to do with that so I wanted to be I wanted to be you know a drummer in a band so I dropped out of college after one year and joined a band and did a bunch of stuff I wound up in Philadelphia when I was 19 I think move got to Philly to join to join this band and while I was there you know the guys in the band were much older than I were it was it was a completely secular thing I was the only person in the band that had any kind of faith at all but really that was what I was after was you know music and while I was in Philadelphia I was trying to find some kind of church to go to because I was lonely and I was lost and I was not lost in like a spiritual sense but just in a relational sense - I needed to connect my faith to some people so sometimes I would go to church two or three times on a Sunday morning just driving around looking for some place where I could fit in or be long and I tried a Methodist Church that didn't work I tried everything I could find well I found you probably weren't trying to come I know no so yeah that would have been the last place I would have ever tried because you know my experience of Catholicism or I would even say my experience my lack of experience with Catholicism was I knew nothing about Catholicism other than what I had read growing up and some of my you know with some of my brush with fundamentalism whatever to stay away from the cult of Catholicism stay away from you know I remember I used to have this this apologetics magazine that would come to me in the mail from this fundamentalist group on California and there was a whole article about the cult of Roman Catholicism so I just saw that and thought nope you know no desire to learn about Catholicism inai didn't connect with any of it I was I was into rock and roll music I was into all this so that's what I was looking for when I was looking for a church and I found it I was walking around South Street which is like downtown it's you know Philadelphia and these kids were handing out tracts and I just wanted to know who was doing that and it was a group called Calvary Chapel so I went I want to go in a copy Chapel Philadelphia and that became my church home where it's a big giant mega church but they study the Bible verse by verse and I fell in love with just reading the Bible sign the scriptures and is that a rapture Church yes yeah yeah and that to me was like okay I'm going to church Sunday morning Sunday night Wednesday night suddenly that became more important to me than even my band well the ministry part for me came when our pastor gave up he gave a message about Abraham and Isaac and this idea of sacrificing that which is most important to you I knew that to me was my music and I prayed this prayer God if you want me to give this up let me know and I'll do it and then I just felt like something was going to happen and then a couple days later I got invited to interview for a youth ministry position in a Methodist Church back in Iowa with a guy who had been to church camp with and long story short I wind up doing that and that's how I got into youth ministry was through that so God pulled me out of that all right but after it was it after college what you dropped out of college I dropped out of college I didn't finish college until like I started in that church they said we want you to get your degree so that I went to I was going to school at a Presbyterian school actually until I finished that while I was working in youth ministry so I ended up finishing got a degree there but yeah I mean I don't know who why these people hired me I was a college dropout played drums in a bar band didn't want to be a youth pastor no idea you know that must have been on the Lord I I don't know long story short it was it was a great and fruitful time for me in ministry but it was through that experience that you know my my journey toward Catholicism began okay our guess is Keith nester I look back on my early youth ministry days I was with young life for a while and but I look back and realized there I am in front of these kids telling them what it all means and realizing I'm not sure I know good theology you know that what did I pass along to these kids I mean that's kind of look back on your days for our youth ministry you probably didn't have a lot of training in that sense yourself but you were up there and you were leading them I was up there I mean we our little youth group started with about 12 kids and in about three years we had 250 300 kids come in every single week in a church that at the time had about 250 people Wow so then the church started to grow and this thing became this thing became a monster I mean and I say that kind of a good way but I I know exactly what you mean because I would feel every week like my job is to get up here and teach these kids something and what I really wanted to do more than anything was introduce them to Jesus was get them a relationship with Jesus I never was really a good you know denominational youth pastor because I didn't really care so much about you know their behavior where it was like just keep them nice having go rake leaves for the old people on the weekends and have him served the bake sales and raise money we didn't do any of that stuff we did a we did a full-out rock-and-roll worship service on Wednesday nights we had a band we had all this kind of stuff and that was our thing but it did put a lot of pressure on me to cause me to sit back and go do I really know what I'm talking about yeah I remember that Scripture tax is better to have a meal we'll put around a person's neck and throw them in the lake then to mislead one of these little girls yeah I'm only I mean and I'm sure I've have earned my share of mill will say no I have you know Wow so there you were yeah not really open to the Catholic Church you're out there serving are you happy with that a trajectory you're thinking at the time ministry yes I was kind of thinking about do I become like a fully ordained United Methodist pastor do I stay in the youth ministry world I had just been married so back up for a second I met my wife in Philadelphia okay and she was raised Catholic or whole life but never went to church it didn't mean anything to her went to Catholic school though she's just kind of Catholic