Journey Home - Former Church of Christ Minister - Marcus Grodi with Eben Emerson - 01-31-2011

good evening and welcome to the journey home my name is Marcus Grodi your host for this program every week I have this privilege that EWTN has given me to introduce to you men and women who because of their love for Jesus Christ the Holy Spirit opened their hearts to see the beauty of his church I work for the coming home network international and and what we do is help Protestant ministers come home to the church and you may not know this but over over the last 150 years there's been a constant stream of Protestant ministers coming home to the Catholic Church you don't hear about it very often but the Lord has been doing that especially after Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman came in there was a big input of Anglicans Episcopalians and there's always been a stream of Anglicans Episcopalians some Lutheran's so Presbyterian pastors who've come home to the Catholic Church but you don't often hear of the others and to me that's a sign of what the Holy Spirit has been doing these last 50 years we're seeing men and women ministers well-educated deeply committed Christians discovering the beauty of the Catholic Church and coming home and not just from the usual suspects but from all of the different Christian traditions and that's true of our guests this evening Abin Emerson was a former Church of Christ minister and I know some of you Catholics probably do not know what the Church of Christ background is and we'll have Evans share that in a moment but I'm very excited to welcome Evan to the program at 11:00 to be here welcome to the journey home he came all the way up from Lubbock Texas yeah from Lubbock Texas and I appreciate y'all having me appreciate everything y'all do no it's it's great to have you here it's and I'm always excited especially when I get to meet another clergy convert to the church but especially coming from a background like Church in Christ began Church Christ it's the anti-catholic as you can get right yeah probably I don't know of any other group you know it's certainly a more fundamentalist group and whenever I was first coming into the church I had heard of a lot of Presbyterians from Anglican backgrounds coming into the Catholic faith and I thought well is there anybody out there like me unfortunately someone that's affiliated with the coming home network contacted me God by name Bruce Sullivan and said yes there is and he was sure that his pastor himself yeah he was actually we had we have some of the same education background and we know some of the we had some of the same teachers whenever we were going through ministry training and some of the same influences some of the same anti-catholic influences even so yeah yeah so I was relieved to know that you all had reached out to someone who was maybe it's fundamentalist as I was so I just happened to be looking on the internet recently for a particular Catholic spiritual book that I wanted to find and looked it up on the internet and I found this this website where this woman was in shock was was surprised that such anti-catholic minister mint literature would be used at their summer camp and I went to this website and it listed all the kind of stuff we would love now but it happened to be in a library at their summer camp right and what that you always they bring that up is she is so convinced in her view of the Catholic Church that had been impossible to reach her and that's why when I know people come from the Church of Christ background like a wall what it must have been a major two-by-four they got your attention well it was I think it was a subtle it wasn't it wasn't necessarily a huge knock over the head one day I think it was a subtle working of the spirit from the very beginning of my journey there were seeds that were always there but what I chose to do with those seeds and the the heart that I chose to cultivate to allow those seeds to grow was a little indifferent toward the Catholic faith to say the least you know I'd I grew up in an area where the Catholic Church was not a very prominent church I grew up in in Northwest Arkansas and yeah and most of my friends in in school we we weren't from a church house or a religious home but a lot of my friends were Christians they were fundamentalist and the one or two Catholic friends I whenever I was in junior high in high school they probably knew as much about Catholicism as I did and I really didn't know anything about any religion any a Church of Christ or Catholic to me it was it was all the same so when you brought up in Arkansas huh so often people brought up in areas where there are no Catholic Church that's it's not even something that's brought up very often right you know you're thinking about it so it wasn't so much you were anti-catholic just didn't think about the Catholic Church problem yeah that's very well put we really didn't have any formal introduction or an informal introduction to the Catholic Church now there was st. Joseph school was in Fayetteville and it was a pretty small private school and I think whenever I was in school it just went to the eighth grade now it's it's grown because of the population changes there and I remember I had a friend of mine and she went to that school until she was in the ninth grade and it was like oh wow you went to the Catholic school you know what was that like you know did you chant every morning and you know it was this real odd thing to us and you know it wasn't I'd say Fayetteville is a little different it's probably not what may be typically envisioned to the south but nevertheless it wasn't a very predominantly Catholic area I mean it wasn't we certainly would have been more comfortable even from a non Church background going to a Baptist Church or to a Church of Christ and so if you would have asked me even after the beginning of my journey into ministry in the CAF into the Churches of Christ you know what a Catholics believe I probably could have given you a couple of cookie cutter answers that most fundamentalist could but I really didn't know a whole lot beyond that so I want to make sure we don't miss some make sure you jump all the way back you were brought up without any religious back no no religious background I don't know that I'd say that my family was I was atheist or agnostic I I think that toured organized religion there was some indifference I was raised by my mom and next door to our house whenever I was a kid it's it's no longer there was a Pentecostal church and I thought that the church existed for me to rent my bike off of because I had a great porch you know a long sidewalk and if you know the little ladies weren't carrying casserole dishes into the end of