07/15/19 David Sanborn

[Music] well good evening and welcome to journey home I'm Marcus Grodi your host for this program once again we gather we relax to hear a story and the story is is about how the holy spirit through grace awakens someone to the fullness the beauty of following Jesus Christ and surprisingly home to the church isn't always the goal of those that we have as guests on the program our guest tonight David Sanborn was a non-denominational pastor very committed and in fact you'll find out in a moment that his whole life was involved one way or other in ministry so but the Lord opened his heart and has used him in great many ways so it's a great pleasure David great to be here - join us on on the journey home I will talk about it later I got to meet you a while back at one of the coming on network retreats no but it's been a while since I heard your story so I'm kind of - yes I mean just here dinner with the audience yeah so let me back away and I let you two take us all the way back and start the beginning your journey all the way back beginning my journey well the beginning my journey I suppose starts before the beginning of my journey with my parents journey yeah my mom grew up in a home that had no faith of any particular kind my father grew up in a kind of a nominal Methodist Church where he apparently never once heard the gospel preached he was even a Methodist camp counselor and knew nothing of the scriptures when he went to college he had to take three credit hours of or six credit hours of either religion or philosophy and he was talking to his advisor and they were just bashing Christianity in the church and how they're all hypocrites and and his adviser said you know what might be a really good project for you he said why don't you take New Testament and Old Testament survey for your 6 credit hours and your project can be to go through and find all the errors in the Bible all the hippocrates all the inconsistencies my dad said yeah that sounds like a great idea so my dad studied so hard trying to find the inconsistencies that he got the highest grade in the class and he got the ends of it and he said this is truth but he decided well you know what there was a Steve from the cross who just kind of committed his life to Jesus at the very end you know I just enjoy myself and then and then I'll do the same thing and then he ended up marrying my mother my mother meanwhile was a West End actress and this one day they were trying to support my uncle who was being baptized into the Mormon Church and the London Mormon Tabernacle and he was inside being baptized for all of his dead relatives and my mom went running into the lobby just crying and crying so my dad went out after her and said honey what's the matter and she said this is just as wrong I just I just feel it's wrong but I how can I tell my brother this is wrong because I don't know the truth and so right there in the lobby of the London Mormon Tabernacle my dad shared the gospel with her shared the krugman and he always likes to say that she was the first person he ever alleged the Lord and he was so convicted by his own words that he was the second person so they both committed their lives to Christ right there and the Mormon wyvern Ackles Lobby and just really got it ignited in their faith right in the midst of the whole Jesus revolution out of the 60s and 70s got right into the whole thing about you know reading through your Bible at least once through every year and and and into the moving and the gifts of spirit and keeping short accounts and so this is kind of the environment that I grew up and where I was born into a family where my mom likes to kind of keep an eye on us and so she would invite all the kids in the neighborhood to come to our house excuse me man in Oakland and as we were there you know before we played games Raftery played games she would give a little Bible lesson you know regularly throughout the week and teach you know Christian songs to all the kids in the neighborhood so when I was a I guess I was about five years old my parents gathered us together as a family and said you know for some time we've felt called to the mission field but we really believe that he's also called us your parents that's obvious and you to be part of our family and so if we're called that means you're called to we're not gonna leave you behind either physically or metaphorically and so you need to pray about whether you have a calling to the mission field and well it helps that my parents had always been instilling us with a zeal for missions and every time there was a missionary in town they did invite them over for dinner to share their their testimonies I don't mean rap what would you say then that unlike your folks that you with their blessing who knew our Lord from a very very rare yeah and this was a real mystery to me until quite recently huh because to just fast forward for just a moment my sister and I took an evangelism explosion class in high school and the basic tenets of evangelism in the evangelical sphere is you share what your life was like before Christ what your conversion experience was like and then what your life is like after I mean that's the basic gist of it and and that's all well and good but my sister she she was able to formulate her testimony and she shared about how you know in practice for the class she shared about how she had been so rebellious and just stubborn and and willful and refused to do anything my parents asked of her and then at the age of three she gave her life to Christ interestingly my parents they know that's exactly what happened that is literally what happened but with me it was different and my parents had seen that it was different and I never understood it I never understood why is it that my earliest memory my earliest memory actually does go back to the age of three being in Sunday school and the Sunday school director saying if anyone would like to commit their lives to Christ you can go ahead and do that now and thinking I already have ease everything to me and I don't know a single day in my life where that hasn't been the case and it's been a matter of recommitting every single day of my life just that devotion and that