because that's just what you were you know and that was her background but it wasn't important to her personally so when we met in Philly I said you know I want you to come to church with me and she said well I am Catholic and I said you got to leave that I'm like ditch that come with me to the fun church kind of a thing and I'm gonna teach you about Jesus so she came with me and she was like I don't care so she came with me to Calvary Chapel and and that's where she would you know got saved and and when I went to back to Iowa to be a youth pastor she ended up moving back and we got married about a year later and so what was happening was I was going to school working to youth ministry finishing her my trying to discern am I gonna just go full-bore United Methodist pastor ordained elder all that stuff we can stay in youth ministry and my youth ministry was growing so I was feeling more led in that direction and I didn't want to mess it up by by you know finishing the m.div so as the group was growing I was starting to learn more about marketing and the church and how we grow this thing and what we had to do and one of the things I I decided I needed was a good logo for my youth ministry you know I didn't want to just have like a design a logo contest with the seventh graders and wind up with something terrible so I'm gonna hire a professional so I'm looking through the yellow pages you know it's no internet it's 1999 and I and I find this guy call him on the phone and he's a designer and I explained to him what I'm doing he sounded like that he was interested and he sounded kind of cool over the phone so we agreed to meet and I went over to his house and he said he would show me some ideas for for this logo so I know nothing about this guy I Drive over to his house and when I get out of the car I'm walking up to the front door and there's like all these statues and I'm like why does this guy have a statue of the Virgin Mary and some other guy you know I didn't know and who they were like maybe he lives with his grandmother you know or like I don't know what's cool I knock on the door and he opens the door he's about my agent and he invites me into his house and his house you know basically it's a little less Catholic looking than the Sistine Chapel you know I mean and I've been at the Sistine Chapel but like there's statues everywhere in this house and there's no television and there's images and icons and paintings and I'm walking in and it's like what just he's got a little holy water thing by the door he invites me in and I'm like what is going I sit down in his table and he shows me these ideas and the guy was great with his graphics you know and so we start talking and I just stopped in the middle of this conversation because he's he's talking about Jesus he's talking what I'm doing youth ministry and I said wait a minute hold on his name was Devon and I said Devon it's clear to me that you have some kind of relationship with Jesus right he's like absolutely what's all this and he just laughed and he's like well I'm a Catholic and that was like completely mind-blowing to me and I remember I just took me a minute to process that and had to ask him finally I just said all right hold on a minute I saw one to ask him a question that I didn't know how a Catholic would answer so when were you saved and he just laughed and then he began to explain to me you know things of the Catholic faith in a way that nobody ever had I was there for probably two hours and well I also I didn't tell you this it was my anniversary that night and his wife was upstairs and she finally calls down she's like you guys keep us to go home it's his anniversary and I'm like oh I gotta get out of here what so then Devon hands me that he says I got something for you and he hands me this VHS tape of a guy that looks like my dad shaking hands with the Pope and he says this guy was like you only worse and he became Catholic watch this and as the Scott Hahn conversion story of course and I take this thing home and I'm like what is it that I go home my wife was like where have you been you know and I'm like you got to hear about this guy I met well I watch that that conversion story Scott Hans the it just blew me away no blew me away because I was in school I was going to college and Seminary at the same time I was doing all that and I was learning all these things about church history and I was and all of these things were coming to life for me but I'd never heard anything about Catholicism from anybody who was actually Catholic and it just began to blow my mind would your did was your wife happy to hear that you were talking with a Catholic after you'd pulled her out of the church no I I didn't really talk to her about it a whole lot I shared a little bit with her about it but I was very guarded about what I was learning and thinking because it really freaked me out and there was a part of me that was excited about this this new stuff I was learning but another part of me that was really horrified by it because clearly I couldn't go anywhere with it because can't be a Catholic and and you know when your job is working in ministry and that's your gonna be your career I had kids and everything now and and so I was sort of like this little interesting thing I was into but I didn't really like make a big deal out of it because I don't want anybody to to continue to work with me on it well it's interesting as you know we work with people so you have your first contact with Devon which was like wait a second why doing here and then the conversion story Scott's in this case but often it's others conversion stories that seem to establish a new trajectory but often that's at the point when when a person decides am I going this way or my kits gonna back away and not go so did you keep getting other books or what I did for about maybe a year and a half I was because Devon's handing me books he's taking me to go see like Tim staples came to the church this and that and and then a kind of a crazy thing happened to me was I got invited to go on a pilgrimage with a bunch of Catholics over to Rome and in this place called measure Gurion which I was like what the heck I don't know anything about any of this when when they told me about