the church on Sunday then I thought this is a great place to hang out and I remember I would sit sometimes between our fence and the southern wall of that church and I would listen to him singing on Sundays and I thought it was it was cool you know I didn't really know that they were singing songs to God and I really didn't know what they were doing there but I remember thinking how neat that people go to this building you know on Sundays and Wednesday nights and I remember asking my mom whenever I was really young you know what what's this all about and not ever really getting a favorable answer of of what they were I don't think that she she disliked him or necessarily dislikes Christianity but it wasn't an environment where she was going to say well you know maybe you should go over there and find out so I'd say as a small child I really had no opinion of Christian matters until a little bit later and all right so it didn't really plan a seat of towards the Pentecostal church growing up he just didn't even connect with it no not at all and in fact there was a gas meter on the corner of our property this was a little bit later than that I'd say that was my first very nominal introduction to Christianity to seeing these people you know with casserole dishes on Sundays and Bibles and I thought well there's something to this church thing you know that's where people go people from school tell me they go there and I had a friend of mine who lived down the road we used to sit out by the gas meter in front of our property and I remember asking him about it we're 6-7 you know very theologically minded people and I said you know what you owe to the church what are they doing there and I remember him saying well we go there because we love Jesus and I said you know I've heard I've heard of Jesus you know and and he goes well he loves you and he he wants you to pray to him and he wants to save you and of course salvation really meant nothing prayer didn't mean a whole lot and I remember even asking then say well what's prayer and he'd say well just talk to him he's there I remember asking in praying things never I was really young and seeing them answered and I knew well hey there's something there's something to this that there's something much bigger than me there is a reality that's there that I can't explain and he's working in a way that I cannot comprehend now I couldn't have told you that he came from that his that his story was primarily recorded in the New Testament I couldn't have told you anything like that but I did know that there were these people that went to church my friend told me about Jesus at the gas meter and whenever I asked him to do something it seems like he seemed to do it and he gave me a piece when when sometimes because of things that were going on I needed it and that he introduced himself to me first it wasn't something that I went after looking for him but I believe that he through the through the mouth of a babe a young kid planted a seed initially in my life and it I'll say it lay dormant for several years but that's how it that's how I was first introduced with some ways that really does connect with the the Catholic Way of understanding that that is a sense as Agustin era you know Saint Agustin talks about that good that that that need that God shaped thing within us right that our heart yearns for that that that's in everybody absolutely that's why we believe in evangelization we're going out to tap that thing that's already there in somebody that's covered up by all the junk of their life and praise God for this little friend of yours that brought it up yeah otherwise you would have thought that what church is all about was was casserole dishes yeah and and thankfully it is sometimes I'm very thankful that a lot of times whenever I was a minister we had a church that had a lot of casserole dishes and I'm I'm eternally grateful for that well you're a golfer and I remember an old joke about the guy who always watched guys play golf but didn't know what it was about yeah and then he what he thought golf was about was you hit this ball to nowhere you to drive your cart that's what golf is yeah in journey and it maps out where you gonna drive your cart yeah and people can misunderstand what church is all about if you just watch it from the outside and you don't as people don't understand the Catholic Church because it's right from the outside yeah so what so into high school no religious foundation yet or well I'll start from from there whenever I was in high school some things had happened that caused me to read question this Jesus that I'd known several years ago and I remember praying about this situation I found myself in and seeing him answer that again and it was a scary situation without going into a whole lot of detail and I knew then that I had to start asking some questions there was something much larger than myself out there and I remember the Gideons used to pass out these at the time they're a little orange new Testament sure King James New Testaments with the Psalms and proverbs in the back and I remember I had several copies of those at my house that I'd picked up probably not for noble purposes but I took them home and I remember thinking well I'm gonna read by this time I'd been in a Bible Belt culture long enough to know okay the story of Jesus is here so I started reading Scripture and I determined to change my life I wasn't gonna do the things I was doing anymore I was going to become more like the man I was seeing revealed in the gospel Jesus so I remember I read this little bitty I mean it had to have been the size of my hand orange Bible at night you know whenever I get home from work and I'd read it every night and I had a friend from work at the time I worked at a grocery store there in in town and he came to me said hey I noticed that you're not you know act like you used to to paraphrase and said no you know I'm a Christian now and he said oh that's great he said would you consider going to church with me and I said well sure you know where do you go and he says well I'll go to the Assembly of God and yeah sure I'd love to go to church with you and so I started going with him and I'm not sure if I went with him because I liked him or if I because I had a crush on his sister but one of the two reasons you know but but it did pull me into a church and I started to go pretty regularly with with his name was Kevin every Sunday go with him and his family it was wonderful I remember one Sunday there was a an altar call and we were asked to come down and to make make the confession and then ask Jesus into our hearts and for forgiveness and I did that and was very excited about my newfound salvation and I remember telling getting home and