Journey Home - 11-14-2011 - Former Evangelical Free - Marcus Grodi with John Fraysier

good evening and welcome to the journey home my name is Marcus Grodi your host for this program every week I have this privilege if you wtn gives me to bring into your home's the stories of men and women who because of their love for our Lord Jesus guided by the Holy Spirit their hearts and minds were opened and awaken to the beauty of the church and as you've seen the program before some of them that was the last thing they wanted or expected but to a estée can guarantee that the reason they're on the program is because they're very glad to be home there's so there's the title the journey home here we are in the middle of November and it's interesting when I think about the issues that awaken non-catholics to the church that usually isn't because the Catholic Church is going through a new translation of the mass but there is in front of us that's an issue that we Catholics our faith facing that a new interpretation of the words of our liturgy that are more in line with the original Latin which I personally I think is an excitement because I see the the depth of that theology but yet that issue is not one that men and women on the journey usually deal with they're usually oblivious to this issue because often in the backgrounds they come from the absolute wording of the liturgy is not an important thing whatsoever and that may be true for our guest tonight we may talk about that our guest is John Fraser former evangelical free and John is great to have you on the journey Thank You Marcus great to be here it is a real joy for me to be here and I feel like I'm probably the first exterminator ever to be on your show I'm sure a long line of people waiting to be on but anyway in fact we have to define that exterminator because all I can think about is is the movies that our kids have seen the exterminator I have a this vision of a revenge but it's not that far from the truth I might say you know you it's interesting I get asked a lot about the conversion that took place in my life from University staff - exterminator that's an interesting story in itself I usually cut it short by just saying you know it was the next logical step doesn't answer all the question now it doesn't that is funny yes well as you know using in a journey home for the sake of the audience I usually invite the guests to start way back you know how did God start touching you as a young man and what's your spiritual formation as a young man joy sure well I feel like as I look back over my life the greatest gift that has has come to me was the family I grew up in my parents were very loving - I was one of three children in the middle and we grew up in American Baptist Church where we went to church most every Sunday and I enjoyed that a lot mostly because my age group set up in the balcony and had fun not listening to the sermon so much but talking about other and yet and fixing the next dates up as well so frankly a lot of my memories of growing up in the American Baptist Church are up in the balcony but I do remember it I think it was age twelve or fourteen probably twelve I was baptized it was everybody at that age went through an educational program and then were baptized if you want it to be and I did and then essentially the American Baptist version of confirmation yes yeah I would say it was you know we went through a lot of question-and-answer of who we felt God was and it was structured to some extent but I remember quite a bit of free flow in the process as well but I do remember the day I was baptized it meant something to me frankly probably apart from any of the training I had had received through it but I thought you know this is important and I'm not sure exactly why but it stuck with me anyway because it was due to stick with you as a rite of passage or as you look back was an authentic you know awakening within in terms of your relationship with our Lord a little bit of both I think it was more the second I felt as though this was an important step in that you know I needed to commit my life to God in some way and it was important to me I'm not fully sure beyond that that it really had some importance and within the Baptist environment that's what baptism was it wasn't a a change of character in a sacramental way it was your public state that's right exactly a public statement that you know we were committing our lives to Jesus Christ and would live for him after the baptism probably a year or two later it wasn't so important the night it forgot most of what I had personally committed and lived what I guess is a fairly normal high school years and most of which I prefer not to talk about but anyway I was on the track team that I will talk about enjoyed running a lot went off to college and to understand my college years that's important to understand me as a person a little bit you hear the term homeboy I guess that describes me pretty well I love being at home and whenever I went to camps as a youth I would always miss terribly being at home and being with my parents my family new and strange places were very difficult for me so going up to college even though it was only 80 miles away at SUNY Oswego in New York it was a new world for me so I remember that first month at September but just really having a very hard time thinking man this whole world is coming down upon me it's on my shoulders to make a living to raise a family which I didn't have one yet but I could foresee one coming in the future and I've got to make something of myself and you know I don't know if I'm even going to make it through this first month of college and important to know also I had a close girlfriend at the time from high school years that went off to college in Michigan and I was in Oswego we are a long ways away and I remember that first month of college getting a phone