Father Stephen Freeman - Orthodoxy 101: For Enquirers

hi my name is Herman Middleton and welcome to the protecting Vale YouTube channel which is all about understanding our Orthodox Christian faith better so we can live it more deeply in order to do this I started to produce videos for something I call the collective wisdom project and today's video is part of that project in the summer of 2010 I went on a month-long road trip throughout the Midwest and up and down the East Coast interviewing interesting Orthodox thinkers the very first interview I conducted was with father Stephen Freeman who doesn't need much of an introduction father Stephen is the founder and pastor of st. Anne's Orthodox Church in Oak Ridge Tennessee and writes the very popular blog glory to God for all things while the Stephen also wrote the book everywhere present Christian be in a one story universe so that further ado I hope you'll enjoy this episode from my interview with father Stephen Freeman [Music] well the most important things I think people need to know about the church or they're certainly the things that I stress the most is that does no one should ever become Orthodox or there's no good reason for becoming Orthodox unless you actually believe it to be the truth that you like it that you enjoy it although that's oftentimes not the experience that I run across people people come from America come in and they think this is so strange and foreign they have to adjust to it services are longer and that sort of thing but nonetheless they need to believe it's the truth simply leaving something else that has problems and coming here because we don't necessarily have those problems is not enough because you know there will be problems here there always are and and so you have to believe this is the truth now having said that it's possible to think you believe this to be the truth intellectually that you've been convinced of it and I think there are many people who become Orthodox having on some level then convinced rationally or whatever of the truths of the faith and very often what you see from that is a love of argument because they're still wanting to argue about truth and when I say that you believe orthodoxy is the truth frankly it's something that you really wouldn't want to argue about I mean it's it is it is your heart and it's become you just become that I and so you you wouldn't want to argue about it with anybody you might discuss it with someone but arguments I remember reading something from the elder paisius I think it was who said that someone could be converted simply by seeing a fox walk by and God is such that you know the power wave that works and it touched his heart in a way that he you know he was converted to God it's not our usual things I don't keep foxes in our Inquirer's group but he was just using an example it's a great mystery how the heart is converted but I think it's very important as a pastor and as a priest who was doing some level of evangelism and taking the great responsibility of actually baptizing someone receiving them into the church as a very solemn responsibility and so you do it carefully I think priests have to take time to tell people and I think this is healthy in our culture we're not in a rush you know you you you may take time if you die in the process it'll be okay you were in the process don't worry about this so much you take your time and that not only that but I should also take my time but I shouldn't be in a rush I've seen problems you know in 12 years or in elsewhere where priests simply acted too quickly and you know wanted to get another member too soon and we need to cease to think like that this is not that we have all the time in the world we really do because and this is maybe the second thing not only to believe that the church is true and this of courses is really primary over that is and it sounds I guess it sounds so obvious that it sounds silly to say it but that it's very important that you actually believe in God there are many many religious people and in our culture 95 percent or so according to surveys say they believe in the existence of God which would make you think that we were virtually living in paradise where it's so but when you start asking more questions a lot of that is not people saying that they know God much less that they know God in Christ through the Holy Spirit they don't know God as he has been made to us and and proclaimed in the Orthodox faith my first year even though I have read and studied everything you could get your your hands on for years for twenty years and it had you know doctoral level study in theology my first year is an Orthodox Christian I think I spent as much time simply working on not the idea but on the reality that there really is a God that there really is a God and if I had something to say to other priests and pastors it is you know believe in God if there really is a God and this is his problem the church is his doing conversion is his doing the making of disciples ultimately has to happen by the work of the Holy Spirit and that there is a level of patience particularly in a culture that is so marked by instant everything there's a level of patience that we have to learn how to practice from my past experience as a Protestant pastor there was a tendency to want to be able to fix everything that the priest was sort of a resident religious expert and the church he was running was sort of a almost a religious Club of some sort like a YMCA with lots of program and things that way and when problems happened the pastor thought he was supposed to be able to intervene somehow and fix it I recall in my protestant seminary training we had a series of classes and conflict resolution and which everything we were taught was in fact drawn from secular manuals and one of the things i had to learn as an orthodox christian first off is Who am I to say that the very conflict taking place in my church is not a conflict which God Himself was allowed to take place I know this is this is part of the Orthodox faith that God has collected together these personalities some of them quite broken all of them broken in some way and he's assembled us together for the slow patient work of salvation and that somebody is having problems with somebody else in the church you know may very well be because they need to learn patience and if what they feel they need is for the priest to go fix that other person this is a sin they need to quit that they need to give it up that's if you will is part of the worst of our culture to think that everything either can be fixed or needs to be fixed according to your likes and dislikes I need to be fixed you know they some say the church is a hospital which is true the mistake though in coming in is to think because the priest is dressed up better than everybody else and if the church is a hospital then therefore the priest is the doctor which he is not Christ alone is the doctor as we say in confession take care that having come to a physician and by that it means Christ not the priest Christ as the physician the priest is sort of maybe hit nurse or something but he's not the physician Christ alone yes and so I think learning patience and believing that there is a God and that things that I think Lord if this situation continues another day I think I'll go crazy and maybe everything will fall apart and yet go ahead and live through that day and pray pray and pray and pray to God like you actually believe there is one as a monk from Belarus once said to me he said you Americans who talk about miracles like you don't believe in God and you know you get to pray like you do believe in God and and learning to do that to me that's our Orthodox witness that we do believe in God we don't have to prove it we don't have to have more miracles than the Pentecostals we don't have to advertise weeping icons we pray and we believe and because we believe we can be tremendously patient patient in a way that unbelievers cannot be we can even be patient with sin when it said when we're told that God is long-suffering it was specifically with regard to our sinned that he's long-suffering and he's patient not willing that any should perish but all should come to repentance and so we in some measure not only to learn that as a priest but in some measure to take the time in the process of the catechumen to try to teach that and as much as possible and it's you know it's hard because it takes years to learn patience it's you can only learn patience patiently but to take time with that the other side of that is nurturing the virtue of stability and as it said of a monk from the Desert Fathers stay in your cell and your cell will teach you everything it's possible to convert and become part of our community here and this parish and to think to yourself I think I could be a better Orthodox Christian over at that parish or over at that parish and of course you know maybe you could someone comes to me and says I want to go elsewhere I'll usually look bless them and say we'll go because they don't need my curse they need my blessing but they'll find the same thing there they find here is that something else to try their patience because until they learn to stay in their cell they won't find salvation stability is required for our salvation and so slowly we learn it I planned I helped found this mission in East Tennessee I'm 57 now I don't know how many years God will grant me but by His grace I plan to be buried here I don't ever think about going somewhere else that's freedom I I hope you enjoyed this episode from my interview with father Stephen Freeman please subscribe to get notified when new videos become available which happens every Friday and if you would please comment below to let me know what you thought of this video have a great weekend and we'll see you next Friday

Channel: Protecting Veil

Views: 29,015

Rating: 4.9661279 out of 5

Keywords: Orthodoxy, Orthodox Christianity, Orthodox Catechism, Catechism, Christian Catechism, Christian Education, Father Stephen Freeman, Father Steven Freeman

Id: XezBHcYO8kE

Length: 12min 22sec (742 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 28 2018