telling my mom and telling my friends and telling other family members about the fact that I was now a member of the Assembly of God and I was saved and another one of my friends and how they react to that I think they saw it coming I think that there were enough changes in me at that time to where they knew okay you know this isn't the band that we knew you know there's something different so good yeah I think joining a church really wasn't it's kind of like I said before I just think it was maybe in you know a very passive attitude toward anything religious I don't think that they hated it I don't think that they necessarily cared for it's like ads that that's your thing you know and so I what it was until received to say that and I wasn't I certainly wasn't discouraged but the same time I wasn't encouraged to to pursue that in the home anyway now with my friends and a new new family I was certainly encouraged but you believe when you look back on that altar call experience you know that that did start setting a different trajectory for your life it did and the reason is is because shortly after that a friend of mine from high school who was a member of the Church of Christ he said well I told him about my conversion about me becoming a member of the Assembly of God and becoming saved and they're a very charismatic church and talking about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit of course and he says well would you ever want to come to church with me and I was like sure you know I searched Christ simply batterer we don't care you know unless it's Catholic or maybe a cult religion I that's fine with me so I went with him to the church Christ and I was in January of 93 of 93 and afterwards his dad who had served as a missionary in Russia for several years the three of us had a Bible study after services and they presented to me what many Church of Christ members refer to as the plan of salvation which is hear believe repent confess and be baptized and they were like well what do you want to do and it was pretty evident to me from that that first study that baptism was a necessity of salvation that it was it had to be an adult and that the Church of Christ was the one true church from that one afternoon I got all of that so I knew I had to do something because I was serious about serving God and I wanted to serve Him in a way that I believed was scripturally faithful so I was like wool yeah you know I I have to the whole review Thursday 16 Wow so yeah the Lord really was was moving us there's dirt and so I remember that was February the 28th of 1993 and I remember I got baptized we went to church that service that morning went made at Golden Corral that afternoon went home and did the Bible study dad and son took a nap while I made a decision about there about my eternal destination that evening service I got baptized and I remember telling my friend from the Assembly of God you know I said now now I'm a real Christian you know at first I just confessed my sins and I was sorry for what I've done but now I'm a real Christian I've been baptized and that started the ball rolling and in a very powerful and significant way so at this point you're 16 while you're in high school mm-hmm did your direction and vocation changed about that same time - yeah totally at the time and if you would have asked anybody that knew me whenever I was a teenager if you would have said what would have Evans chosen profession been it either would have been if it would have been something legal it probably probably would have been something I probably farmed or something like that I was I really didn't like town still not too fond of it but they would have thought well he's going to end up out in the sticks somewhere you know either cutting wood or something you know and but whenever that happened I remember right after I became a member of the Church of Christ I fell in love with Scripture I'd always read it and from the time of that first initial scare when I first started going the Assembly of God up into that point I read my Bible every night and I prayed every night and in fact I didn't feel easy going to sleep unless I read scripture and just it just filled me gave me a piece that coupled with prayer is beyond understanding it's it's not it's not expressible in words but after I became a member of the Church of Christ and saw how much they really do honor Scripture even though we're at different spectrums on some things now there's no denying that the Church of Christ really does respect and honor the Bible so I just ate it up and I studied all the time and I would be at school this young Church of Christ guy there studying his New Testament you know while I may have been in detention but out but I always read it I was always reading and I was doing word studies and and doing devotionals at the church and I was encouraged one of the ministers there at the church Christ I attended he said you should really consider being a preacher and I said no way am I going to be a preacher because I said they're weird I said they don't talk like me you know there that's just not me I'm not the preacher type what I thought of is the as as a preacher type and so now a couple of months went by and that same minister said well I need you to do me a favor there's this little church out in the country and the guy that usually preaches there can't go there this Sunday would you mind going out there tomorrow and preaching that Sunday morning and I said sure and this was a very rural church so rural in fact that the year before that my friend and I had hunted across the street in the National Forest and so it gets a little bitty Church and I'd never preached I'd done a bunch of smaller dotter at this point I'm still sick still 16 that's the 16 well I may have been I may have just turned 17 at this time but anyway around 16 or 17 and I'm ever getting to the church and I stood in the pulpit and from the second that I delivered my first sermon I knew I'd do it for the rest of my life and so I think that maybe the minister actually wasn't sick I think that my friend price said hey let you know what's send a man up there so I came back and I said okay you know I'll do whatever you need me to do and but I still don't want to go to preacher training school if I can do that if I can just stay at home and do some kind of education to prepare me for that that's what I want to do and Lord had other plans well there is something to be said right when you when you're in that pulpit preaching it isn't about you but you're you've really given yourself for the Holy Spirit to use you to communicate the gospel absolutely and it's hard to describe the sense of that the power of that it is hard to describe and and and to other people