call from her remember those phones they used to hang on the wall it was one of those dials and she sounded a little different you know we talked most every week on the phone she sounded different I said you know so he sent a little different Cindy what's going on and she said well I've been going to a Bible study on campus and wow that sounds a little odd to me but I listened and she said well and I pressed her a little bit more and she said well I I guess the best way to say that is I met the Lord oh really and I thought that really sounds hot and thus I said well okay and I said well do you have any suggestions for me and she said well you may want to look checkout InterVarsity Christian Fellowship there probably on your campus so I said okay sure and stored that away there was a party going on on our floor at the time of that phone call and I remember going up and down the floor making a big joke of it saying that Cindy had met the Lord and you know it's I don't know what that means other than it's good joke material it's basically what I was thinking but I did in the quieter moments and the days to follow started thinking that if I'm going to keep her as a girlfriend I better starts start showing some interest in this so I wandered another soul not at all not at all farthest thing from my mind I walked around campus and eventually found a sign mentioning about this Christian Fellowship group and I think InterVarsity was named on it but it was I had enough information to know that's where I should go anyway and check it out and I did and it was a large group of students at least by InterVarsity terms in New York State that I'm used to there are over a hundred students and it was a well-organized well-developed student-run group and InterVarsity staff at the time though there were loose affiliations that wasn't a real close affiliation with InterVarsity and they sort of viewed that fellowship group as an independent Catholic I'm independent charismatic church not Catholic ya know Catholic no not at all and they actually had very interesting connections with love in community and Ithaca New York I don't know if you remember that but it was a large charismatic independent fellowship group that had a large influence Phil kegui oh sure was there during those years and the leadership of this group on campus used to go down there on weekends and get their batteries charged and I remember that and wonderful music and so I just sort of sat around for a couple of weeks and observed and over time I started to get involved with the group over that next month and I got to make some friends there and I remember walking home one evening late in September looking at the stars going back to my room and I was feeling a little better about life at this point and you know I thought that you know there really is something to what they're saying and and Jesus Christ is Lord and they've got some great music besides you know a lot of things like that were going on in my mind and I decided at that point that I you know I said some kind of a prayer don't recall but it was a turning for me at that point that I wanted to give my life to Christ live for him and I started to see it as a greatest adventure and I've always been attracted to that in my life I know that there are people that jump out of airplanes for a thrill there are people that you know jump off of bungee bridges and things like that and for me I've always thought that you know the faith has the greatest opportunities for us and I saw it back then so that was really a beginning point sindhya of course was thrilled i went out to visit her once that relationship only lasted the first semester and we were finished but thankfully she was the one that pushed me along to get to that point so I grew quickly I have to say one thing in that first year of college I went back for a break probably mid October and a friend of mine from high school that I had run on the track team with we were at something together and we were riding along in the car and he's acting weird and and I you know I said Mike what's going on because well well John something strange happened to me he goes I gave my life to Jesus Christ I said you did it I I was just going to say the same thing and you know and we got talking and you know back in those days it was very important to say the very day that you had given your life to Christ and you know it was sort of a gradual thing for me but because I needed a day I came up with one about when it everything happened and it ended up being the same day as Mike and we were both real like wow this is this is a sign from God and Oh IRA men shinned it because almost every year since then and that's 30-some 40 years ago Mike calls me up and says happy birthday John and I did this year was on Facebook for the first time and I said ah thanks thanks I appreciate that and we we have a fun time reminiscing together so he's going to be watching a show I hope so catch the next conversion so that was the first semester I ended up transferring at that point to Plattsburgh State University SUNY school and northern New York up near Montreal for reasons for a major and you know I looked up InterVarsity while I was there and the sign said the meeting was this Monday evening and we went and instead of finding a hundred people singing together I found six people sitting around a table afraid of the campus and I was among them and we were debating you know what we can do this year is an inner VAR c group and I was of course brand new to it the other people knew each other somewhat but I thought to myself if I come the next week I'm default going to be a leader in this group because I think everyone is it was such a small group but those were great years those three years I got involved with inner varsity and we had at in Plattsburgh close affiliation with inner varsity as an organization and