all that I'm like this is insane why would I want to do that but somebody else was gonna pay for me to go a guy who his daughter was in my youth group but he's Catholic he said hey I'm taking this trip want you to come with and Devin was gonna go something like okay I'll go but I'm not gonna be Catholic just everyone just chill and I went on that trip yeah well what'd your wife at this point gonna know something yeah she's just like what are you doing okay you know what are you doing and I was just like don't worry I might become Catholic like I'm learning about this stuff I really like this guy Devin and everything this is interesting but don't worry there's no way I become Catholic so I am telling her don't even think about it it's not gonna be a thing there's no way and on that trip you know I learned two important things about Catholics that are I experienced two important things about Catholics that I were still foreign to me the first thing was I got to experience Catholics having fun together and so the way I talk about sometimes I got to party with a bunch of Catholics which was it blew me away because the way they related to each other and this this familial environment they all had together was a new thing because I'd always thought of Catholics as like the frozen Chosin you know the the rigid staunch grouchy grumpy people who don't smile or talk to each other and here were some people that were like having a great time so that kind of was challenging my understanding the second thing was I got to watch Catholics who love Jesus and Mary worship and I'd never seen that before and being on that trip opened my eyes to what real authentic worship in Catholicism looks like and it was it was amazing and it was shortly after that trip I came back and I was sort of getting to that point where I'm either I do this all right don't and I remember we had a church camp and it came time at a worship service that one of that that week and a friend of my was who's a pastor was we were getting ready celebrate communion and he gets the bread and the the grape juice and he's beginning to do you know a very loose littered liturgical experience around communion that doesn't look like anything you know biblical or whatever it's just sort of loosey-goosey but kind of about you know what was happening and I had this experience it was late at night and this is a wave of motion hit me and I felt like the Lord was saying to me you know I want to give you the real deal and something I went outside and I just broke down and I remember I picked up my phone I called Devon and I said you're not gonna believe this but I think guys call me become Catholic now Devon and I had had this relationship where I was always trying to convert him to become prostitute he's always trying to convert me to become Catholic so we would like go toe-to-toe oftentimes publicly and now I'm telling him I think I'm gonna become Catholic but this is you know the year 2000 2001 I didn't come into the church till 2017 that scared me in that moment and I started to begin to count the cost and I really like the Lord put that on me and I ran I'm like I can't do this there's too much so I said I'm done with this and I walked away we call that no-man's land in our work yeah we're a man like yourself yeah I just start now maybe exploring the church not really thinking about it then you start discovering things which you'll never look at the church the same wellness I mean you become Catholic but you'll never look at it the same and you went through that wrong and then you get to the point and you realize whoa this is gonna mean some major changes in my life my work my vocation my marriage everything and we call it no-man's land sometimes the guy gets stuck there for a long time but sometimes you said I got to put this up on the shelf for a while yeah I ran the other way and I ran the other way hard like I was no way get this away from me I can't even consider this and you know years went by you know ministry all kinds of things happen in my life and and it wasn't until years later I found myself I had that's when I you know years into that I wound up out of the Methodist Church working at a Boys Ranch for a while and then serving little churches in the ìiî Church for a time and then in some ways a God Church and then again back in the Methodist Church I'm in a large Methodist Church in the town where I live now going back into this thing full time and that was probably 2012 I went into that and then a couple years later began to happen that stirred this whole thing back up for me you know I'm wondering again I like to ask what's happening with your wife situation in this because that's a big part of journey you know so there you went for many years 10 or more years she assumed it's all in the back burner it's never up you're happy you guys are loving it the way it is right yep yeah we were doing fine everything was going good I had a good job I had you know we we were doing just fine and some things were beginning to happen in our denomination that we're really starting to stir the pot in my spirit why don't we pause okay that's sounds like a good place to to take a break and before I go to a break I'll take this opportunity as I often do is to talk about the coming home network just briefly you know the reason the coming home network exists specifically is to be helping guys like Keith during the time you're talking about because often they go through that they discover things about the church and then they back away in office because there's not the fellowship there of others that have been on the journey but you had Devon and others but when you when it really hits you you can be in that no-man's land and so the this each network is there to help people on the journey we'd love to invite you to go to CH network.org to find out more about our work and if you happen to be on the journey we'd love to talk to you and there's conversion stories that'll encourage you along the way so let's see H Network door we're back in just a woman with more of Keith's [Music] [Music] welcome back to the journey home I'm your host Marcus Grodi and our guest is Keith nester former Methodist pastor and I paused you just when you were talking about you had you had had