that I've that I've known and whenever I was a member of the church that would talk to me about whether or not they should go into ministry I didn't so much ask them about well do you think that you're you know is that where you feel your gifts are I would simply ask you know why would you want to do that and if and if a person is first of all convicted of the inerrancy of Scripture and if they are convicted that people need it they're gonna be okay they may not be the most gifted speaker but they're still going to be able to convey it in a way that's going to show true passion and true power from the spirit in the end the word my desire especially at that that young of an age was not to knock anybody over by my wonderful speaking ability it was just hey here's this truth I've been studying and you've got to hear it and that's how I felt about Scripture then and that's how I still feel about Scripture it's not so much that I'm not narcissistic enough to think enough I'm just a little bit enough to think that everybody needs to hear what I have to say but I do think that whenever someone falls in love with scripture and they see what that opens up for someone who is or is not a Christian it'll knock your socks off so and I saw that and I was like I've got to do this the rest of my life so we work with you know we're Protestant ministers that came Catholic still know that feeling you know I'm too Catholic were they going to do with that that sense of calling right so you're a 17 year old and you caught the bug mm-hmm so then what happened I mean did you go to know if I remember right Church of Christ they're training schools are really Bible schools exactly is that were you headed well it's funny you asked because I was pretty adamant about not going to a minister training school because Churches of Christ are autonomously governed there's not a there's not an overseeing body local congregations pretty much determined who they hire as their minister who they appoint us their elders or shepherds pastors and their deacons so I could have done a home-based study and probably worked for a small congregation I thought well that's what I'll do I'll I'll study my Bible at home and then I will I work for a small church on the outskirts of Fayetteville somewhere and I'll have my cattle and I'll just kind of do my own thing well there was a girl in our congregation it was several years older than me and she had came back from a program called aim which is an acronym for adventures and missions and I asked about so what's this what's his aim thing they said well it's a two-year program where you go to a Bible Training Institute for eight months and you get some training there and then you go to a mission field either foreign or domestic for 18 months to two years then I said hey that sounds great let's let's do it so my youth minister who cared very much about me and still does I believe sent me to these all these churches and said you gotta go raise money go raise money you know and I was like well I don't know what to do he said just go tell about what's your what's your plan is so I went and told all these churches about moving to West Texas you know I'm 17 I'm not graduated high school yet they're like you you want to leave home and go somewhere you never been for eight months and then go to a country you've never been to I was like yeah absolutely so move to Lubbock and I remember I remember the drive out to Lubbock I'd got south of Amarillo and I'm between Amarillo and Lubbock and I'm thinking to myself and and the the topography between Amarillo and Lubbock is is about like this table there's really no topography and I came from an area it's it's kind of like the area around here it's real hilly lots of trees real beautiful I remember thinking to myself you know I'm listening to my Tom Petty and I've got my Dr Pepper and I'm going what am i doing now why did I come out to this desert and so I got there and I went through eight months of Bible training and I received at that time my first formal introduction to Catholicism and it wasn't anything that contradicted what I'd already believed it just furthered my distrust of and you got that from the school yes yeah they actually had a course whenever I was there and the program called Catholicism well it makes sense because using the mission fields they're in places that from the time we were family catholic yeah missions at one time right well and we were and just so happened that after I'd received this class you're you're taught in this program and in a lot of Church of Christ schools and not in all of them I will say there's even in the last ten years there have been a lot a lot of growth in this area in the Churches of Christ but at that time we were taught a very systematic approach to salvation you know there's five steps of salvation we were also taught a very systematic approach to evangelization and with Catholics it was super easy because we were taught what they believe you go tell them what they believe you tell them why it's wrong and then you tell them what they need to do about it you know it's kind of like a Salesman come into your house and say hey your carpets dirty and I just happen to have this vacuum that you need and of course they're gonna buy it and so spit my eight months there and then I moved to Ecuador South America for just shy of two years and was in town called cuenca for about a year and then in a town called Quito or the capital for about a year and before we did a lot of language before I knew the language you know we did a lot of Bible study in English they had this program where you could teach someone the gospel while teaching them English at the same time but really we did some evangelism studies and we did some construction work but speaking to Catholics was quite possibly one of the funnest things for me to do because I love to share the truth and they were such an easy audience because it wasn't something that I really had to work at you know whenever I would talk to other members of other evangelical churches because at this time I'm operating on the assumption that we're the we're the church and you you need to be a part of us if you're gonna get there yeah the audience needs to know not just your versus the Catholic Church but versus all other Christians all other Christian traditions yes and there were some ecumenical fibers in the Churches of Christ but they were usually pushed to the outsides from the from the congregations that I'd been a part of which were very fundamentalist churches if you had said well I know the Catholics are bad but hey you know the Baptist's aren't really that bad they'd say oh oh but they are you know they're not a member of the one true church and so we weren't simply