it was then that I really began to draw from the the riches that inner varsity has to offer students and their growth and faith and it might be good to tell the audience about University I mean sure the many of them have never even heard of it yeah or if they have that I don't know its origins yeah well InterVarsity by name actually comes from as I understand from England and InterVarsity means inter school and it was a fellowship that began in the 1800s and actually had connections with the tract Aryan movement and John Henry Newman and the Oxford movement and so forth and if there were student-led Christian organizations on campus that had a common goal of outreach to the campus growth in the faith discipleship and in World Missions those three things were that big thrust of InterVarsity an origin within English Anglicanism essentially that's right so it has that as its theology illogical base although when I was involved within our varsity later it would have been in the 70s there was a real strong evangelical element yes that has really grown in that as evangelical evangelization to renewal in Christ as you said and right and from my standpoint of the non Catholic Christian out reaches that are out there I consider it the best huh it really was a solid dialogical group in evangelicalism yeah I felt the same of course I became biased very quickly as well but yes in inner varsity as you said in the United States was very evangelical II oriented great tradition of hymns and and that's the Anglican tradition from England to this day that there's a great hymnal and I was little sad to hear that I don't think it's in print anymore you can still find him on the internet but the great old hymns he talked with Tom Howard about that someday and he'll tell you about those hymns anyway wonderful hymns so that was the tradition that I was growing in as a young Christian and we had a you know fellowship group on campus but one of the things that stands out in my memory especially in those years were the summer training opportunities that we went to and most of them the one I remember as a student was at Gordon College actually and we you know by an institution that's right in Massachusetts Boston area and inner varsity groups and as an area region were largely affected by the leadership in the groups I should say the staff and a lot of the staff leadership in upstate New York where I was involved was seminarians that had been in Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia so there's very much a Presbyterian feel to Westminster would have been a very conservative Calvinist strict Calvinist background yes yeah yeah so I remember this summer training opportunity and the speakers that were there one was Harold Burkhart oh I believe was a professor that seminary and the president at the time was Edmund clowny dr. Edmund cloudy I don't know if you remember him yeah but he was a man that was an excellent preacher I you know I still that was the 7576 timeframe I still had the tapes I'm not sure they work but I still have them from those talks they had such an impact on me one of dr. cloudy's talks made such an impact that I practically memorized it by heart and gave it up at college in the next semester and got wow that was great that was a great talk well thank you it wasn't mine but anyway one story I want to recall from that time it was you know I I don't picture Westminster Theological Seminary as a place where the charismatic movement would be particularly welcomed yeah well you run into that a lot with students a lot of charismatic element and with student groups we ran into a lot of you know great praising the Lord and charismatic gifts and so forth one of the talks that dr. cloudy gave I remember was on the woman of the well a woman at the well and Jesus conversation with her and I don't recall just what he said but he was building up to her crescendo it was an excellent talk and he got to a point and there was a short pause and one guy in the audience student just broke out is it praise the Lord thank you Jesus head is an arms up in the air thank you god this is wonderful and dr. cloudy is just up there like oh isn't that wonderful thank you Lord and and he was just right along with him and everything and I thought this is great I love it and I had enough of that my own that evening after there that talks so anyway I mentioned those things because those talks to this day actually have rooted me and wonderful experience I probably listen to those myself in the mid 70s you're describing that because Westminster was one of the three seminaries I considered when I left engineering to go but the reason didn't go there because at the time it wasn't accredited yeah yeah so that's why I ended up at gordon-conwell with dr. Hahn and as a classmate but yet I know exactly the background you're talking about but truly is the theology that has fed such a large part of what people would think of as evangelicalism today which is across the boundaries of denominations it's an attitude of conversion to Christ discipleship evangelization the need for saving souls and yes I know that's the deep commitment of what you're talking about yes indeed it was so back at college I my major was environmental science and I was actually preparing be involved in land use planning of some kind which is a thing that never happened but it still is in my heart I would have enjoyed doing that but I really felt as you were up there by the Love Canal origin well no that was Buffalo that was over into the state it was in my classes though that that topic was there as was acid rain and a lot of other environment that was sort of early on in the environmental movement I should say too that you know these things I'm talking about that first experience at SUNY Oswego in that charismatic group this was right in the middle of the Jesus Movement for me and there