Tips On Converting To Catholic From A Former Protestant Pastor | The Catholic Talk Show

hey everybody welcome back to another episode of the catholic talk show today we're going to be talking about advice and tips from a protestant pastor on converting to catholicism yeah on today's episode we're joined by keith nester a former protestant pastor who converted to catholicism and he's going to share that experience with you and some things to know and consider if you are also thinking about becoming catholic saint rose of lima said know that the greatest servant service that man can offer to god is to help convert souls and truly the saints rejoice of the conversion of heart and we are so excited keith to have you on the show we can't wait to hear more about your story thanks so much for having me you guys i love the catholic talk show it's probably like my favorite thing to watch on youtube and i'm not just saying that [Music] all right good to be talking with you guys again just a really awesome time of the week for me to to get back and and to start talking about our faith and if you're watching on youtube and you're new to the show you could probably figure out who the convert is that was a protestant pastor on the video that you're watching right now he's wearing a convert shirt it says convert on it bro they make me wear this when i go to church so no one will talk to me stay away from that guy he's serious about his faith man i would love to be branded by convert instead of converse you know that's i like that a lot you know as as we gather today and and always it's just so important to connect in prayer and connect our hearts before god and we want to express that to any of our audience members who are listening in or viewing our content on youtube our patrons through patreon.com forward slash catholic talk show you know we're forming community here online in digital ways but it's important to pray together so let's just take a moment and center ourselves in gratitude to god for the gift of conversions the gift of our own personal conversion stories and today especially we want to lift up keith to god as he's sharing his testimony and how he came into the faith so let's just bow our heads and recognize we're in the presence of almighty god and begin in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen lord god you are the author of our salvation and you grant us the power of the holy spirit to sanctify and to govern our lives lord we praise and thank you for the gift of life we thank you for our community that you have established online we thank you for our friendship at the very root of our friendship is our concern for one another that we may continue to grow in the mysteries of your love for each of us bless our time together and bless our conversation and may those who participate in this conversation who listen in or view may be touched in heart with the testimony of god's work in the world today we celebrate your love with joy as we begin through christ our lord amen in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen amen thank you padre my pleasure well keith really uh and also thank you for coming on the episode today uh we've all heard your conversion story um keith's got a great youtube channel uh i definitely recommend all of our listeners to check it out so when you're taking that moment to click the subscribe button on us and which please do make sure that you're also i'm going to put the link for keith's channel in the description below as well make sure you subscribe to too because his channel is great and he's got an awesome ongoing youtube series and ever and podcast so check it out so keith really thank you for joining us i want you to tell us a little bit about yourself um your story and where people can find more um about your channel well thanks a lot ryan and uh thanks uh father rich and and other ryan um so like i'm a pastor's kid okay so when i get when i tell my testimony i'll say pk and people i forget that in catholicism that doesn't exist you know so of like oh the the pks like there's no pks running around in the catholic church so like preacher's kid you know so i grew up better not tree yeah that's true well there's there's some of them but yeah they're probably out there but they just cause scandal i suppose they don't they don't have a shirt [Laughter] so you know i grew up going to church my dad is a retired united methodist pastor so for me like church was just part of life and and you know i gave my heart to jesus at church camp like a lot of kids do and i was probably 10 or 11 years old and uh but so growing up that was just my thing you know i loved i loved god i loved i loved jesus and and went to church most of the time um and but like for me like the whole catholic thing i i had i didn't know anybody who was catholic i didn't have any any uh context for catholicism at all i i belonged to like some mailing lists for some different um publications related to music and things like that and somehow i got put on this list for this um like apologetics magazine that came out once every couple of months and um so that's what happens when you give your name to columbia records for the one set cds well imagine what happened so when you do that you get like actual like well-produced stuff when you give it to the christian record companies you get like this stuff that's like made on like the back of milk cartons with someone like scribbling on it i mean it's not production quality it wasn't quite there but they they sent this this issue and it had a had this really cheesy picture of the virgin mary on it and it said in like these really like old english letters roman catholicism and the cult of the virgin mary and then it was all about how catholics were cannibals and worship mary and stuff and that was like the only thing i'd ever i was like reading this going whoa okay so when i got out you know into the world i guess my only my only exposure to catholicism was from anti-catholics so and i didn't really have a reason to think twice about it right so i um i dropped out of college to play drums in a band moved out to philadelphia pennsylvania and i started going to this bible church out there while i was there and uh that you know it was it was a bible church that taught the scriptures verse by verse it was the calvary chapel verse by verse and i fell in love with with the bible in a whole new way while i was there um i met this woman who eventually become my wife and i remember when i met her i said hey uh do you go to church she goes she goes well no i'm catholic and i said well come with me so