there to convert all the Catholics we were there to convert everybody and but since it was Ecuador 90 son I think 92 or 93 percent of the country was professed Catholic at the time it wasn't very hard and in fact all evangelical religions in South America have been growing by leaps and bounds because and still do because people who are trained in a very systematic approach to evangelism and and what the church supposedly believes goes down there and like I said tell them what they believed I'll watch wrong and some what to do about far too many poorly catechized Oh Alex right yeah poorly would would would would be a very good way to put that and now as a Catholic I look back and I I I sometimes feel ashamed for the journey that I took some Catholics off of but in the end I'll leave that in the Lord's hands and trust that the Holy Spirit will work in a more powerful way than I can but yeah most of them were not very well catechized right and they didn't know their faith well and some of them maybe after discovering Christ in a deeper way through administrative a end up going back and appreciating the Catholic faith that they had and then I was free shade in the first place and that actually happened more than once because what would happen is is that you would do a study with somebody and then they would start to read scripture for maybe the first time and start to explore their faith for maybe the first time and then that would cause them to say oh wait a minute maybe I wasn't in such a bad place in the first first place or and I saw this actually happened with my uh with some family members on my wife's side now I'll get to that in a second they may have said well I want to know more about what I do believe so that I can defend it next time this comes up you know the the defensive family member that was back whenever we would have somebody that we did pull away from the church and broaden the Church of Christ you know their family would say wait a minute we're the true church but because of the way we evangelize them they would say but mom or dad that's obviously not true because you know X plus y equals Z and then mom and dad would say well then we need to learn so we can reinforce unn and then you know you took one away and then you set two on fire yeah you know for the faith is how I'd explain it sometimes now so I don't worry about it as much as I used to because I see that in the long run the fruits of that are reeling within a lot of Latin America's they see their sons and daughters pulled away from the church they're going whoa what what's going on you know some of the things that we took for granted or that they took for granted in there may be more thorough catechism they're saying well we should have said this and now they're there's just fire reigniting to let people know that's happening here in the states too yeah absolutely let me pause there Evan okay we'll come back just a minute I've been Emerson our guest for this evening we'll hear more about his journey in just a little welcome back to the journey home I'm Marcus Grodi your guest in and your host and our guest this evening is Evan Emerson and we've just left you in South America you're getting your first taste of the Catholic Church but you were jumping a little bit ahead yourself evaluating with a back with a little bit of hindsight but at the time you weren't feeling probably the least bit guilty about helping these Catholics discover Jesus Christ you know I wasn't feeling guilty about helping them discover Jesus Christ but I did I did have a great respect for the Catholic Church even though I'd been indoctrinated and taught how false the the church was I remember going into the Cathedral in downtown and seeing the reverence and honor that they had for the church and later learning about the Eucharist but I would say that that was the first time that I ever came face to face with Catholicism and even though I was out to change it it still gave it still put a face and it put people with the religion that I had probably demonized all right so you did you come back more committed than at that point to being a minister I presume yeah in fact I remember coming toward the end of my time there in Ecuador I wasn't sure what I would do I didn't know if I would move back to home and go to the University of Arkansas or go home and start a business or whatever I knew that I would always remain involved in some type of ministry within the church the Churches of Christ but after some prayer I decided that I'd go back to the Institute that I had done the initial program of eight months with and they have a two-year ministry training program and I went through their program and even though there were different emphases within the minister training program whether it's missions or preaching or youth ministry I knew I would do missions but I still did the preaching emphasis probably because I had spent the time on the field I wanted more education in the area of homiletics and presentation of preaching I graduated from there took two years preached for very small congregations in West Texas and New Mexico predominantly congregations because by this time I was fluent in Spanish and so I felt comfortable enough to do that whenever I graduated though a friend of mine was moving back to Mexico City and he said hey you know you're familiar with how did the cell groups home-based churches you speak the language come back don't you come with us that's it okay cool I'll go help you know and so I moved down there for a year and I helped in a very small way with a church plant which was all cell based home based churches and stayed there for a year there was really no place Mexico City was it was enormous and it was it was it was kind of overwhelming to me honestly came back after your country bullying that's exactly right yeah there was no place for a hick in Mexico City and I came back and I went to LCU and Lubbock Christian University which is in the same town that this institute sunset is in there the only reason I went to LCU is because at this time all of my friends were in Lubbock my social network and you know I'd been there whether whether indirectly through the program or whether directly going through this two-year program all of my friends on my social network was there and they just happened to have a Church of Christ University so I went back and I did my degree with every intention of graduating and moving back to Latin American field but I wanted to be married and I wanted to be married and I wanted to get my college education because it's something that was very very valued in my family so went through the school and I worked continue to preach at small congregations in eastern New Mexico and in West Texas and I worked