were as a predator quite a fascinating time I I would look sort of will look back as I was singing in a group thinking to myself my would have change I've gone through I've sort of be considered a Jesus Freak now and I never really understood that and there were people that actually had moved all the way from California young guys that felt called to come into you know searching for they're not sure what but they felt God called them to us we go for something and I remember becoming friends with them and I thought how did they ever get here and they taught me songs that I still remember today and I don't know what's ever become him but it was just a sort of a free-flowing time and a lot of California things going on as I recall so anyway I did decide that you know I really wanted to to give back what to what InterVarsity had given to me and I really did feel at that point the next logical step was to go on staff and they welcomed me on it when I went on staff as I graduated in 78 and went on staff in Albany New York and with the ultimate goal of going on staff for the in the mid-hudson Valley between Albany and New York City and my primary college was Vassar College I had some other smaller colleges community colleges and small colleges in addition to that but that was the main spot and I really took this on as I said as an adventure you know there was a lot of things I didn't know how the funding was going to come together but God provided for that it was not easy for me though the same person that had a hard time going to college for the first year and missing home and familiar roots was that first year of inner varsity for me as well very hard times where I remember thinking I really cut out for this and you know it was just a very difficult transition but as I got my feet down and everything it was starting to feel right and and good and always God was there to meet me along the way so I raised all the support I needed was having a good time with students looking back over my inner varsity years particularly with students you know I'm not sure I was real good at it I sort of viewed my university years as a time to consider should I be a pastor of a church and I never really answered that question while I was there because I never felt strong enough that that was the way to go a number of people in my position around the state and across the country were doing that moving from InterVarsity into the pastor it but I or to go overseas and missions and to things that I never really felt this was going to be my call and but I was for 10 years check that out to see how that would work but I did enjoy my time with students but I didn't feel like I wasn't doing the building the large groups like the ones I had come out of as a student that wasn't happening for me as staff I was having good one-on-one relationships with students that I still have some contact with some of them so I'm sure there were some good things going on but I had not reached my own expectations of what I wanted to see along the way though this is an important transition about the second year first year or second year with InterVarsity I was at one of the community colleges and the Kip see where I was assigned and I met a woman who was actually to become my wife many years later Peggy Reardon and she was one of nine children in a large Catholic family in the area and several of her sisters were involved with the ministry in that group for the next five years I got to know a bunch of them they had me up to the house several times to meet the family and I thought this is a family I'd love to be married into it was just a loving family and it was really my first my very first exposure to the Catholic faith in a family and I was very drawn to that it was made a big impact on me had you had from from childhood and an attitude towards the Catholic Church at all from your parents and your experience in the Baptist Church not a bad one it was always very open-minded we had friends that were Catholic every now and then there might be a little joke but it was never an abiding kind of thing so I didn't have any anti-catholicism really growing up there what I had picked up or scene was more through friendships after I had given my life to Christ in various churches that I had been involved in where I picked up that there are a lot of people that are not happy with a Catholic Church but I even then sort of was mystified by that not really understanding why it was so you would have seen them as another Christian Church but not one you're necessarily drawn to right and I'm wondering if your spirits with InterVarsity it was like mine IRA as with young life for a fair period of time just kind of a high school level of InterVarsity if you want to consider it that way but we saw a lot of Catholics pulled out of the Catholic Church into other churches were you seeing that in the Navara yes yeah in fact it was sort of even from where I was coming from expected that that would happen I wasn't consciously trying to do that but I figure it is they grew in their faith they would come to their own conclusions and come out and many times they did sometimes they didn't and those people have remained in my memory as standards really for the Catholic faith and I remember particularly one student at the same Community College we were having a Bible study on John chapter 6 and I had all of my things prepared to talk about this I can't say I fully understood what was going on there but is this Catholic student shared what she saw and what the Catholic Church taught about the Eucharist and the body and blood of Christ I thought that's not where I was going in that was the first time I heard it and it surprised me so much I went to my pastor who at that time was a Baptist Church I was attending a very conservative one and he explained it all away and you know gave the more traditional