love that the he's drawn so drawn me to himself and and it wasn't until not long ago a few years ago that I found out that I had been baptized as an infant it right at the point where I was reading the Church Fathers nugget in to that later and reading about child baptism infant baptism reading its historical roots and seeing that there's really no other explanation you know then that that's when it happened for me that that baptism was actually efficacious it wasn't just a ritual probably interesting in the sense also that I'm assuming the evangelical environment that you were in would not have considered baptismal regeneration oh no there's no box to put it in so the source from that Sanford there was none of that but what you had was you know we Catholics don't believe that baptism saves a person without right you have the baptism where you all is gone the old new has come but it has to be formed and so for you you had that baptism yeah I hadn't you were formed exactly good parents so exactly had yeah so I had Jared drawing me pointing me toward himself through baptism and that wasn't the end of my journey that was just that was the starting point so that then through my dad reading the scriptures to us every single night before we went to bed and and and then he would usually couple reading scriptures with just telling us a Bible story just with his own words and and animated and fun and and engaging so that said the Bible was for all of us was our passion we just loved the Bible the way kids grew up loving candy we loved the scriptures you know you could say something like isaiah 14 we go like someone just said chocolate you know you're just like salivate for isaiah 40 or philippians 2 or you know whatever it might be so that was the environment we grew up in and my parents said after we prayed about going missions and we said yeah let's go to the mission field my brother said yeah god's gonna send us to the mission field to hawaii and my prayers said that was so funny it was like son do you know what Hawaii is and my sent my brother said no no I've heard about it but I don't know what it is but God's gonna send us there and and I didn't know what Hawaii was you know but my brother said that's where God's gonna send it so I knew that's where he was gonna send us so every night before we went to bed we would say and Lord when you sent us the mission field send us to Hawaii and I didn't even know what blessings that I was trying to keep upon myself but you know wanting to go to some tropical paradise but anyway about a year and a half later my dad gathered us as a family and said you know I think it's time for us to ask God when he would like us to go I mean it's possible he won't you know show that to us but it's possible he will and and he said you know there's no junior holy spirit you know you have the same Holy Spirit that we have and so if he can speak to us he can speak to you and so um and really I should back up even for a moment there and really our understanding of the Holy Spirit and and the gifts the Holy Spirit and and the workings of the Holy Spirit was something that my parents didn't really come to believe in until I was about a year old and I had fallen down the stairs smashed my head against the wall was black and blue unconscious wasn't breathing my dad put the mirror to my nose and then my mouth and I wasn't breathing and and I was turning bluish and and my my dad had had seen a number of like kind of fake healing evangelists at this point or at least ones that he had discerned were fake for whatever reason and he just decided yeah you know the theology that teaches that Christ to stop doing miracles I think that's the one that I ascribed to and my dad and mom were frantic my mom was calling the doctor and my my brother who was three years old or four years old tugs my dad on the pant legs and said daddy when we have a little hurt we go to a doctor but when we have a big hurt we go to Jesus I don't know where he came from that but through the Holy Spirit presumably and as my dad is rushing to get me to the car my dad said we'll go find pray for him you know and he wasn't gonna waste time on praying for me and so my brother just apparently prayed a simple prayer dear God please heal my baby brother in Jesus name Amen and my dad watched as the knot on my forehead shrunk down color returns to my face I woke up and my dad as administrator' Hospital he knew that one of the first signs of shock is that you lose your appetite well I woke up a set up and said I'm hungry this was a paradigm shift for my parents so so back to the story of Paul you know our guest is David Sanborn paradise chip for your parents has it ever struck you I'm sure it did to look back on the that and says but for the grace of God yeah so your your life at yours yeah from that point you only mean yeah you're here yeah by the gift of grace yeah yeah I'm no that's absolutely right I mean it's all grace it's it's the whole idea that when you even though I don't have that memory of that experience just knowing that that happened just brings home you know even more that every breath is a gift that everything that we have is just God's grace it's not of ourselves but like by the gift of God yeah so so and there was very much that sense in our family from that time forward that our lives belong to Christ our lives are not our own we have been crucified with Christ therefore we no longer live maybe it certainly is the attitude that we all should have when we look at baptism or confirmation or a time when we've had a reawakening but but yet for some of us when we have that it's it becomes like a milestone in your life to remember at that point from then on yeah this is yours Lord yeah whatever you want to do with it I shouldn't be here from the age of 100 oh yeah so your dad then you got all gathered to pray to the Holy Spirit to see whether you're gonna go to the mission field so he really believes in the power of the Holy Spirit very much so at this point they are just all in and that they can't deny what they've seen and what they've now experienced since then and he said maybe God one study we don't to presume but maybe God wants to tell us when we're supposed to go and even