she comes to this church with me and and she has this amazing experience and she gets saved so i'm like and she's like what do i do about the catholic stuff i'm like who cares just leave it behind so um i eventually ended up leaving that situation moved to iowa to become a youth pastor at this methodist church and she came with me we got married and started our family and stuff and and um while i was while i was going through seminary and and um growing this little youth group i uh wanted some design work done so i could have a cool logo for my youth group because you can't just call it like youth group you know it's gotta be cool so i found this guy in the yellow pages who's a graphic designer and called him up was talking to him about my youth ministry or whatever and he said let's let's get together and meet so i went over to his house one night he invited me over and i'm walking up to his house and he's got these statues on the porch and i recognized the virgin mary and i didn't know what the other guy was i think it was like saint francis or somebody like that um because i think he had a bird but i i knocked on the door this guy answered the door he's about my agent's name is devin invites me into his house and his house looks like the sistine chapel i mean it was like there's images and icons and statues and all this stuff and i walked into this guy's house i'm like this is beautiful but i was creeped out a little bit we sit down we start talking and he's talking to me about his faith in the lord and there was like this weird disconnect for me because he's talking about jesus and how much he loves god and it was clear he had a relationship with jesus but yet there was all this catholic stuff he had a crucifix and and everything so i just actually stopped him i said hey what's the deal with you because like you sound like you love jesus but what's with all this catholic stuff and because that's not what i what i understood to be the truth about catholics you know and that opened the door to this this friendship that we had where he was very aggressive catholic and i was very aggressive just whatever i was and so we tried to like convert each other you know and so we would get together and we'd go back and forth with arguments and i was like well i'm going to make him become a protestant he's going to make me become a catholic and and that began like this relationship where it was pretty adversarial for a while and through the middle of that he invites me to go with him um on this trip this all expenses paid trip to this place called mejigoria right and we were going to go to rome and also and i have no idea what any of that stuff is i know where rome is right because i'm italian and um so all expense paid trip so i go over on this trip you know there was me a catholic priest and like 30 catholics and we go on this trip and here's i learned two things about about catholicism on that trip i learned first of all that catholics love to party okay and we had an absolute blast on that trip and i'd never seen people um interact with each other that way you know they were having a great time and people were drinking wine and it was a it was a huge awesome time in the community i i i saw take place over there was just on another level and then i also got to see for the first time in my life really catholics worshipping jesus and i saw that over there i saw like you know i wasn't i didn't really understand all the stuff about the apparitions and all that you know i wasn't really like there for all that i like i was just there to to see these catholics worshiping and while i was there like it it blew my mind um so when i got home i was a lot more open to the things of catholicism based on my experience but i still had a lot of hang-ups you know and there was a moment in time where i really felt like i was being called to convert but i was afraid you know i mean i had three kids i had a job in ministry i had um you know i had a lot going on and it was like how does being a catholic fit into this it really didn't and i was just basically like terrified of what that would mean so i just turned my back on everything and went the other way for many many many years and that was probably like in 2000 2001-ish and it wasn't really until about 2016. so 15 years later when i was um working in the church that i i was at before i converted um it was another methodist church and our denomination started going through a lot of problems we were really really starting to come apart at the seams because you know people just had made decisions to depart from church teaching and to kind of do their own thing and they were coming it was just it was just becoming chaos and i started to feel like all of this angst about that wanting to be true to what i believe to be was the scriptural historical faith right and what i was learning was as i was having conversations with my with my um more liberal friends i guess in the methodist church on that side of the of the issues they were saying things to me like well you know that's your interpretation of the bible keith uh you know how do you know you're right on this and i was learning that the lack of authority was was i was seeing the results of that and so then i started to say okay well if we can't talk about this from a scriptural perspective let's talk about it from this perspective of tradition so i said well this is what the church has always taught you know and i would appeal to that and they would basically say yeah well the church was wrong you know it's up to us to to bring the church up to modern times and things like that and i actually did have a conversation with a friend of mine who she's a methodist pastor she said to me at one point in time she said keith i don't understand why you're not catholic then if that's what you believe so she put that on me and i was like oh man all this stuff started bubbling up to the surface and right around that time the same friend that took that took me over to um measure gory the first time in 2000 he he came up he and his wife came up and they took my wife and i received that movie that came out about a few years ago called apparition hill and we went to watch that movie and like it just brought a lot of stuff back to me and as i was wrestling through this i started to i was preaching a couple sermon series in my church and one of them was about uh it was an advent series about the blessed virgin mary when she received the good news the annunciation from the angel gabriel that she was going to conceive you know the messiah and as i was writing that sermon you guys like the