an awakening to the Catholic Church strong awakening it was getting close but no cigar so yeah backed off for many years and you're serving as a minister right yeah I was serving as my official title was pastor to youth and mission but I also preached my team taught with our senior pastor so every other week I was the preacher and in in the the main service and then run the youth and organized overseas missions and things like that so I had a lot of different roles during those times had your attitude toward the Catholic Church change in terms of the way you may have talked to people or had you put it so far to your mind that just wasn't there anything well I had to kind of get to a place where I could justify everything I had learned about Catholicism in my initial exploration but without making the jump to Catholicism I had to I had to find a way to explain and justify that to myself so basically what I did was I said well this whole idea of you know this pure Roman Catholic Church it's a nice idea but it's it's not really real you know and the Catholic Sept just many problems everybody else does and but I didn't I didn't want to dig back into it too much because I was just it was more about about fear than it was about theology like I still believed I knew I had some things that I couldn't get past and I had some objections to Catholicism some doctrinal things that I said that I never really at that initial level solved so those were some of the things I clung to you as a way to say well yeah but you know I can't buy those things so then I just don't have to do it all right all right so you and your wife are comfortable and you were we were we reach your head as a minister yeah so you know some people have a testimony that you know my life was a mess and then God fixed it you know other people have a testimony that my life was great and got messed it up you know and I don't want to say that I have one or the other but I was comfortable where I was from a certain point of view but things were beginning to happen in our in our denomination that were churning up these old conversations I'd had about Authority and Scripture and tradition and how we know what it is that we know about the Christian faith and I found myself on in these conversations with people debating social issues and scriptural issues and finding myself sounding like a Catholic in these arguments you know talking about well it's this not that because of the tradition of Christianity I wouldn't say the tradition of the Catholic Church but I would say the tradition of the of the Christian religion has always taught this and and we have this succession of teachings and and here and there so I was I was beginning to sense that all of this authority stuff was was coming into play because what I was seeing around me was just mayhem and people just doing whatever they wanted to do and having no regard for anything that had ever been taught historically by the Christian Church and really a no regard for the scripture from the standpoint of well this is what the Bible says it was all about well that's just what I feel so I started to have these these conversations and this feeling of home and I don't know if I can I was it didn't take me long before I felt like okay I don't think I can stay a Methodist for very much longer but then where do I go and I've been - I've been other stuff but what I had learned was that the things that were drawing me out of United Methodism weren't just drawing out of United Methodism they're drawn me out of Protestantism and because I started to really real-world understand the need for the teaching Magisterium of the church for apostolic succession and for the authority of the church because I I can clearly see around me things were falling apart without it you know I I remember my own time when I was in a similar period but but I remember hitting me that one as a Presbyterian I'd go to the annual meeting and where they're voting to decide what's true yeah yeah I mean that'd be true of you for a Methodist to I mean what's the authority behind these groups of people gathered to decide me when we're of course we're going through that right now in our world with the Methodists about ready to split over over an issue they can't agree on but what are they basing their decision yeah and those were the conversation I was having now the local church I was a part of with a great church and the pastor I worked with was it was a great guy who was solid and we were we were aligned but I was really bothered by these greater issues and I remember feeling like how much longer can I do this where's God leading me well right in the middle of that I had this other experience where it's gonna sound crazy right but where I feel like the Blessed Mother just sort of reached down from heaven and just snatched me which is interesting because you know the the Mary the Marian dogmas of the church and the Marian doctrines I wouldn't they kind of bothered me yeah like they do a lot of Protestants because I wasn't raised with any of that I wasn't raised I was raised on this is the Bible this is what the Bible says and this is what it doesn't say and if you believe things that aren't in the Bible you really don't have a lot of ground stand on so I was kind of like your normal Protestant when it came to some of the Marian stuff but I had this experience where I was preparing to preach through a sermon series in Advent and I was writing a sermon about the basically when the angel Gabriel comes to announce the only unusual work that Mary is going to give birth to Messiah and as I'm in my office writing this sermon I began to get emotional which is weird for me like every time I would think about her and write about her and talk about her like this wave of emotion would come over me and I'm like what is going on and I got up and preached this sermon about it was called when Mary gets the news and I preached this sermon and it was all about all the Catholic stuff that I had ever read about the typology of Mary's the new eve Mary is the new Ark and and what that means and I talked about this greeting that Gabriel gives to Mary and why would he give her this greeting when the week before I'd preached about what happens when he when he came