at a gym and took a whole bunch of hours I think I graduated in three years and met a girl by the name of Jennifer at the time Jennifer McGuire and we started dating and she was Catholic and you know she's right and obviously she fell very deeply in love with me and I wasn't too sure actually she wasn't too sure I liked her immediately she has a wonderful character but uh she was Catholic and as we got to be a little more serious I knew that I could not date a Catholic I couldn't seriously consider marrying someone that I thought was lost so pull out the resources that I've been using ever since I had first learned how to teach Catholics and use them on her and she was ready to become a member of the Church of Christ she didn't do it because of me she's she's much too sensible for that I'm much more so than her husband but she she did it because she wanted to be a member of the right church and I showed her that the church was right Church so she left the Catholic Church and now her family has been Catholic since Peter and then Catholic very long time and it caused quite a disturbance with her and with the new boyfriend and the rest of the family and they they didn't really appreciate what I had done they were worried about her and so I remember during this time though that her mom gave me a copy of born fundamentalist born-again Catholic and I just want to give a little plug or a where he's yeah if you come from a fundamentalist background I think that that book speaks very well to you because the language that it uses in the way that it presents the Catholic Church is more geared towards someone with the fundamentalist background and and sometimes I think that well I think that it speaks better to somebody with a fundamentalist background and so I read the book and it shook me up it shook me up a great deal and I was almost ready after reading that book to admit that they were Christian possibly if they were really faithful and believed everything in this book but I probably wouldn't feel comfortable if if somebody was a member of that church especially if I was going to be in a relationship with them so I kinda just put that on the back burner well during this time that all this is going on me and my wife girlfriends time we develop a better relationship that comes pretty evident that we're gonna get married I propose I'm looking for churches to do full-time work with and you've graduated I graduated yeah and I get a call to be a youth minister for a small congregation up in the panhandle of Texas and so we move up there or I move up there and Jennifer followed and attended college at a school that's north of there and we dated for a little while before we were married there but it became evident to me pretty quickly that I was not geared for youth ministry that's what I was hired as and and I I I think that you have to have the giftedness and ability to do that well and I did not and that was pretty evident now I was able to fake it pretty well but so I started looking for another church to go to but it just so happened that the minister where I was at I was asked to leave and they said well would you consider taking this role and I said absolutely and so after a trial period I became the minister and I loved it I loved it and decided about two or three years into it with this congregation you know I think I would go back to school and do my Master's you know there's a couple of good universities that are closed and it'd be great time to do that so I did nobody's tell me you worried yes yeah by this time I was married and she's become a pastor's wife yeah yeah she's a minister's wife and you know we're we're we're filling the role very well you know she's the she's at this time she talked for a year in the local high school and I was the local church Christ preacher and a member of the Rotary Club and you know I mean it everything fits she worked with the 4-h club and so we were the atypical or the typical small town Church of Christ preacher couple and and and it was and it was a position that I loved and in fact I I really have a great respect for the people there and they loved us and they cared for us and they they did more for me and taught us more than I than I think I ever taught them know you shouldn't become masters was it always necessary for a church Christ minister no not always I had the ministry training the two-year program and a lot of Ministers only do that some only go through university I happen to be fortunate enough to do both and but I did go ahead and go back and do a masters because I knew that I would probably go to a larger congregation eventually and most of them wanted someone with a master's so right yeah but anyway while I was doing my graduate degree I was introduced to some first source documents and I remember reading them and having this big problem in my mind because well you see first sort of talking to me a first-century yeah early church fathers I would never have read as a church Christ no no no no no and even though I was it a Church of Christ school at this time but of course once you get to that level irrespective of the denomination a lot of the study is similar and so anyway get introduced these first source documents these early church fathers and I'm thinking how in the world can someone so non-christian Catholic be saying something that is so Christian how can they have the spiritual insight and this love for Jesus and not even know who he is because that was the assumption I was I was operating on is that they you know they had long ago walked away from Jesus you know in the fourth century which a lot of people believe that you know in the fourth century they abandoned Christ and Christ abandoned them but yet here they are these church fathers in the 4th 5th 6th 7th all the way through the 18th 19th 20th centuries saying things about Jesus that were inspiring and and made it very evident that they had a relationship with them sounds like Wow well maybe that so then I said well okay I read this book a couple of years ago and I'm willing to admit then that maybe some Catholics if they if as long as they're faithful to what this says maybe they are Christian not too sure so now maybe it's possible that there has always been pockets of Christianity and Catholicism is what I started to believe because how could you how in the world could someone read someone like Kempis or gustan and not believe that they didn't have a sincere love for Jesus I think it's impossible to do so I put that on the back burner well fortunately or unfortunately I'd signed up for a pre Reformation history class one of my first classes I dropped the class but I had the books so I read the books and it was pretty evident to me even from a non-for from a non-biased