best way i can describe it is to say the blessed virgin mary like i encountered her in in my office as i'm writing that message and i began to like cry which i don't really do that very often you know but like you're telling me you're not accepted yeah you're italian you know it was just like it was it was it was weird and then i got up and preached the sermon and i didn't realize it at the time but i was basically preaching you know scott hahn tim staples all that stuff about mary's the new eve mary's the new york of the cut like i was discovering this stuff as i'm preparing this sermon preaching it and and the people in the methodist church they had no idea that this was anything that they would have considered distinctly catholic and they loved it but they responded to it and it was like amazing and through then throughout a few other things that happened i got connected with a local priest here in town and we we started talking and he just he just cut through all of the crap that i was giving him you know like i was kind of sharing with him some of my journey and how long it had been and this and that and and i said well i guess i just need to do some more praying and he said no you know i've never heard a priest say no you don't need to pray no he said you don't need to pray you need to make a decision and he said oh yeah he said but i'm going to tell you something keith he said just be aware of the fact that delayed obedience at some point in time becomes disobedience and i really be that just really hit me you guys and um i i had a couple experiences and i'm kind of condensing this down but i had a couple experiences one in particular where i really felt like the lord was showing me directly i need to do this i i went to a um i went to hear a talk given by steve ray and when i walked in to hear this talk they were having massive church and i was really feeling like i needed i needed the courage to to make this move i i believed everything about catholicism was true at this point in time but i was still just like hung up and scared about what it would mean for my life and my my dad had had a conversation with me a couple months prior to this where he said keith you just can't quit your job which i had been in ministry like 22 years at that point in time he said you can't just quit your job and become a catholic like there has to be a way you have to have something you can do you know there has to be a way for you to like live and support your family whatever so i went up for at that mass before steve's talk and got my little blessing and i i knelt down i looked up the crucifix and i just prayed i said lord if you want me to become catholic i will do it but you've got to make a way and i don't say this like often or or you know like flippantly but like he spoke to me from the crucifix you guys and he said i am the way the truth and the life you don't need me to make a way you just need me and i knew at that moment that it was about that was about the eucharist right i knew that that what was happening in me was i was being presented with an invitation to follow jesus christ in the most intimate way human being can through the eucharist and becoming part of his church and i was busy like trying to figure out how to work it all out so that everything would be cool with my life and he was just saying look don't worry about any of that because here's the deal and i had to get to this place you guys where even if my conversion cost me everything that i have and it wasn't going to be okay and there wasn't going to be a way and i was going to like be a complete disaster of a human being that that was still a good trade to get to to receive jesus christ in the eucharist and be a part of his church no matter what the consequences were no matter what the fallout was going to be i had to get to that place and i think before 20 years ago or 15 years ago i wasn't there like i was thinking of myself first and well if i become catholic like how's it going to work out and what he was showing me there was it's going to work out because you're going to get to you're going to get to have life in you you're going to get to to eat my flesh and drink my blood do you need anything more than that and so that night driving home i told my buddy i said look i'm doing this i'm doing i went home told my wife i said hey i'm doing this and she said you know to her credit she wasn't like on this journey you know she was like she was like okay and she goes keith that's what the lord's calling calling us to do then that's what we're gonna do and i went in the next day and resigned my job and that was in like the spring of 2017 and i came into the church in october of that year wow what a beautiful beautiful testimony i know i i've looked into your journey a little bit but hearing it even more in depth right now i'm just blown away especially the tie to the blessed virgin mary yeah medjugorje and encountering her maternal love you know we we have had a number of shows talking about the blessed virgin mary and i know independently just each of us have had such encounters with our lady i know uh the the tie with fusadi to our lady of guadalupe and our work here with the show to our lady of guadalupe and i've i've been to nine times to medjugorje which is mind-blowing to me and such the value of my experience of mariology and my understanding of our lady and who she is in light of her devotion and her steadfast gaze in the face of jesus christ as saint john paul ii would say is just such an incredible gift to the church and i'm so glad to hear such a tender experience with the maternal heart of mary in your journey my brother the other thing that i couldn't help but but uh you know recognize and repeat from what you were sharing in your testimony is the priest's advice in relationship to delayed obedience what a beautiful kind of pointed thing of counsel like a pointed conversation of counsel to you that really struck your heart so deeply you know when does delayed obedience become disobedience and saint augustine recently we just celebrated his memorial with saint monica at the turn of the month of august into september and that with that beautiful saying of saint augustine late have i loved you oh lord and it's just so evident your love of jesus has been consistent throughout your journey from the time you were a pastor's kid a pk thanks for the lingo by the way we need you thank you guys you know ecumenical ties we need to know the the lingo and the acronyms but from a from a preacher's kid your love of jesus and your journey with jesus every step of the way is is this kind of