at the age of six I knew my numbers I knew my I knew I had a right not because I was very smart but because my sister loved school so much she went on to get her doctorates and everything else she loves school so much that she would come home everyday and teach me everything that she had learned so I'd already gone through a few years of curriculum before I even started school so he said let's just ask God when he wants us to go and write down the date that comes to mind and then we'll just you know see if he speaks and so we all went to a different corner wrote down a piece of paper came back put it in the hat and my mom took out the first piece of paper and the first piece of paper said January 1st 1980 there's no that's interesting sympathetic side and but the second piece of paper the second piece of paper also said January 1st 1980 all 5 pieces of paper said January 1st 1980 so my parents said well I guessed January 1st 1980 we were going to the mission field so as of the end of September of 1979 my dad who was administrator at George Washington University Hospital handed in his resignation and they on the spot offered to double his salary if he would stay anything man I should have quit years ago I said no we're go to the mission field and they said where he said I don't know he's here with what organization I don't know and meanwhile we had been looking at a number of different organizations but as we pray to bed as a family we didn't sense the go-ahead for any of them so now meanwhile my mom who was a singer she was approached by word records and offered an incredible recording contract turned it down said no go to the mission field they said where don't know what organization don't know get to halfway through December of 1979 we're out of the house at the end of the month we've given away everything that we had down to two suitcases each which is another story but it was an incredible experience to spend the Christmas season just giving everything away and my dad is in the office of this you might call like a talent scout agency for missionaries basically it's an agency that connects people who want to be in missions with mission agencies and it was called the krishna service corps and dave the director said art you handle millions upon millions of dollars in your job you of all people know that the worst decision you can make is no decision you've got to make a decision about one of these offers my dad said I know I know but we keep on praying about and we get a very strong check in our spirit saying no don't do it I don't know what to do with that and just then Dave got a phone call a long-distance back when long-distance actually was something from this organization called youth with the mission why when and they wanted to know if Dave knew of any hospital administrators who are interested in missions and Dave said in all my years of doing this I've only ever come across one and he's sitting across me right now would you like to talk to him and so they talked and long story short we just knew this was what God was calling us to and which again is amazing that I say us because how many parents really involve their children in those kind of decision and that's a scary thing you know you're risking a lot to put it in the hands of a six-year-old but as a result we had buy-in so we knew that it wasn't that our parents were called and we were tagging along and we had to endure the the suffering but we didn't get the benefit and which is what happens with with some missionary kid families but there was no suffering I could compare it to knowing that God had called us he had spoken and we were going and we were gonna get to reach people with life through Jesus and so my dad called back why wham and said okay the answer is yes when and where and they said well we have to first have you go through the six-month orientation program we have those all around the world but Lauren Cunningham the founder would like to get to know you personally and he's based in Hawaii could you be in Hawaii January 1st 1980 so you boys got your prayer so you landed running I mean your dad job and you're in a field so we hit the ground running it was the most amazing way to grow up just with with our whole lives revolved around the charisma around ministering and one thing that's very unique about youth admission is that Loren Cunningham when he founded the mission really believes that it was supposed to go beyond denominational lines and he was actually he was cut off from his ordination as a result of that ecumenical approach so we actually grew up around people of all denominations I should say even Catholic so there weren't that many Catholics but there was this one priest in Chiang Mai Thailand we were ministering named father O'Brien he wasn't a member of why we him he was there with the Catholic Church directly but he was one of the holiest men I were any of the other missionaries or missionary kids had ever met and to this day my parents were recently talking to the two most elder statesman missionaries of Thailand the ones that have that reputation and they said if it wasn't for father O'Brien we would not have survived in the mission field hey he just took it on himself that these are brothers and sisters and Lord they're Christians therefore they're they're part of my flock you know and so he just he pastored them and so it was just it was a beautiful way to grow up and to see that kind of attitude of yeah there are there are definite differences and it's not that the differences aren't important and that they don't matter but there's work to be done the stakes are high souls are being lost and we need to be about the the father's business of going out into the harvest field now but father Brian was very influential in my life very influenced from my father's life well I was gonna say one of the keys in evangelization in mission work church work is a sense of urgency yeah and once the sense of urgency is either lost or downplayed it affects everything yeah you know and eventually it can lead to a laxity in the enthusiasm to reach out yeah you don't think that makes me think not I had worked with organizations not overseas but in the States back when I was a Protestant