historical perspective that there was one church that had existed since the time of pentecost and that was a catholic church sure it had its problems that had been fragmented and it had a lot of troubles that that led up into the current modern church age but it was evident that the church that I was a part of that had always taught that we were the church at Pentecost there's no way that that could have been possible because what I saw mirrored in the Catholic Church are started to see married in the Catholic Church and what I saw Pentecost was an apostolic authority in the church from the very beginning starting with Peters sermon at Pentecost II and so I thought well okay that's great Peter had to be in control for a little while because we didn't have the Bible yet so I again dismissed it but that history just just kept gnawing on me and I thought well maybe I'll look into it a little further so I studied the history of the church a little more and and did realize that whether or not they were the true church I wasn't sure but I was sure that they were probably closer historically to the time that Christ walked on the earth than the one that was a part of so after that I decided well I probably better study what Catholics actually believe so I got a copy of the Catechism and in fact I was in rotary with the the local priests there until you and I said hey do you yeah.but copy the Catechism and I remember he was he had this look on his face because to humble to say it he was like yeah I've got a copy you know I'm sure he was thinking I'm gonna take it you know and dissect it and come beat you up with it later so I decided well I want to know what they actually believe I want to know what Catholics actually believe so I read the Catechism in light of Scripture and tried to study the Catechism to disprove what it said in Scripture because I may have been I may have started to be convinced historically but I certainly wasn't gonna be convinced biblically that's what I thought so I started to read the Catechism and started to reference it with Scripture and there was no question that I could not refute what it was saying with Scripture honestly no I could if I had decontextualized certain and take one line out of content and totally exploited I could have done that but I didn't want to do that I really just wanted to know at this point I still hadn't planned on becoming Catholic I just want to know okay I've got the history thing I'm starting to believe some did your wife know your look no she doesn't and in fact well I'd say about that in just a second but no she didn't know but she probably was wondering though why is it that when we're sitting there recliner he's over there reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church yeah and you know she's she you know she's there with with with her book and here's this Church of Christ preacher reading the you know this big green catechism but she probably thought like a lot of people did that well he's simply doing that so he can disprove Catholicism I started to read it and it just kept gnawing on me it was like okay what they teach is actually biblical and there were some objections I still had meri probably being the biggest the real presence was something that wasn't as big of an issue because my contention ever ever since the beginning was and I would say this to anybody who's a member of a fundamentalist church if we're going to take Christ at his word whenever he says take eat this is my body then it probably good idea that we do that take him at his word because he is faithful and we would only be as faithful if we if we'd take him at his word so anyway so I came to a point where it's like okay I got I've got to do something you know I can't I can't simply ignore the fact that they are the historical church that they're the true Apostolic Church I can't ignore what the Catechism says I have to do something so I thought okay I'm just gonna set up a list of objections and it wasn't a formal list and I'm just gonna start studying these objections and I'm gonna disprove disprove this faith that I'm starting to see the validity in so I started to say things like Mary the real presence apostolic Authority the authority of the priests absolution confession all of these things and one by one they just started falling bam bam bam and I was like you know the Catholic Church has got it and it wasn't any one huge Epiphany you know it was and I think that God has consistently dealt with me in the same way and for that I'm saying for from the time of being a little child by the gas meter hearing in a very subtle way and then later coming to the realization and then having a seed planted with that first buck and then later come to the realization that's how God's chose to deal with me because I don't listen and I think that he knows oh of course he knows this I don't always listen if it's just thrown out to me but if I can think I discovered it then I'm much more likely to listen to it and that's exactly what he had the patience to let me to do and so as I discovered it I was like whoa what what am I going to do so I shared it with my wife and that became a it was it wasn't hard for the relationship but it was it was definitely a trial it was a test so did she feel like you were turning on her since you had pulled her out of the Catholic Church or had she become so convinced you know in the cat in the Church of Christ direction it's like I'm not even going there I don't think that she thought I was initially I don't think she thought I would ever become Catholic so even though I had shared with her hey I'm studying this stuff you know and I'm really having a hard time because after all they're not Christians and Here I am studying this you know I don't think that she initially she probably didn't she probably didn't worry her at first but then after she saw oh hey you know this this is really something especially whenever I had said you know I'm thinking about leaving the ministry and the Churches of Christ well and she's like what and at this point you know I'd finished school I was I had done I had printed up a curriculum that was used and over the whole Bible I'd done several speaking engagements I was fairly well known and had a lot of friends all all of my social background education background Church background was all in one church and telling her that I thought about leaving that was was pretty scary and she goes well I'm ready you know what we need to do and I said well I really think I need to get out of ministry in the Churches of Christ because I'm being pulled toward the Catholic Church I don't and I said this I don't want to convert to Catholicism I said that it's really not honest for me to remain a minister of the