feeling like wow like rcia you know when when the rite of christian initiation takes place for adults scripturally all the way up to the present day it's gone through revisions or modifications or renewals but ultimately it's that journey of being instructed of learning and and that whole process in your journey that you've shared very uh you know in a very brief way is very very evident that you've been instructed and that instruction is continuing on in your journey up until this very moment i'm sure in relationship to the catholic faith thank you yeah i have so much to learn and like when i when i first came into the church my priest he told me he said look i'm just going to leave you alone for a year he said just be catholic just come and that's actually like one of my tips about when you when you're a convert it's just just be catholic don't feel like especially if you're in ministry there can be this like desire to like all right i'm going to come in and i'm going to do all this stuff and and he told me he's like just don't even think about that and i was i was totally cool with it you know and and just how amazing it was people would ask me all the time oh i bet you missed being a pastor i miss i bet you miss preaching i bet you miss all and the truth is i really didn't because it wasn't that i don't enjoy those things but i felt like i felt like i was being served the most amazing gourmet meal you know i didn't and there wasn't anything that i was lacking so i wasn't like oh yeah i'm enjoying this beautiful ribeye steak but i miss those nachos you know i like nachos but i'm eating this amazing meal i don't have time to think about anything else that's kind of what i felt like and it was just so i'm still learning i have a ton to learn about it and you know i definitely i definitely am am more in love with jesus now than i ever have been because of what i'm learning what i'm experiencing yeah i i a couple of things stuck out to me uh one is uh you know even though you were in church pk you're you're ministering to others and what what drew you in to initially open up to the church was our the family that that we are and and you know i immediately thought about all the statues and all the pictures and mama and all these things right that we have and that's really what the catholic church is it is a family with at the very core of what it is the body of christ is is literally so united to him that we are we share in this unique common bond and that that stuck out to me a lot and um you know also when you're trying to figure out how to you know get into the church i thought of psalm 119 and how it says your word is a lamp for my feet a light on my path god does not put spotlights up and show you the route through you know some big labyrinth he literally lights your foot for your next step right i mean he does not he doesn't give you the whole picture and the beautiful thing about that is just look i just have to take the next step and it was the next step for you was disregarding all of the details and just moving into that direction and then the last thing i thought about was you know i've got a lot of questions too but the last thing i thought about is uh just in our devotion to mary uh you know i you know a lot of people think it's very pious and you know a lot of times it is but you know i recall a trip with father pagano where we went to our lady of guadalupe at the turn of 2018 or something like that awesome i had i just had knee surgery we're like boys you know and he's pushing me around on a wheelchair these little religious nuns got me and i'm yelling at him because he's like pushing me on the wrong you know whatever and uh and we get to the shrine so i mean like we're having fun we're being we're cutting out we're joking around and we get into the church and then all of a sudden like this lady comes up for a blessing and then gosh it's like he blessed like a thousand people and i watched this amazing flood of these people and you know afterwards we connected and shared a story or two about it but uh you know the thing that came to me was just how mary unites us as a family right like even if we don't know it like you know we are who we are we're united under her mantle um and it and it sometimes it's not you know uh the little old lady praying the rosary even though it is a lot of times sometimes it's just being us under like you know with the desire to go to the shrine you know and being human and being human along the way and christ meeting us with his sanctifying grace and and sharing in that there's no greater conversation than having conversation in that type of light just sharing testimony and that's why i love having keith on the show to just to share about your testimony you know it's it's really wonderful to have you on the show especially right now as the fall is setting in and there are a number of people in the community even on our show that are friends of ours and and patrons of ours that are considering becoming catholic you know i have a number of people in my parish uh joining the rcia we're going to be starting here in the next couple of weeks there may be listeners right now who who are kind of on the fence and they've had a number of different experiences and they're curious about the catholic faith keith i'm wondering what kind of advice would you give them in their journey they're coming probably from a lot of different backgrounds but if you could give some advice that would be awesome well okay this is going to sound like a shameless plug but i have to tell you this so i got a book i got a book yeah well read the book one year after i came into the church on october 8th we went back to mesuagoria this time my wife was with me okay she had an incredible experience on the last night of our trip and we were on our way back to fly out and as we're driving down the road on the bus we start to pray and out of nowhere i get this lightning bolt from god the blessed virgin mary and it was like i grabbed my phone i started typing in my phone i'm like this is the book i'm supposed to write wow i had no i didn't know i was going to write a book i had no clue to do that i never thought a million years i would do that but the book that i wrote is it's it's called the converts guide to roman catholicism your first year in the church and it's it's literally a book about what you asked me father what is my advice for converse because i it was one year after i came into the church i wanted i wanted to to write a book that was basically this is what it's going to be like to become a catholic when you haven't been one like when