and often there's a struggle in parachurch organizations are you a church yourself or not and I if they didn't with the whole system and so to take the ecumenical approach which was a bit like when I work with young life it was like that yeah young like this very much so some churches don't know how to take you mm-hmm because there are even organizations I don't want to name one evangelization organic it's on churches overseas yeah because yeah I'm are you Church mm-hm we just a missions outreach I gotta tell you mission organizations that did the same thing and and my dad faced that very that very dilemma when my parents together but especially when my dad would go alone to or with a group we're without us as we stayed in the city and did our schooling because we couldn't always go for the the long terms the big three week trips and he would go and the Holy Spirit really move amongst a people group that were remote as could be just a far walk by foot and the dilemma was well we are we are a parachurch organization we're not a denomination how do I give accountability to these people and and and and how do I just assign a denomination if maybe that denomination is thousands of miles away for the nearest church and there was no email there was no telephone there was no way of communicating so so if he had just assigned a certain denomination that had no access it would be by name only because they would maybe see some accountability once a year if if one of them could make it to the city or someone from the city could make it there and so my dad's rule actually became the nearest church that believes in the Apostles Creed I'll make that church the mother church for this village and they will just become that part of that denomination matter of fact when he led people Lord he would always find out have you been baptized and if you've been baptized Catholic he was taking the father Brian so you need to be discipled my father a very interesting so is a very unusual way to grow up yeah I was gonna say that's very very interesting I mean that Matthew 18 passage that says wherever two or more are gathered in my name there align amidst of you a lot of groups say well that's a church sure you know so yeah so this idea of church and what is church especially if if you would come across that verse in first Timothy that says that the pillar in ballpark of truth is the church absolutely and you're out there in a mission field which sure yeah yeah in his third church and you the nearest church might be a very strong Calvinist Church but you guys might have been more Methodist as only do I put him with that church anyway no farther afield I know I decide yeah that's a question that comes up in the mission field that doesn't always come up sure elsewhere yeah and I think it what really led to that decision my dad's part was the fact that there were so many huge issues that were plaguing the villages like whether or not it was appropriate to sell their daughters and sons into prostitution that he figured you know what the question between sovereignty and free will they can get to that at a later date I mean they've just got to get their flooring first in the basic tenants of the gospel the fact that it's not appropriate to make Jesus just one of your gods for instance he has to be the Trinity has to be your only God you know so because there were so many bigger questions of bringing the gospel into a non-christian eyes culture that seemed to dad to be the the safe Psalm 11 says when the foundations are destroyed what are the faithful to do yeah well you're in an area where the foundations oh yeah didn't even exist yeah exactly so you're dealing with the essentials and non essentials and the diversity there that we'll get to that yeah yeah but it's the essentials and I can really see that what a neat environment that your parents brought you up into now we're gonna go to a break in a couple minutes was any of this inspiring you it was this is a sparing you to a career in the ministry what were you thinking at this I just wanted my whole life to be circle around ministry I loved it matter of fact when I graduated from Wheaton College I said okay God can I go back to Thailand I just want to be a missionary well I had also studied music in theater at Wheaton College and I really felt like God was calling me very unusually into the mission field of theater and film which is the direction that my life took matter of fact the day after I prayed that I had said in my prayer I said lord if this is of you I don't know where to begin hey can you at least help me know where to start the very next day I found out about an audition for West Side Story and the audition was for the next day and I auditioned and they looked they were looking for someone who looked authentically 17 which at 21 I did without my beard at 46 I some say I still do and so as a result I got the role and then my career just took off as an actor I began to get a number of different roles was doing various TV commercials and spots and as well as mostly musical theater though but really in the midst of it all saying but but where is my witness because you know this is wondering how that yeah IRA men yes I had anticipated that this was gonna be my opportunity to in you know backstage you know when are we waiting go on stage I could be sharing about Jesus with people but any mention of Jesus just got shut down people would literally say I hate Jesus not just I hate Christians that I had heard before I'd never heard this kind of rhetoric and it was incredibly unnerving and I began to wonder where is my witness in the midst of all of this I was also wondering you know when you think about there's certain methods of acting there's the method you know where you really become mm-hmm the character mm-hmm and if you're an actor with a number of roles you take on a number of characters yeah and I wonder if is that a difficulty in terms of continuing your your understanding of your faith and living it out but at the same time you're giving your all and becoming this person yeah who might be a bit different the year yeah well there was some detach that I was able to have with the rolls themselves but but at the same time it also