Protestant view of that but that remained with me though nonetheless and I thought she made a good point and I think yeah and I think your argument is why don't we pause there and take a break and we'll come back because it sounds like that one of the first sparks to the openness of the Catholic Church is happening because you've met a great Catholic family pause there and we'll come back in this welcome back to the journey home I'm Marcus Grodi your host our guest on at John Frazier and where we left off in the story is you've really had your first contact with a Catholic family yes well as I said the there are several sisters in the family that were involved with a group that I was coaching and staffing and so I got to know the family quite well and as they eventually got married off there was one of the sisters remained and one of the other sisters helped us get together Peggy was involved with people of God's love community and Rhode Island which was affiliated with renewal ministries with Ralph Martin oh sure yeah and so we started communicating and one day out of the blue I out of a letter I had written I said I'd like to come out and visit so I did and this was at a time when Peggy and I were both about 26 years old and we had been around enough to know what kind of person we were looking for and getting married and we both fit each other's bill and our relationship took off very quickly except for one thing Peggy was Catholic and I was Protestant and I made a living being Protestant and we a few months into it we're really talking serious that you know we love each other we're talking at this relationship is it to go further we need to work this out somehow of this Catholic Protestant thing I remember one time we had met it was in the spring in March and at a beautiful lake in Rhode Island and we had just come to an impasse we couldn't go any further and we couldn't get any farther along in this and we thought well I'm afraid that's going to be the end of it and we both had you know finished our conversation that this was going to be the end but we both felt so deeply about each other and eventually what happened probably before I even left that weekend it was that is insurmountable as this seems somehow God as a plan for us he's going to get us through we didn't know what it was and you know there's a passage in Scripture Mary said it it's from the Annunciation that comes back to me so many times in my life I was thinking about it this morning and be it done unto me O Lord according to thy word when we come to God with our hands open for whatever he wants for us he'll make a way when there is none and I'm not sure exactly what happened but we both figured there was going to be a way somewhere and August of that year six months after a short courtship we were engaged to be married a year later but we still hadn't worked this stuff out completely no we had not found that path but we were around the road anyway and we were looking for it the first thing that we had to deal with well I should say the there are many strings that draw one to the Catholic Church and the first one for me and I was not thinking of becoming Catholic at all so I oh and get that on the table that was not on the card it was just maybe getting willing to accept it that's right and my wife really yeah yeah not not a personal conversion I honestly had not thought of that at all that was not part of our engagement negotiations and discussions at all I had in fact I had sort of as we went along believed that God would lead in such a way that my wife like many others I had seen in my ministry to sort of gradually leave behind the Catholic Church and and come over to my site because I in the end I didn't see a real long-term thing with two churches going on at once in a marriage I couldn't see how that would work but anyway I was going to say one of the strings that drew me in our marriage preparation was the area of natural family planning and the openness to life and I sort of was nervous about this as I heard about it because I thought oh man I mean Peggy's from a family of 11 children could I handle 11 children and an inner varsity Sal you know all these things are going through my mind as I read the Church's teaching on it and the reasoning behind it and and so forth I don't remember if we read humanity at that time I think we did it really made sense to me and it made a lot of sense and I knew some people in inner varsity that had embraced that teaching as well but there were a few people but it was the first time I was really reading it and looking at it and I said yeah I think this is right and so we went to the classes and were prepared to have as many children as God wanted us to have it really wasn't putting God first it is yeah it is and I was coming to the conclusion as I just was mentioning about the Annunciation be it done unto me Lord according to thy word and that was a prayer Mary gave at the announcement of the Jesus birth and the conception of Jesus in her and I thought isn't it interesting that the context of that that wonderful statement is in children that made a big impact on me and so I that was the first step that I was making toward the Catholic Church though I would not admit it at all it was I was like embracing the teaching we were the next thing that came up was how we were to raise these children and the priest that was helping us through said I need to sign a contract here that does not block Peggy from raising the children Catholic and we talked about this Peggy and I did and though Peggy was a cradle Catholic she was really discovering her Catholic faith along with me through this whole process it's not as though she was fully there when we met and as she had fully understood how we're going to work our thing out it wasn't that at all it was a process as we prayed together and talked but this whole area of raising