to Zechariah and who's a you know the high priest he's a blameless man and Gabriel doesn't greet him that way but here he is with with this young woman and he says hail full of grace what is that and it just it just overcame me and I remember a friend of mine came to visit me that the Catholic one of my Catholic friends and I told him about it and then he's crying so we're sitting there we're both crying talking about the Blessed Mother and I I went to my senior pastor and I said look I got a situation I think the Lord's called me become Catholic and he just looks at me and he goes well okay here's what I think you should do he says I think you need to write and preach a sermon series and are in our church about the the nature and history of the Christian Church and I said to him I'm like you want me to do what he's like I think you should do that and I said well you might not like what its gonna say because the stuff I'm learning about the church is about the papacy and about apostolic succession you know what he said to me Marcus he said Keith if that's the truth then why would you not want to tell it to our people I was like game on game on so I preached this sermon and so I'm working through these things while I'm preaching so I'm basically like I'm preaching through all of the the the things that God is doing in my heart while at the same time still trying to figure out how to get out of it right because I'm still not ready to become a Catholic but I'm clearly feeling like I need to be and it was a it was a crazy time it was a crazy time because you were hiding all this stuff from your wife right um kind of I mean I was being a little more vocal with her about it and I was starting to talk to her more about it I had started going to daily Mass you know I was doing the whole sneak away on lunch hour to go downtown go to the daily Mass at the at the Catholic Church and just experience that and I was learning more about it and feeling things like that and so I'm talking to her about it I'm sort of letting her know a little bit more because I mean this is years later so we were a lot more mature in our relationship so I was more mature anyway she was already mature and I felt like I could tell her more about this is where I think's coming is what I think I'm doing and she's she's like okay okay what about this what about that but she wasn't like shutting the door on me she was just kind of saying well what's this gonna mean for us if you do this well meanwhile I was going through a hard time in my life my mom was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer just out of the blue and so I would take a lot of trips to go spend time with her and my dad and I was sharing with my dad one day we were on a walk and I was telling us a dad I I think I'm called become Catholic and he said to me he said Keith if you're gonna become Catholic like there has to be a way you can't just quit your job walk away from it there's got to be a way you know a way for you to support your family and a way for you to to be involved in ministry perhaps you can't just bail on everything you're doing right now you got to make there's got to be a way and that so that was sort of in my mind and I'm thinking well I really want to do this I don't know what to do you know and I think this is probably by the time where I was in touch with the coming home network and had these great conversations with with Jim Anderson who was very helpful to me and and you know just began to think about what would this look like and I started meeting with it with a priest and I remember he said to me once as I was recounting a lot of these things and the the journey I was on I said well I guess I just need more time to pray and more time to think and he looked at me said no you don't he said you need to make a decision oh man this guy's reading my mail you know he's he's just telling it straight to me he's not cut me any slack he's not he's not saying oh it's okay you do whatever he just said you need to make a decision I think he could sense that I had already had all the knowledge I needed to have at that moment to know that Catholicism was true but he just needed to like push a different button in my heart to say now it's time for you to do something and so I had this I had this this moment I referred I call it I call it the Steve Ray day okay I know you know Steve woke up in the morning do my devotions and I just get this sense from the Lord you know if I was a Pentecostal I'd say the Lord spoke to my heart he does that that I need to get in touch with Steve Ray now to me Steve Ray was just a guy I saw on YouTube I'd seen on YouTube I didn't know him personally I hadn't read any of his books I just watched a couple of his videos and thought he was a had a really interesting conversion story and he could preach about it how do I get ahold of this guy no idea what to do I'm scheduled to have dinner with with one of my friends one of my Catholic friends named Greg the guy who took it took me on that first trip and we're gonna have dinner that night and so I meet him a little bit early for a dinner in this town about halfway between where we are I'm in this restaurant and Greg walks in sits down I hadn't said anything anybody about this whole Steve Wright thing Greg sits down before we even order anything his wife texts him and he says oh my wife just texted me and said tell Keith that Steve ray is giving a talk in you know whatever town Illinois which about 45 minutes from where we were you guys should go and I just was like are you kidding me we ate fast I called my wife so I'm going to Illinois I'll be home late tonight okay whatever we go to this church we walk in and they're having mass and it's before Steve would talk and this church is packed walked in and I'm just like what is God doing and I'm sitting there and I'm watching the mass as I always do and I can't receive the Eucharist yet you know but I'm just feeling like I'm just lost lord help me give me courage to do this I get up I go forward I do the whole get the blessing and I kneeled down and I'm praying and I'm here's the prayer that I'm praying I'm like God if you want me to become Catholic I will do it but you've got to make a way you know the words of my dad are