Churches of Christ some people have said that that's that wasn't the real reason but but that is that is what happened so I saw walked away from ministry and well I understand that's what that was my first step to was a way out of ministry even before I thought a Catholic Church but I understand that because the issue of integrity what do you fight if you're open to the reality of the Catholic Church then every Sunday when you get up in this other pulpit that's right you know what are you doing you know yeah when my wife really knew it was it was starting to come home is one Sunday I was doing a sermon and I unconsciously I referred to Mary as the Blessed Mother in my sermon at the Church of Christ and only she was the only one that caught it but afterwards she said I think you've been reading the Catechism too much and I said why'd she goes we were talking about marrying you referred to her as our Blessed Mother and I said well yeah I did although I'm kind of surprised the Rezac maybe they just didn't say anything to you I'm surprised they didn't pick up on it but what it may have been that yeah but but anyway so I decided you know I have to step away from ministry I can no longer remain minister in the Churches of Christ and so she had started back to her graduate education she's actually a PhD candidate in math now but she started back to grad school at the time and I said well we can move to Lubbock and you can finish school and maybe I'll find a job and I was scared to death you know I sent out two and resumes didn't get a single in it well I got one interview you know in the and it was for 20 hours a week you know very low pay and I was like I just bought a house you know it's not like I'm you know trying to get fast food money here I've got a family to take care of fortunately I didn't have children but moved Lubbock and was still not convinced that I would become Catholic but then went to my first mass and did and the sign hadn't been to mass yet all this time no I had been to mass a couple of times when we were dating and that was about it so yeah so by this time when you go to your first mass you have a bit of an understanding of what it is that's happening in front of you yeah and whenever the liturgy got underway word and word it was like oh yeah this is it I mean if ever the early churches service was mirrored on earth today it's in the mass and I really don't know how anybody well I do I wish that people would look at the book of Acts and then understand what goes on the mass whether they're Catholic or not because I think that they would have a deeper appreciation for what goes on in the mass if they saw our earliest church fathers doing exactly that so so stayed there started a little bitty lawn business in Lubbock and scared to death I still am sometimes but it's all worked out and I just pray that God will continue use me in the Catholic Church when you it's one thing to to start to understand intellectually some of these difficult doctrines it's another to start practicing them as a Catholic did you find that a struggle for you it's a huge struggle because ideologically and theologically I could probably defend most of the positions that I was mentally converted to but there's also this training of the muscles you know that kind of has to go on yeah you know that that's it but what are you going to to do and whenever you start praying the rosary I mean that was yes I knew the value of it but praying the rosary for someone from such a fundamentalist background was like pulling teeth you know but then after you do it for a while and I would say to anybody who is in the same position I am and I know that it's I know that it's daunting and it's it's difficult and it's hard but but ask ask for the Blessed mother's help pray for peace and practice those things that otherwise seem difficult and even if it's just with your intellect let your intellect guide you for initially because after a while your heart will be will be transformed by the way the Spirit works through those things that he's put in place in the church let's assume as a few Church of Christ viewers out there watching how about a final word to them to encourage them why they should make the same journey you've made okay if there are Church of Christ members out there I would simply say that your respect and love for Scripture is wonderful and no one in the Catholic Church would ever want to take you away from that and in fact I think that if you were to meet faithful Catholics they would encourage you in that but but ask yourself if if you're honest whenever Christ had made the promise to Peter to build the church upon this rock why do we go to such great lengths to change what he actually said to fit into what we now or what Church of Christ members now believe read the book of Acts again and look at the apostolic authority that was firmly established in the book of Acts but then be honest about whether or not God was trying to set that up through Christ and Peter back in Matthew 16 whenever he had said that upon this rock he build his church we have to change the words around to mean something that they didn't remember that it was Aramaic that Jesus spoke it wasn't Greek and so be honest also about your your heritage I think that the restoration heritage of the Churches of Christ and the Christian churches I think that it's a beautiful wonderful heritage and the intent is amazing and I think that its truest intent to re-establish apostolic Christianity actually finds its fulfillment in the Catholic Church so study your scripture honestly be honest about the history of your church I know where you're at you can you can contact me if you have questions or contact the coming home network and they can put you in touch with people that will be able to answer questions so thanks Evan time goes too fast as a journey home we can't be back for a whole other programs to talk about the issue sometimes okay thanks for joining us thank you I appreciate thank you for joining us quickly I want to remind you that next week's journey home program is a special edition of the journey home will be a panel discussion on Sola scriptura taped at the coming on networks deep in history conference this past October so make sure you join us next week on the journey home I hope the heavens journey has been an encouragement to you and let's let's keep each other in prayer we're all on this journey growing deeper to jesus christ and his church god bless see you next week Oh

Channel: EWTN

Views: 36,475

Rating: 4.5596333 out of 5

Keywords: EWTN, Journey Home, Marcus Grodi, Eben Emerson, Church of Christ, Minister, Catholic, JHT01295

Id: bXX6oE5kn38

Length: 56min 1sec (3361 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 01 2011