the children we talked with the priest and the priest said well this is in place mostly because couples in your situation usually the children get left behind who don't get raised in any church and I said well that's not our case you know we're both committed to Christ and we want the best for our children but for me to say it's going to be in the Catholic Church at this juncture was more than I could do and I said is there any anything we can do and he said well why don't you write to the bishop and ask for a dispensation bishop in new york city so we did we carefully penned out a letter and said you know basically what I just said you know this is our situation we want to raise our children Christian we're just not sure which church that will be took about a month to get back and we got an answer I wish I had saved both of those letters I'm not sure that he have but they the letter came back from the bishop no dispensation granted this is the reason why we do it a very short letter and I I was somewhere between angry and misunderstood or something Peggy was will or along with me on that we thought well he did I guess we didn't make ourselves clear obviously if we had just been a little more clear he would have granted us dispensation on that and I said finally well I'll agree to this I'll sign this in the end God's will be done and and I looked back on that is probably the first meaningful step in to the authority of the Catholic Church because I thought you know the church has been around a lot longer than I have it's got some wisdom even though I don't agree with it it's a little bit absurd for me to really think that my way is better but in the end if it is we'll do it that's sort of how I was thinking so signed off on that we got married in the Catholic Church which was an interesting thing because all of my supporting clientele in the region a lot of them were very conservative Protestants and I was concerned about the backlash this would have even announcing our engagement and I got a little bit it was of course not nearly so bad as my dreams made it out to be but I did get some back of people not understanding and there were some letters and so forth remember that day before our wedding we had a little party in our apartment and we're talking I got a phone call it's from a young lady at the church I had attended and she was the next Catholic now conservative Baptist she had all of her answers ready for why you shouldn't be Catholic and she said I'm just calling you to let you know you're making a big mistake you shouldn't get married to a Catholic and I said why you call me the day before the wedding and she said well I figured better now than ever and maybe but anyway that was a few hours before our wedding that happened to know we got married everything went off fine some letters did come afterwards more phone calls and letters went to management above me and InterVarsity from people then actually to me but it was a nerve-wracking time for me though because I wasn't sure if my ministry with InterVarsity was going to be able to perceived strictly from the funding side InterVarsity people were very supportive of me I had no problem there I had great managers above me that were very supportive so that was good but still you had to have others who would support you that's wise oh yeah there you go yeah so I had to face a real possibility of what's next if this doesn't work out but it did and I didn't yeah we moved along so we're attending to churches really at this point of the early years of our marriage we had a child after a year and a half or so and were bringing him to two churches and again my long-term thought was this isn't going to work long-term but there's plenty of time for Peggy to change I was in my office in inner varsity in Kingston New York and there was a Christianity Today magazine that had just come out it was the publication of evangelicals still around today very well-respected and I'm not sure if it was a cover article or something caught my attention why did Tom Howard become Catholic and it was a very first time that I had known of somebody that went from the Protestant church to the Catholic Church seen plenty of the other direction but that was the first time there and not only that but it happened within the family of what I consider to be the first family of evangelicalism Tom Howard I didn't know personally but I had read some of his articles his brother Dave was an inner varsity as an upper manager and I knew him his sister Elizabeth was a speaker and a lot of inner varsity functions or a ban emissions conventions and I had heard her and read a number of her books her husband that died as a missionary wasn't that's right that's right yeah she wrote a book on that through gates of splendor a very great book a great book he was a martyr with a few other men Central America oh yeah so I read with great interest this article because I thought I've never seen this before and I I read all of his answers it was an interview with Christianity today and he was making sense yeah I mean why haven't I even considered the Catholic Church before this and because I hadn't and like I said converting to that was not even on the radar for me because I just figured no one does it and I hadn't really considered it Tom Howard gave me reason to think about it and from that point forward I started reading and I read all of the books that he talked about in the bottom of that article among those not all of them but most of them John Henry Newman on the development of Christian doctrine right Newman's also apologia his reason for becoming Catholic I remember one good Friday being on a retreat and taking that book along with me at a Catholic retreat center and all of these things are making sense you know I'm not finding reasons to not become Catholic but they're making a great case for not being Protestant