echoing in my mind you know you've got to make a way and I look up at the cross and as if Jesus spoke to me he said you don't need me to make away you just need me and it just hit me and I'm there and I'm looking people are receiving the Eucharist I'm praying and he's like you just need me and knew that you know this was it Steve gets up gives us amazing talk about how the early church were willing to die for the faith rather than then give up the faith they were willing to be martyrs and go to their death rather than deny their Lord and here I was believing that this is true but yet I'm afraid because of a job I'm afraid because of strained relationships perhaps or because of money or because of whatever so we get this thing gets done my friend grasped me he says I gotta go introduce you to Steve ray I'm like I don't want to be that guy you know about but a guy he's talking to these people and he just pulls me up there and he says to Stevie says since this is Keith Nestor he's a Methodist pastor he's thinking he needs to become Catholic well you just give me your phone number so he gives me a copy of his book upon this rock writes his number in their hands it to me any and he says he says you either need to become Catholic right now or turn around and run the other way and never look back on the way home I told my friend I said that said I'm doing this I got home told my wife I said honey I'm become Catholic we got to do this and you know what she said to me she said if that's what you feel the Lord's calling us to do and that's what we're gonna do next day I went in told my senior pastor that I needed to do this and eventually I don't know within a month or two I had announced it to the church that I was going to resign my position and come into the Catholic Church and that's what happened how was that received it went over like a pregnant bull Walter you know it was there were a lot of people that were like what are you talking about Catholic are you crazy because people knew I was pastor Keith I was the contemporary worship guy the the high energy preacher guy the last thing they thought of when they thought of Catholicism and so they just didn't understand a lot of people were like we love you and we want to support you but we don't know about this and you know it's been tough yeah one of the problems when you tell people like that is think about how long it took you to process the data yeah they don't have the data they didn't get all that stuff yeah so when you're trying to tell them this it's going like this cuz they haven't really a clue cuz they're starting out where you were yeah long before you got all that stuff I try to have that grace well the day I came into the church was October 7th or 8th I believe and I didn't come in on the Easter Vigil I did sort of an ad-hoc RCIA thing with with our priest my wife and I we got our marriage conv alidade in the church in August of 2017 and then October 8th that came in and I went up to receive the Eucharist for the first time and then of course we did the the passing the sign of the peace and I turn around I feel a tug on my shoulder tongue on my shoulder and the first person to say the peace of the Lord be with you Steve Ray he happened to be in our town and our parish at that mass that exact day I don't know if you ever made the connection because I don't know him personally but it was almost like the Lord just said look this is coming together and it's been an amazing journey ever since then and yeah I've had some struggles I've had some different things you know like everybody does he's coming to the church but God had been so faithful to me you know all these things that were standing in the way in our Lord says no no you just want me yeah right yeah so now you've come in has the door the Lord opened doors he's opened some incredible doors to me more than I can ever possibly imagined and I mean I I I'm in the middle of some really exciting things right now I I started giving talks almost immediately and I do a talk up on YouTube that I that I gave and about a year later I noticed it was starting to blow up and so now I have a YouTube channel that I interact with with lots of people through that I'm gonna be working with this new ministry called down to earth that we're starting through a group called stewardship mission of faith that's helping me to give me opportunities to serve in ministry so I'm excited about that so basically I'm gonna be I'm continuing in ministry you know it's been a couple years where I just had to get up there and work but now that God's opening doors for me it's it's just been an amazing experience what God's doing and I couldn't be more grateful he's not only made away he's made a better way than I can ever possibly imagine your your experience reminds us as me of one of the parables that our Lord gives that we often point out pass along to men like yourself around the journey and that's the where Jesus talks about when you get invited to the wedding feast don't insist on the front row seat you take the back row seat until you're invited forward and that's what a convert has to do is you be willing as Jesus says you just need me and you take whatever it is and you want to serve him and then you just trust and and let the Lord work through that because remember when you and I were youth ministers and we're telling these kids and we realized we didn't know about what we're talking about right well when you become a new Catholic it takes a while to to register all that stuff will come to an understanding you don't just know it immediately no I feel very new it's great like our priest told me the first you said I'm just gonna leave you alone for a year I'm not gonna ask you to do anything just enjoy being Catholic and man it was great to be just a regular guy going to church not in charge of anything just sitting back being ministered to I have loved that time in my life it's been like people would say oh don't you miss it truth is I didn't have time to miss anything because I was just being fed so much of Jesus and so much Holy Spirit and so much truth that I didn't have time to sit back and think about what I've lost because what I've gained has been so much more edifying to me so now that it started to to turn