you're a convert here's what you have to do and i didn't want to do something that was like really theological like well here's what saint thomas aquinas said and here's all this yeah you know i think we get enough of i i shouldn't say we get enough of that but i think i think we um are disproportionate to the head knowledge sometimes when people are converting we want them to understand the doctrines and the teachings and all those things which is great but sometimes you have to sit down with someone and say but what's it gonna feel like to be catholic and that's that's a legitimate question so that's really where i'm coming from with my advice to people a lot of times it's it's the practical down-to-earth like what's it gonna be like what are you supposed to do with things like how do you tell your family and friends um how do you find a good church so like here's here's my advice and i have i have a couple things i'll share with you and then we can talk more about it if you want i think the the first most important thing that you have to have when you're doing this is you have to have a good you have to have a good local parish you have to have a good priest that's helping you walk through this and that because to me that was like i don't know that i could have done it without without um you know my priest that helped me walk through this his name's father christopher padaskian and like he walked me through this and my wife and if you don't have somebody like that it's really difficult so you've got to find an awesome local parish that you can jump into because you need community so i'm assuming uh father rich that they've got you already because they're in your rcia group so so that's a huge one right there um and then a couple other things i'll share with you guys is this when you're starting to come into the church you're gonna have this this question about how do i talk about this with with my family and friends how do i how do i process this outwardly what do i do and i think like what a lot of people do and this is what's my advice to not do this the first thing a lot of people do when they're making some kind of change in their life is they put a big facebook post together and they they launch that up and say here's what i'm doing and my number one advice is don't do that don't don't come out on facebook as a catholic um for a lot of reasons but just stay off of social media with it you can i mean it's going to happen but but don't make that where you like announce to the world your conversion because when you're going to talk about your conversion that's the that's best shared in a personal conversation um so people can hear your heart because a lot of people have all these weird hang-ups about catholicism and they're instantly going to attach those to you as a new convert so if they grew up thinking that like catholics were superstitious um you know and had all these weird religious practices when you say hey i'm gonna become catholic they're gonna instantly think that's you so you have to be able to talk with people about it um what is that like unpack that a little bit for me so you're yeah because i i never had to tell somebody i was becoming catholic but uh so you're saying like all the preconceived notions that are out there that you had uh they carry different ones and so what where do you me where do you meet them in that are you waiting for them to ask you if you converted or are you like do you offer that information to people like because like they didn't see you at church or because you got a statue or like where where does this come up like sociologically to where you have to like start considering this and it's super interesting because you're you're also a pastor that converts it too so well so i had a little bit of an advantage in that because i had to write a letter to the whole church explaining them what i was doing so they got this letter actually i had to write two letters because the first one was rejected um because it wasn't put as nicely as it should have been what i was doing so i had to write a different letter anyway um but dear former church your theology is wrong your heretics peace out see you in rome yeah that would have been a letter from pastor ryan shiel that's for sure i i wish i would have been friends with ryan shield back then because i would have had fun composing that no you had the right friend in devon devin devin's a good dude and he's got a lot of great stuff that we got to mention later so yeah you're lucky yeah devon not me i'm extremely but i tell you what when i first when i first met devon he was the most hardcore dude you've ever met in your life like he was he would like literally look you in the face get about two inches from your nose and be like so what's the problem you don't love jesus you don't love the eucharist oh really yeah i mean and we would like when we were in mejigoria the last time a couple years ago i took a picture at this street corner where when devin and i had gone there 20 years before he and i were toe-to-toe face-to-face the cops came we were like you know measure great they have like little ice cream parlors like downtown or whatever we were outside yelling at each other face to face and they thought we were gonna fight so like the cops literally came and separated us because we're arguing about about uh you know the canon of scripture or something like that and so this last time i went we were walking down that street and my buddy said hey that's the place where you devon almost got in a fight and i had this picture of the blessed virgin mary and i just had him take a picture of me with it at that corner i just texted him i said you win [Laughter] oh that is so awesome what did your dad say did you just was he around i haven't told him he's waiting for the facebook post [Laughter] no my dad my dad so like my dad is um he's a brilliant guy i mean he's a scholar like he's he's a brilliant guy he's a very loving guy he's very open guy and you know when i was going through all this this conversion stuff the second time this was right around the same time my mom was was um she was in the process of dying from pancreatic cancer so which was a huge blow to our family i mean she was a healthy vibrant person one day and then the next day she's you know got pancreatic cancer and um you know that whole thing lasted about 20 months and so that's all happening in the background of this so my dad and i never really like had these super in-depth conversations where he was like don't become catholic he was just worried about like me and my life and what was going to happen