too and you know I was really being drawn so the one thing that Tom Howard also mentioned and some other people had encouraged me to do was to read church history which I had read absolutely nothing of so I took took them up on that and picked up a large series of books called a history of Christianity by Kenneth Scott LaTourette which I know is a stand by in seminaries I believe evangelical yeah active right right focused on looking at the history of the church through admissions yes the idea of evangelization of missions of the world right yeah so that I started reading and it was a thick book with a very thin small print I sorry and took me probably a couple years to get through it but I could not put that down I'm a slow reader it was so good especially the early years and from an evangelical perspective the book had been written I was thinking to myself this is convincing me that the Catholic Church is for real it's been around a long time and I've got to have a good case not to be a Catholic so the boy I read the more convinced I became at that point in InterVarsity I was a manager managing other staff so I'd bring these books in to our meetings and let's discuss church history in our meeting and whether it was something on the Reformation or something from before we talked and talked and I remember one of the staff coming at the same conclusion I was secretly he said why don't we all become Catholic and I'm thinking to myself very good question I'm thinking the same thing myself and I did they didn't but search history more than anything else convinced me and so I ended up leaving InterVarsity in 88 after 10 years of being on staff for the diversity and began work in some other fields and we sort of took steps away from traditional evangelical churches the next step was to an Episcopal Church a charismatic Episcopal Church in Connecticut incidentally another couple that has been on your show reg and Peter crammed for many years back were good friends of ours in that church and visited area no-knock Terry a knows is that the Cloyd occurs daily yeah yeah this was up in near Hartford when's your area and it was a that was a good couple of years and I felt at that point that I was almost home but there were a few things that were bothersome to me and we ended up moving back to Rochester New York where I took another job and at that point I said you know there's nothing holding me back from becoming Catholic and both Peggy and I went through the RCI program together she is my sponsor and in 92 I eat her vigil I came into the Catholic Church and Peggy's she has a great story in herself but she was reading the same things I was all along and she was taking it a lot farther because she knew a lot more and we were growing together through this whole process and we found the way that God had provided for us in our marriage and raising children and everything in it really has worked out wonderfully thanks be to God so but when I did become Catholic it was I have to say that other than Tom Howard I knew I didn't know about you and I didn't know about Scott Hahn or anybody else I figured well Tom Howard I don't know personally but at least he's there with me and other than that we're on her own I'm the first one to do it so and I'm so glad to see there were any others - so well it's interesting to see that not only will your was your heart being opened to the church but at the same time your wife was strengthened in her own Catholic yes so it wasn't you just going to what your wife did or your wife giving in to where you were but both of you discovered beauty exactly what it really was I couldn't put it better myself exactly the way it was we have an email from Mabel from Frederick Maryland and she asked was there one particular Catholic teaching that opens John's heart to the Catholic Church he's dimension about history was what about the issues of teaching was there a doctrine or an idea that drew you to the church well I mentioned that the teaching and on respect for life and contraception and so forth that was one of those strings another one was the Eucharist I was so excited and eagerly anticipating coming into the Catholic Church to receive Christ and the body and blood soul and divinity in the Eucharist I sort of wanted to to be there before I was ready but I made the analogy that it's just like engagement before being married you know you have to wait before you can culminate your relationship wait until you received in and then receive all of the blessings and I had read enough about the Eucharist and again that John chapter 6 that made a whole lot more sense to me thanks to that student then had my pastor his explanation of it that was a big drawing card for me um okay so that those were two of them the gift strings yeah and again it sounds like even your wife was coming to her own appreciation of the same thing although she had added from the time she was a child the Eucharist right herself had to come to understand it's it's reality that's right and really come to grasp it and and have it as her own it was there to some extent but it's it grew much deeper over those eight or ten years all right we have an email from Darrell from Indiana I know several young adults who were raised Catholic and then stopped going to church during college how can we keep these people enthused about the faith well from the standpoint of of being a parent and being a parent of a student that is going through that I I've thought a lot about that I'm not sure I've got the definitive answer I'm in fact I'm sure I don't but our friendships as parents have a lot to do with it being friends with Catholic of Catholics of like mind and of like mission it's important to to be with those and bring your children to them it's also important I think for students and that age level to really see what you are I say struggle with maybe it's that but