my Christian witness very much limited the roles that I could accept and I began to get frustrated with both the moral content as well as the quality of roles I was being offered and I was having to you know turned down roles and even the role as I was accepting it was basically it would be a role that well that's not a compromise and I didn't want my life to be just about well at least I'm not compromising you know I one of my life to be about more than that and so I begins going these long prayer walks where I say Lord I want to use my giftings it you know I know not everyone is called to directly communicate the gospel through what they do but I long for that I hunger for that and especially when you're sound like you're in an environment not only were I mean everybody's playing these roles yeah yeah very much and then when you wanna offstage bring up our Lord yeah yeah yeah so the trajectory of that is always in a negative direction very much very much and the Eucharist was really key for me during this time all right we're to hold on that though yeah we're gonna come back and take a break right now cuz we'll find out about that those of you joining us we're gonna come back in just a moment here more of Dave's story but I want to remind you just before the break about our website CH network.org in which not only if we went to that you'd find all kinds of the conversion stories but Davis stories up there too so and invite you to go to CH network.org let's come back in a minute a bit and hear more about David's story [Music] [Music] welcome back to the journey home I'm your host Marcus Grodi and our guest at David Sanborn and I've rudely interrupted him in the middle of you just mentioned the word Eucharist yeah yeah so you're acting you're you're very much acting mm-hmm making my living for a number of years just from from acting and singing and and I was at an Anglican Church one day and so longing as I said for a chance for my life to be a witness for what I do to be a witness for what I do to point the way to Christ and I saw all these people getting up to go and receive our Lord in the Eucharist and their witness to me was powerful just the act of them walking toward the Eucharist with whatever their understanding was as Anglicans that this was more than just a symbol and I began weeping at the witness of their lover for Christ in the Eucharist and I remember praying god I want my life to look like that I benefit from now on I want my partaking of Eucharist to look like that but I want my life to look like that and in the midst of my tears I then went out and I one another just long prayer walk just just walking and just praying trying to listen and it it was a number of days later that the idea came to me of doing a musical about King David doing a one-man show about King David and doing it word-for-word from the scripture and so I said about doing that at the time I was engaged to be married I called up my then fiance to let her know about this exciting new idea that I had and she said actually David there's something I need to tell you and she broke up with me and called off the wedding and so in that same day it was like when Jesus talks in John 11 about how the grain of wheat must die so the one vision died and the other took fruit and that began an incredible journey I did it off-broadway its hoarded on five continents it really took off but then I began to find that my favorite part of the whole show was finding some excuse to share a little bit about the gospel at the very ends because it's it's all Old Testament it's all from the Tanakh so when I did it in in New York we really promoted it to the Jewish community because it's all from their Tanakh word-for-word and at the very end though I really wanted to give a witness for Christ and so the first night I just said well this is my first performance I'd like to commemorate the occasion by sharing about some of David's Messianic prophecies and they said oh that's wonderful we're honored you know and then the second night of this is just my second performance so I'd like to commemorate the occasion by sharing from my heart is that okay we're like oh we're so blessed well this is just the fourth Friday or this is the fifth Tuesday or this is how I try to find some reason to take five minutes to share awareness and every time they responded as if they were the most you know privileged of all audiences because I'm actually gonna share from my heart but I found that was my favorite part of the whole show is not the acting although there's something powerful about speaking scripture for an hour and a half and and singing and all the rest we played 20 different characters in the show my saying will psalms and it was I was crazy it's in order to find definition for the characters I would bring some celebrity impersonations and so Sean Connery played the pilot returneth on the prophecy awesome the ghibli Goliath the Lord bleeder later soldier and McConaughey man he was he was a servant so I just had a lot of fun with it but um but really brought home that that message of repentance yeah I was thinking when you were talking about bringing into gospel that one place where our Lord confronts the Pharisees about David calling the Messiah Lord and yet he was his son yeah awesome that's a great transition wonder if that was one unit absolutely oh yeah I very much did and Psalm 22 the big one you know that led to an opportunity portraying our Lord almost a thousand times and this massive theater in Pigeon Forge Tennessee where a producer there thought that you know it probably makes some money to to make a show about Jesus and the Bible belts put fifteen million dollars into this show and it was it was just an amazing experience walking vicariously through the life of our Lord every day and then all around town people recognize me from the billboards as they would call me Jesus which was very unnerving but it reminded me that we're all called to be his hands in his feet in his mouthpiece and that caused me to be even more serious about just digging in to the scriptures and and really discerning what what really is my calling in and for that time and season it obviously was that but I sensed God was leading