to me and then since i converted i remember one time he said he said you know i just want to see you use your gifts for ministry someday again he's like he said to me with if you want to be catholic that's fine but i just want to see you um you know guys god's gonna use you in ministry someday and i want you to be open to that that's that's his encouragement to me so i mean we're great my dad and i are super tight we're super very supportive of me um well that's that's a cool insight that he had just that to continue as a father to look at his son and say look you're doing this other thing you're going to you know the catholic church but use those skills that i've seen you that's a very that's a very fatherly thing to say and i i i'd be very pleased to hear that if i was in your shoes as well yeah he's he's he's great you know and um so that's that's been fine you know most my family's been been okay it's just you know i mean like everybody else and a lot of converts have that have the stories of people that ditch you and people that come and i have i had all that too you know and that's okay um yeah i mean i have a lot of friends that like i shouldn't say a lot but there's there's been a few people in my life that have been super tight with me that have just said you're crazy we're not talking to you anymore right yeah but i have friends that went through that yeah jeff and marina uh father rich helped them come into the church uh friends of ours and yeah there's just like disownement right yeah you know it's bizarre it's very unchristian too i think you know it's painful especially when it's when it's in the context of your family or close friend group and that does happen to a lot of people but it's always at the crutch of something even more powerful in relationship to what god's going to do through that pain and through that suffering of making that choice and i can't i can't help but thank you so much keith especially as we're going to be starting this new year of formation for these rcia candidates one of the first videos that they're going to get is going to be this video so i want to re-emphasize like don't go on social media and tell everybody you're becoming catholic i guess a good that is good advice and i'm going to how can i get your book because i would love to give that as a gift as long as i don't have too many of uh you know students in the rcia program but i'd love to be able to give that as a gift to my rcia candidates well you can buy this book on uh on amazon it's on amazon you can buy it on my website which is just uh downtoearthministry.org that's down the number two earthministry.org it's it's there um we're gonna put links to all that down in the description below so if you want to go and find that book find a link to keith's website and his youtube page i'll make sure those are linked below so check there either on the website page or on the youtube description or you can just drive to my house and i have a box of them send me the address brother i'll be on my so two real quick things so father you've mentioned rcia a couple times why don't you tell people exactly because i'm imagining that there's a lot of people who are considering converting to catholicism watching this video hey guys do it it's a good idea um but you say rca what is that what does rcia stand for what is that process so that people can at least consider that you know because that's that's a term like you said well there's the pks well protestants know that but they don't know rcia so why don't you explain what that means yeah so rcia is the right of christian initiation for adults and it's a period of catechumenants really being catechized and where where these uh fancy words come from catechumen it uh it comes from the latin catechumen which means to be instructed and the catechumenate is where instruction takes place so jesus before he ascends he into heaven he sends out the in the great commission he sends out all of his apostles and he says go forth and baptize in the name of the father the son and the holy spirit and teach them so like that aspect of teaching is a part of instruction of the catechumenate and you know a lot of times we are very cafeteria oriented or very impatient in in the catholic church words i want this give this to me now i want to become catholic give it to me immediately and that's not good you know it really the us bishops even after the revision that take took place i think in the 80s they still recommend that you know the the right of christian initiation for adults should take place no less than a year but sometimes it can take longer you know like three years especially if you're in need of annulment or that there's other aspects of of your background that you need to work through in order to live out the christian faith so to live out jesus's moral teachings to live out the way in which jesus professes by his own nature by his own divine nature and our humanity he's he's giving us really an example of how we ought to live our lives well it should take we should take time getting to know how jesus lived out his life in the scriptures getting to know how people who have followed him you know intellectually emotionally sociologically all these different aspects of living out the christian faith that is that has been passed down through the tradition of our faith it's important and i love keith's point it's like you know we can stay in our head too much we need to know how we're gonna feel too like how has this affected the heart of mystics throughout the ages of the church well you know the time for rcia is a time to unpack all of that to look at christian doctrine to look at the apostles creed to to learn where the roots of our devotion as catholics come from to learn who the blessed virgin mary is or the saints again all of these things that hopefully are predicated by a sense of curiosity is is a good thing so that you would look into them as opposed to having prejudgment toward what the church uh proposed proposedly um teaches so to actually look into what the church teaches and one of the main books that we use in rcia is the catechism of the catholic church and associated with that is the right of christian initiation for adults so both of these books and the rituals therein you're going to be going through the process of going through the season of advent into the season of lent anticipating coming into the faith if you are prepared and and your your catechist and your pastor has discerned that you are prepared and you are ready and when you are ready then you will come into the full communion with the church