I'm also thinking what is a challenge for you and your faith what is that adventure how can you see the faith worked out in your parents lives they've got to be able to see that to be able to catch a little bit of it themselves so I come back to personal your own example as a as a person and as a and in marriage as well I don't know in my university days I heard staff say endless times that youth group you know determines which church I go to because that there's a strong youth group and and there's certainly I don't want to downplay the importance of good youth group development but we weren't in churches that had that for our family and we did find ways to do it we were my wife homeschooled our children and there were homeschool networks that found Catholics of the same ilk together and we did a lot together and their friendships are children's friendships with other friends I'll help to form their faith yeah well yeah there is no silver bullet that that answers all those questions when we let our children go to college away from the home I mean you talked about your own experience or feeling of the break from home to college and you experienced that yourself as well as from holic college to work and and often what we end up with these these young people because of that break are looking to latch onto something new so we do want to make sure when they go to a college that we've made sure there is some kind of good Catholic Fellowship in that College doesn't have to be a Catholic College right but at least that there's a good solid Catholic fellowship for them to be involved with and make sure they get connected let me talk just give the example of my two children that went to one to a public university and the other to Christendom College a Catholic College our son was first he wanted to major in engineering so he went to a public university and got involved with the Newman group on campus which was quite good actually where he was in Connecticut but he his strong affiliations were with a group that we had gotten involved with Irenaeus ministries in Rochester New York with David Higbee's but on your show or at least a couple of times and that has been an evangelistic type of ministry outreach and especially to young people that that was really a turning point for our son when he was involved there to the point when he went to college and Connecticut his friends were still back here in Rochester and they'd feed off each other as saying you know we're here for you Steve we're gonna help you get going out there and in Hartford and they were and to this day they're they're still close but our daughter on the other hand wanted to go to a Catholic College christendom College and she has made wonderful friends there just graduated and you know that every there was just different places fireman's represent in the solid Catholic that's right environment trustworthy environment got another email Beverly from Colorado writes I have been attending RCIA classes and I'm thinking about possibly becoming Catholic honestly I'm struggling with a lot of Catholic piety and devotions it all seems so strange from asking Mary and the Saints for prayers from lighting candles are saying novenas it's all new territory for me all I ever feel comfortable with Catholic devotions did you have to make that same transition yourself yes to some extent it was all brand new to me certainly from the Baptist tradition that I had grown up the candles were there when the lights went out and the power went out that was about it yeah I had to get used to that and particularly the Marian devotions were you know I when I became Catholic I didn't have it all the answer put together in my mind I I didn't really understand the rosary at that point I mean I knew theoretically how it worked and so forth but I can't say that my heart was wrapped around it and I was right there and but I've made the analogy of marriage and I think coming into the Catholic Church is much like that that is we find that the Catholic Church stands for truth and is the expression of Christ in the world and we come under its authority and commit ourselves there then things work out we've learned the wisdom of the church and we start with the premise that it's right then we can learn why it's right as we get involved and I found that to be true of the Rosary my wife has for many years been a strong advocate of a daily prayers as a family and most of the time many times it's the rosary and chaplet of divine mercy and those as I've gotten to do them and say them and pray them I've my I have grown in my love for Mary and an understanding of her role in the church it's the combination of intellectually understanding it correctly Frank past but as well as the spiritual experiencing the reality of the Holy Spirit in those devotions and the reality of this great communion of witnesses we have in yes and I'd like to say something else about that too the sacraments in the Catholic Church have meant so much to me I mentioned the Eucharist confession there has been nothing in my life that I would say has changed the course of my life more than confession and I really mean that I'm not overstating the case in that thank God all right John thank you so much for sharing your rage on the journey home and you're given witness other to the families that want their children to have a deep sense of their Catholic faith so both you and your wife thank you for your witness thank you for have thank you for joining us on the journey home I pray this has been an encouragement to your walk with Christ in His Church god bless you see you next week you

Channel: EWTN

Views: 20,340

Rating: 4.7852349 out of 5

Keywords: EWTN, Journey Home, Marcus Grodi, John Fraysier, Former Evangelical Free, Catholic, JHT01335

Id: EFNs2A-8SMM

Length: 56min 11sec (3371 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 16 2011