me to something more and so or at least different if not more and so at the end of the third year of that the producer actually offered me a blank check and he said we don't want to lose you what do you want we'll give it to you well I went home and I prayed a very spiritual prayer I said it's a yes right thing to do what I love to do sharing the gospel doing it and now they're gonna offer me a blank check and I'm very clearly since the Holy Spirit that moment saying it's time to enter full-time ministry it's time to get your training so I haven't grown up in why I am I went to the University of Nations to get my training for the ministry became a missionary for a few years began just memorizing whole books of the Bible or just in my zeal to really understand it deeper and that led to being ordained with the Southern Baptists which led to becoming an associate pastor at a non-denominational Church at my final posting and there I I just I loved it I couldn't imagine a better life than spending all day every day in the word and sharing it for living and loving people for living and praying for living I just I thought there's nothing better than this and yet I kept on in prayer I sense the Holy Spirit was saying you're not there yet there's something missing before you can be ready to fully minister there's an arrow missing from your quiver and so in October of 2016 I shared this with the eldership of my church and at this point I was doing a substantial amount of the Sunday preaching and they said no no no I mean your your sermons are solid and your you're ready to you know we're gonna pass the mantle on to you into the next couple years to be the new senior pastor and the senior pastor at the time was getting ready to retire was preparing me to be his succession wonderful godly man and I just seemed wonderful but at the same time I knew something was missing and through a friend that I met that I was actually very interested in we found out that we had the same theology but she was Catholic and and I was I was this Protestant minister and so we realized at first we thought when we have the same theology but there was no you know I I said my kids have to come to my church if if I'm gonna date anyone I have to know that there's a future there and she said well you know my kids have to be raised in the Catholic Church and so we were really martyrs for our faith you know at the same time and so we decided that we couldn't date and she said well would you at least consider looking into the Catholic faith I said well I'll look into it but I knew that there was no chance I was ever gonna become Catholic so even though you had had a good relationship with father O'Brien yeah it was a positive image maybe the Eucharist there through the Anglican Church there really was no file folder in your mind yet about the option of being Catholic well I really felt like I could even hold a lot or even most or maybe even all of the same doctrines as a Catholic but you can't trade away my experience has been so fruitful and full of life and I didn't feel like on the one hand I didn't feel like I was missing anything because I was so fulfilled both in my experience with Christ and in my ministry but at the same time there was this voice that kept on saying to me and I recognized as a voice Holy Spirit saying there's something missing you're missing something for what I have for you and so she said well would you consider reading the church fathers I said of course I loved Augustine right that's that's kind of a general line of a Protestant you know you think you know yeah Gustin you know that's that's as far back as it goes right and she said you know why don't you read these letters of st. Ignatius of Antioch like same who's it of what it you know I didn't even know this guy existed her that we had letters of his and I began to read the letters of st. Ignatius of Antioch I began to look at the letters of Irenaeus and and suddenly the battlecry of the Reformers that were going back to the original patristic s-- we're going back to what Agustin believe I went deeper into Gustin I've ever gone before and suddenly I was seeing that he agreed with all the Catholic doctrines of the Catholic Church today the only reason I knew that is because I was also reading through the Catechism just out of curiosity to find the errors in the same way that my dad had read through the Bible and Catholicism even though even though I had wonderful brothers and sisters that I respected in their faith I knew there were some errors in the end their beliefs I read through the Catechism with tears of my is saying this is truth this is everything that I'm reading in Scripture this is not what this is not Mary worship this is not you know what I had been told this is not just works based no grace this is not what I had always presumes Catholicism to be this is this and then there was the other aspect of it and this was the real key was that as I was looking at through the eyes of the church fathers I thought okay now st. Ignatius of Antioch was discipled presumably by John himself Clement of Rome we know was discipled by st. Peter himself and so not that everything that Clements of Rome or Nations of Antioch or Irenaeus wrote is gospel truth but their lens of Scripture is gonna be one way more in point than - you know my dad wrote a book actually and if someone would come to me and say you know I heard you telling a story about your dad's book and actually you're wrong about the interpretation of it like are you kidding me I lived it and I was there when he wrote it you can't tell me that your interpretation often some cubicles right and mine is wrong you know I realize it would be the height of arrogance for me to say that to st. Ignatius of Antioch your Clement of Rome Irenaeus or Justin Martyr or or any of these these these especially the early patristic s-- and i had to realize that not only am I seeing that Catholic doctrine is solid but what they're saying about apostolic succession if the disciples of disciples were already on board with this and this is the history of the Catholic Church how can I say that God just abandoned his church for 1,400 years and then suddenly brought it to light through the