at the easter vigil and receive the sacraments of initiation the right of christian initiation for adults regards the sacraments of initiation which are namely baptism eucharist and the completion of our baptism in confirmation where we are anointed so these are some of like the overview of the rcia me typically weekly um some parishes that are more progressive in the sense of having technological infrastructure will offer different uh different classes online if you can't make it to the church or during quarantine you know contact your local church see how they're running their rcia program and certainly pick up keith's book and listen into our show you know there's a number of rcia groups that listen into our show weekly and have a conversation there's a yeah there's a lot of supplemental things out there that that you could really uh get into and keith shared something really exciting about something he's currently working on in regards to that as well i i just want to also reiterate that uh i think a very is a very good point that keith made about finding a parish um i cannot stress this enough that there are parishes unfortunately in the united states where you will go to rci and be bored to absolute death like you will be there there is the most impassioned approach to bringing somebody in the church and it's because we just been doing this this this person or these people have been doing it forever and that's their thing and they protect it and it's it is so important to to have a priest in your life don't be afraid walk up to them listen to their homily look how they interact with people talk to some of the parishioners that is probably one of the most important things that you could do to to start this process because a very good rci process is is like courting you know a woman over time and drawing close to her and that wedding day is so beautiful right it's so beautiful i i can't reiterate enough i really thank you for for sharing that because i've i've personally sent people into the church uh a number of people and to their parish and they have told me that it's awful like it's like going to the dmv that's what this is it can be very bad so a couple things on that um just if you're real yeah it's realistic there are going to be some very dry boring rcia teachers or catechists and um don't let that spoil the process for you because it is a process there's things that you could do uh if you don't have maybe another parish where you can go for rcia and you're kind of this is your option uh one really good book that i would recommend is the baltimore catechism now this was made way back in the day and it was really kind of intended for children but if you are really just starting to learn about catholicism this book will teach you everything very orthodox and it can help you generate those questions and maybe help to drive your rcia class to dig into some things that you're able to research on your own and ask and generate questions about um so that's the st joseph baltimore catechism you get them for like five bucks on amazon definitely go get this if you're even thinking about being catholic go get this because this will in a very simple easy way and maybe a more accessible way than reading the catechism or canon law or anything like that this will help you with that uh the second thing is um if you were baptized already in a different denomination if you're baptized methodists or baptized anglican or whatever most of the time you do not need to be re-baptized and that's something that i think you know people might not really consider or think about but your baptism if given with the proper trinitarian formula which is you know in the name of the father and of the son and the holy spirit right not i baptize you in the generation that we baptize yes yeah we baptize you or i baptize you in the name of the father and in the name of the son if they say in the name of in the name of well then it's splitting up the trinity so really if you had a valid baptism and another denomination that uses the proper baptismal formula your baptism is still valid now if you're not sure if you were baptized the priest will train you to be um you know through rca to get a provisional baptism we'll say you know the priest will say i baptize you and you know if you already have not been baptized i baptize you in the name right so there's that those are some considerations um there's also the consideration of your family if you're converting and you have a wife or you have a husband or you have children you know this is something that like if you read in like the book of acts you know where peter goes and stays with the house of uh cornelius the whole household converts really you know and and doing that journey together if at all possible is very important very very important because a unified house in the faith is going to be something that will pay way more dividends and make it a better process now if it has to be just you go ahead with it but if you can bring your family along together better that's that's a better way yeah with this new stuff on baptism too like there's a report that came out that somebody used their own words like how does that work i mean formally if you if you aren't really if you're baptized in another church and they do something a different ritual or they don't really do it right well if you don't know the priest will give you a provisional baptism so the baptism is valid with the intent if you because you can't be baptized more than once that's heretical that's annabelle the reason why the reason why i asked that is because uh escalido nacho libre's partner was baptized in the movie and i didn't know if that was that that was legitimate and what would he do if he came no you have to have the you have to have the intent just saying the formula without the intent doesn't it get your head into a bucket of water well he was he was concerned about his salvation and stuff [Laughter] oh man i knew he was one of us make sure make sure if you're considering go learn about the rosary really learn how the rosary is not a marion repetition prayer but it's really a meditation on the life of christ be by being you're meditating from from the the enunciation all the way through all of salvific history and our lord's story and it forces you to consider all these parts in his ministry and in his life so go and learn about the rosary those would be the tips that i have and it's and it's scripturally it's scripturally based you know the everything to do with the rosary is scripturally based and that's an important thing to to realize yeah and the