a different direction where I'm putting things out and helping people and and sharing a little bit I just feel so grateful to the Lord and to his mother that I've been blessed that anybody would care what I would have to say so it's a humbling thing but I'm incredibly blessed yeah there's a I think it was Saint Benedict that said we aren't supposed to be channels we're supposed to be reservoirs and his idea was that when we were youth ministers what we were learning we were passing right along you just got going right through us but what Benedict was saying is that no it's got to come out of the depth the reservoir of our growth with Christ in the church through the sacraments so that what comes out has been seasoned absolutely it takes a while to make sure that what we're saying is true your wife returned at that time she came into the church with me she had a tough decision to make because our kids were so I have three kids and they were older teenagers at the time and it was it was clear that we weren't going to force them to do anything and they decided not to join us into the church so my wife had to decide do I go with my husband or do I stay with the kids and it was it was a she's got her own journey in her own story but she she came into the church with me begrudgingly at first just out of a sense of like this is what I should do but God has worked in her heart in an amazing way and and she's she's in love with it and and she she has come in to her faith as a Catholic now in a way that's just beautiful to see so she's right there with me it's awesome you did make a comment before we got on that you at least watch the journey home at once during this process many times oh yeah I mean I've watched I can't even tell you how many episodes of the journey home I've watched so it was it's it's an incredible thing to hear others come into the faith from different perspectives but in some ways we're all telling the same story but the road that we get there is different yeah and it's just awesome to see that it's like it's an immediate family that we join and it's it's it's incredible yeah the reason I mentioned that was not to get a pat on the back but to recognize that that sometimes the the journey can be very lonely I mean because who do you talk to yeah you know you had Devin you know who else you know do you talk to especially we've gone through the kind of experiences you were going through or what you'd have to give up something that to me what the journey homes about as well as the artwork for the coming on network we have an email marked from San Francisco writes given the difficult state of the church today with so much scandal and confusion what does Keith think is a good way that the average Catholic can help build up the body of Christ and help bring others closer to Jesus that's a great question I think the best thing that anybody can do is to work on their own personal holiness and to not worry about anything anybody else is doing from a negative perspective but always to be focused on how I grow closer to Jesus because the church is it going to be renewed from you no I don't believe from some doctrinal decree that comes down from Rome I think the church is going to be renewed from people who say I'm gonna be the best Catholic I can be I'm gonna work to be as holy as I can be so my advice to anybody would be don't get hung up on what other people are doing or what other people are saying get yourself on fire for the Lord and on fire for your faith and that is going to spread and that's going to strengthen other people around you you know our Pope Francis right now has said a number of times on the one hand he it almost talks like he's saying that it's a sin to try and prophesize someone he said that and and it can be confusing but when you listen to all that he's saying he's basically saying you better get your act together yeah because what you say to someone has got to be matched in your life that's what you're saying you've got to we've got to grow in Jesus absolutely and our Holy Father says that all the time about our need to follow Jesus Christ we we have to model a faith that that dispels the misconceptions that Outsiders have about us and we have to do that by knowing our Bibles and by being joy-filled and by being devoted and in love with our faith because the misconception most people have is that Catholics don't know their Bibles and they just go in through the motions they're praying they're vain repetitions and they're just doing what they have to do to check a box so they think they can go to heaven and we got to show them that that's not what we are that's not who we are who we are are people who love Jesus passionately and have given him our lives and he's given him everything he's got and it's changed us it hasn't just been some you know imputed declaration of righteousness no it's infused into us it's made us actually more like Christ because that's what he said he would do and if we get in from the sacraments if we receive that I'm telling you it will happen and it'll blow the world away but they need to see it in us yeah I love it I love your first comment when you walked into Devon's house and you realize no wait there's something wrong here you love Jesus and you're Catholic but it's sad because you know I I longed for a day when people would say oh wow you loved you must be Catholic there you go that is the that is the time we're in right now yeah James starts his book in the Bible by saying you know consider it all joy when you face various trials I mean that's part of what we're in right now and rather than to get discouraged right this is how God tests our faith to see what our mettle is see what we're made of and who we're looking at you for a while they were being drawn well my job you know my stuff my my future and he says no you just keep your eyes on me I mean that's your witness he's the treasurer you know he's the treasurer we have another email this comes from I think it's Eddie from Minnesota does Keith have any advice for someone coming into the Catholic Church with a background in Protestant ministry I'm employed as a lay leader in my current church and wanted to serve within a Catholic context but don't know how my background and skills will