Reformers I had this image in my mind as you were describing and imagine yourself sitting on a click on the edge of a cliff that's 400 feet above the ground in that for those 400 feet represent years yeah and there at the bottom is Jesus yeah and you're looking at the cliff and there's a Gustin all of a sudden yeah climb it up and you think wow I've got a Gustin mm-hmm he climbed all this way by himself right oh you look over the cliff and he's standing on the shoulders on the shoulders on the shoulders and yeah holders of all those people before him they who did all these men that learned it from Jesus himself that's right that's that's the early father's represent a foundation that goes back 2,000 years now yeah but so many of us just had us then we jump sure sixteen seventeen hundred years and not knowing anybody and absolutely and then seeing the very clear heresy of selling indulgences was condemned by the church I didn't know that you know that was what most of the 95 theses were about was condemning the selling of indulgences which the church condemns you know so it was a real point of needing to humble myself was just leading to a dialogue between you and your and the lady you were dating it did it really did we decided that we weren't going to enter into like debate with each other this had to be each of her own journeys and we were praying for each other we had decided okay you know what we love each other as friends let's pray and I was I literally started praying that God would lead a loving man for her I literally started praying for that thinking it wasn't me at the beginning and we prayed for each other as well lord show show them the beauty of my church and show me the beauty of her church and so meanwhile I'm preaching a series on the Gospel of John and it's looking all to Catholic to me as I'm my practice was to memorize whatever chapter was preaching or you know and eventually whatever book I was preaching on so I could present it from the heart so here I'm memorizing huge portions of the Gospel of John and one night Victoria woke up in the middle of the night with this sense that you need to give David a copy of what book Rome sweet home because I don't even know where that book is it's been so many years since I read it so hungry it's the middle of the night I just don't want to you know I'll just get up and if it's if I don't see it right away I'm going back to bed she got up she pulled a book from her bookshelf because it's layer upon layer of books behind buck and right behind that book was Rome sweet home so she gave me the copy and I'm reading it and it's his experience was right where I was at I mean he was in Fairfax County as a pastor exactly I was at he was preaching a series on the Gospel of John which is exactly what I was doing and it really congealed where I was at and where I felt like the Holy Spirit might be leading me so I told the senior pastor about what was happening and meanwhile the congregation is saying me your sermons have never been so electric I mean they're filled with so much truth where's this coming from and I'm telling them and I'm not gonna lie I didn't say the Catholic Church but I did say the Church Fathers I said you've got to look this up I mean you got to look at the the early patristic s-- it will change your life and so I said I said the senior pastor this is this is where I'm at I'm really I'm discerning if if God is leading me to the Catholic Church can I take two weeks of retreat for the Holy Spirit speak to me he said yes take two weeks like God set you straight and so I went to a Steuben rail retreat followed by a coming home network or cheat and it was at that coming home network a treat that I really since God speaking to me and and you actually were a big part of that um I can still remember word for words on the conversations that I had with you that were so they just kind of held me over some of those questions that I had things that misunderstandings about the Catholic Church you know I don't want to make this an information about work but I know that one of the things we talked about in that retreat are what are the barriers that stand in the way yeah I know to get to understand what are these things was the baggage we're bringing with us and then what are the things that are drawing you towards the church specifically yeah you know what why you know who were those conversations I helped you oh yeah absolutely and to see that tradition and Holy Scripture are not two completely unrelated streams you know I had already begun to see that that everybody has a lens as Paul wrote so Thessalonians tradition is just in Ex Tripucka you can't escape it as inescapable but everybody has a lens everyone has a tradition you know they're formers even said they had attrition they said it was the patristic s' and so my goal was to say is it really because what I did not want is I did not want a tradition that was based on one person's lens I didn't want to look at the Bible just through the lens of Calvin you know because you can say well it's we're just looking at sola scriptura and yet indispensable grace is nowhere to be found in scripture once saved always saved is nowhere to be found in scripture some of these doctrines that whether they're true or not for that matter the word Trinity is nowhere to be found in the scripture but we have that thanks to the Catholic Church and so so you're always gonna look at it through a lens you know and if you say well I believe that because Ephesians 1:5 indicates predestination that's the way but wait a minute what about acts 15 which says that anyone who calls on the Lord will be saved you know the where's you know which one do we believe do we believe one or the other or is that possible to believe both and it was in the Catholic Church that I found those both ends so you could say well is it that God has absolute sovereignty here's a free will and the answer is yes you know how does that work itself out well we're figuring that out it is a bit of a mystery but the scripture says it and you can see it lived out you know so those both hands were huge for me to say that we don't have to to focus on one scripture to the exclusion of any other scripture yeah as soon as you mentioned that one topic about God's sovereign will and yet your freedom the mystery of that of course is that it gives you confidence to make that free choice mm-hmm because you know that somehow in the mystery of God's plan he's there - yes absolutely - and yeah and that's what you're facing though at that point in your life there you are still a pastor right yeah gone to a couple retreats so what do you decide to do yeah so I went to a silent retreat and at the last day that silent retreat I said god I know it's you I know you're calling me at the Catholic Church you've spoken to me so much my life but this is unmistakable I said but there are some people in my life that are really going to struggle with this and so I'd like to ask if it be your will is there something that you could give me that I could share with them to show your guiding in this but also almost even more than that your provision for me because I'm leaving behind my credentials I'm leaving behind my job my ministry I'm leaving it all behind I'm worried about these other people really none of them I know you're gonna provide a matter of fact I wasn't even worried about my parents cuz I called up my parents and I said I've got something to tell you but I don't want a response from you tonight could you take 24 hours to pray about it maybe even fast and pray and they said yeah absolutely what is it I said I'm joining the Catholic Church and they said okay love you talk to you tomorrow hung up the next night they called back and they said David we don't know how to explain it but the Holy Spirit has been speaking to us all day long over and over confirming that this is him that this is his will for your life we don't understand it but it's making us curious so so then I had these other people in my life that was really concerned about and so I said Lord could you give me something so on the day that I was returning from my silent retreat I got a call from the manager of a Broadway musical and he said we've just closed this this show on Broadway amazing grace I said about John Newton they said yeah and they said well we have one role one male role that has left uncashed and we heard that you might be getting back into acting and I'm thinking where did they hear that are they even talking the Holy Spirit turns out they were talking to my best friend they said we think you might be right for this role and would you consider sending us an audition of one of the songs from the show so I did and that led to me getting the role now I had already decided with the pastor the senior pastor that I would stay for a few months with the church to share my journeys so they could see it was really important for him that they see that I hadn't that they didn't need to throw out everything I'd ever said I was still the same David I actually still believed everything I'd ever preached you know but there's no more you know and so he wanted them to see my witness that I still love Jesus that I still was committed to the gospel that I still was was a genuine Christian you know and so I had a chance to share some of that journey with that church but we both decided that October would be the cutoff date so when the broader produces Amazing Grace offered me the contract I found out it because it my Quinn question is well when is it gonna start and they said October what more could I ask you know God's grace is just it goes beyond anything you could ever it's like CS Lewis said you know God cannot possibly be a figment of my imagination because he is nothing like I would have ever imagined him to be he goes beyond it all probably one of the biggest new things that would become a part of your life as a Catholic is the sacramental life maybe in a moment sharing words of that and absolutely journey yeah well I had already been questioning for years why we didn't consider especially baptism and Eucharist to be sacraments when in essence even though we didn't call marriage a sacrament we really did believe it because we knew that there was a difference between sleeping together before the wedding ceremony and after that there was something spiritual that happened which is sacramental you know we understood that something happens it's efficacious the actual monie itself and I was questioning why is it that we say that the Eucharist is just a ritualistic ceremony when we believe that Christ is commanding us to do it why would he command us to do something that's not efficacious why would he say in first Corinthians 11 that you're heaping condemnation on yourself if you do it unworthily if he doesn't keep a blessing on you if you do it worthily you know would he ever give us something that would offer the possibility of death but no possibility of life you know baptism why would he say Acts chapter three in order to be saved you have to repent and be baptized and also John chapter 3 if baptism didn't do something other than just an outward display and you know this is just simply reason and logic looking at the Scriptures again the idea that tradition is not separate from Scripture it's a reasonable lens of description and the most reasonable because it's been consistent for 2,000 years David I'm gonna have to have you come back sometime you've got some words more to talk about thank you for joining us on a journey that's been right now he's still involved with the play I I am NOT I was actually offered another role with it but I am a youth and young adult ministry that's right loving it loving it loving it I do God you my one uses your gifts dogs you call my one fear is that I couldn't continue in ministry and God's just to kindness this is trusting in the Lord right David thank you thank you so much for joining us on the program and you at home thank you for joining us on the program I just want to again mention CH network.org but if you go to CH network.org slash retreats you could find a little bit more about what David was talking about that was assistance to him on his journey god bless you look forward to see you again next week [Music] you

Channel: EWTN

Views: 21,346

Keywords: ytsync-en, jht, jht01663

Id: Wg8roMBB_aU

Length: 56min 10sec (3370 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 16 2019