translate after becoming Catholic that's a that's a question a lot of people in ministry wonders like well what can I do and I would say the first thing you should do is just just chill out for a little bit and enjoy being Catholic but when you're at the point where the opportunity presents itself volunteer yeah make yourself available you know I believe that if you're faithful with little things God will give you more and if you if you put yourself out there as a resource to your parish into your diocese and wherever God can use you then he'll he'll scratch that itch that you have to serve in ministry yeah of course one of the hard things is if if all you've ever done is ministry yeah you went to seminary you got your m.div you've been a pastor it's all we've ever done now you become Catholic I couldn't agree with you more yeah get involved in your local parish let the priest know that your sincerity but that you're not pushing yourself yeah exactly but you still good I support your family yeah and there becomes the struggle yeah and you know what that's tough I mean I've worked outside of the church since I've converted and it's a different world but I've never felt any different like it's I still feel like I'm in ministry all the time because that's just what I believe I'm just doing a different thing for it to get paid right now but but I still feel like the same person whose job is to spread the gospel into to tell people about Jesus you don't need to do that for a job you can do it no matter where you are saint john paul ii wrote a great encyclical called or I think is an apse like letter on Christopher Dodd ahe the life of Christ faithful but it talks about the important ministry of a layman and if you think about it when you're a pastor more often than not you're preaching to the choir yeah but when you have a secular job you have direct contact with people that don't know Jesus so in some ways as a layman working a secular job you have a more opportunity to make context for Jesus Christ and you might have as a pastor oh I've experienced that many times it's it's the absolute truth if your eyes are open to what the Holy Spirit can do through you he there will be plenty of opportunities all right no let's let's just assume for a second that somebody's watching right now who is where you were Methodist youth minister Methodist pastor non Catholic they think the Catholic Church is crazy but they happen to flip on this program and they heard your story why should they make the same journey you've made I think that it's all about the fullness of the faith you know I'm not a guy who's out there saying oh if you're not a Catholic you're not going to heaven or this is I'm not I'm not here to make those judgments but I will say this what I've experienced being Catholic feels like I just sat down to a steak dinner that's the best meal I've ever had in my life and up to that point you know I've had a couple cheeseburgers and some mac and cheese you know and I'm not trying to be disrespectful toward anybody but I would say it like this you don't know what you're missing it's it's better than what you think it is and whatever you're afraid of to leave behind you have to trust Jesus that what he has for you is better than what you can imagine but don't make the mistake of thinking that that is going to turn into worldly success or an easy time it's not going to be an easy time but it's going to be an amazing time and if you're gonna follow the path of the apostles you're gonna follow a path of the disciples who gave up everything it's like that man who Jesus said he found the treasure he in the field he sold all he had and he bought the field and it says in his joy he dug up that treasure he had to dig he had to get dirty it wasn't just buried under under a branch he had to get himself down in there and it was work and he sweat and it cost him but when he found it it was all joy no well what about when they say but look at the scandals yeah look at the problems you know what I understand I appreciate that but the fact is their scandals everywhere your find me one church that doesn't have a scandal in it at some level and and Jesus never promised that there wouldn't be a scandal but what he did promise is that his church would would not fall even to the gates of hell that it would prevail against everything and we'll get through this yeah and what he did promise is that if you're gonna follow me you're gonna get tested you're gonna get temptation you're gonna get it hit from all sides and so that we need to pray for our leaders who are bombarded with temptation another thing I think about what I think of the scandal is as I feel like God is bringing in people to the church to help to help fight for the church - like I've only been Catholic for like a couple years but I feel like when I see bad things happening in the church and I hear about the scandals and things I feel like this is my home I want to fight for it I want to work to make it better and I feel like that's you know maybe God can use that in some way with with people who are so fired up about their faith usually their converts that are coming in there they're fired up they're just like you know people who just got engaged they're just like out to lunch because they're so unloved right you know a conference like kind of like that and you come in you're like a newlywed and you're like I'm gonna do everything to make this church as awesome as it can be I think God needs that or the church needs that and I think God provides that all right so be that person you know get in there and makes make a difference Keith thank you so much thanks Marcus thank you for everything you do thank you and again your Keith's website is Keith nester dot-com find out more about what you're doing you're speaking opportunities you're writing you know you got a new book that's come out they can find out about at your website thanks for sharing your thank you so much thank you for joining us on this program I hope Keith's journey was an encouragement to you god bless you see you again next [Music]

Channel: EWTN

Views: 47,537

Keywords: ytsync-en, jht, jht01695

Id: oe7JGpsCcf0

Length: 55min 51sec (3351 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 30 2020