repetition uh the repetition of the rosary you know i've been praying the rosary a long time i get all these beautiful insights yeah i mean you're meditating on the same thing and every time i do it something comes to me so the holy spirit mary through the prayers something comes in it's very new it's a different perspective a different way of looking at it a different insight uh different grace so so keith what are the tips do you have shield i'm glad that you let me just say this real quick i'm glad that you mentioned uh that the whole family should come into the into the faith that that would be a recommendation certainly and pastorally i would echo that as well but even if you're catholic and your spouse is converting it would be very fruitful for your spouse to come with you in the process of the rcia that you would that you would participate as a as a married couple and and if your kids want to come all of that this past year we had a whole family come and it was just you know really a catholic wife and then a converting husband so again you know just definitely you want to invite your spouse to participate as well so that was a very very good point that you made chill so keith you had a couple more tips let's see yeah okay well you guys mentioned the rosary so that that leads me to a tip about that and my tip is this don't try to take on too much too fast because when you so like i still speak protestant so like when you're talking about catechesis all that stuff this i'm thinking okay he's talking about like the new member class you know so uh and and like when you talk about your devotions okay in in in the protestant world you basically have you know you your you read your bible and you pray and maybe you have a little devotional book or something like that when you become catholic now you've got rosaries you've got novenas you've got all these different you got the liturgy of the hours you have all this stuff and you could it can be like super overwhelming to a new catholic who gets dropped off at at you know mass um they make their way past all the 15 passenger vans they come into the church and they figure out where to sit and now it's kind of like all these things are happening what do you do how do you decide which things you're going to do and here's the here's the great thing about catholics and the challenging thing about catholics when you're new is everybody has a flyer and a booklet and a thing you're supposed to be doing so it's like hey come to this thing here's a flyer hey come to that thing hey that guy's sneezed here's the flyer that i'll tell you all about it's there's a lot of that so you just sort of have to kind of go at your own pace and don't like everybody you talk to will have an amazing story about how this particular devotion to this particular saint or or whatever is is going to blow their mind or blow your mind and my advice is to pick like two things that you're gonna do and make one of them the rosary okay learn to pray that every day and then something else just whatever else like a devotion to a particular state but don't try to overdo it don't don't feel like you have to say yes to everything that other people have done that has made their faith grow like give yourself give yourself some room to breathe you'll get there because it's like in catholicism it's this huge treasure chest of amazing awesome treasure and all these tools for your faith but you need to go slowly so you don't get overwhelmed um yeah it's like a buffet you know you don't oh yeah load the plate up and then not eat it and feel sick you know you get your meat you get one meat you get the potato you know what i mean like don't that's a great that's a great analogy ryan he's got a strategy yeah you have to figure it out because your plate's only so big you know and you can't you can't do everything strategy of ryan de la crosse you know you can eat buffet yeah eat the fruit yeah you should see a brazilian steakhouse it is like it's like an orchestrated masterpiece it's like i feel field marshalled [Laughter] come on that's awesome oh gosh so okay so i would say when it comes to devotional life you know definitely start praying which the rosary is weird for converts because you're we've never done anything like that before and and one of the things that a lot of us have is hang-ups is the whole like um you know vain repetitions we've all heard that verse and and that's one of the go-to anti-catholic verses it's like well jesus said don't pray vain repetitious prayers and you know my response to that now is yeah i agree with him don't pray vain repetitious prayer so stop praying in vain actually mean it the problem isn't the repetition it's the vain so yeah so but we all have these hang-ups right we're all like oh wait a minute what am i am i going to do it wrong what just jump in figure it out and go slowly i when i first started praying the rosary i was using an app to help me learn it and go through it because i was like super self-conscious about it now i pray it on my youtube channel every day you know but like it's like go slow but really really i can't stress it enough how important if you do one thing in your catholic faith besides obviously that you go to mass and reconciliation all that this is it for this is it because there's so many things that go along with the rosary that will really change your life and open you up to this incredible relationship with our blessed mother that that goes beyond like all the other stuff you try to engineer in your conversion so like you're going okay i'm gonna do this we make our plans we figure out what we want to do and she just goes around a lot of that stuff and goes right to your heart and and so that's another tip another thing i would say is this learn as much as you can about what's going on in the mass and like go slowly with that ask questions sit down with someone say okay why do we do that why do we do that because i think a lot of people just take for granted well this is what we do especially at cradle catholic who just grew up with it and maybe learned about it when they were in seventh grade or whatever but like where does incense come from why do we do that why why do we make the the cross here and here and here before the gospel reading why do we stand before the god learn all that stuff because the more you dig into that you're going to realize the richness and power of that and it'll it'll make your experience of the mass even more amazing because let's face it sometimes you're not feeling it when you go to mass maybe the maybe the elector is having a bad day maybe the cantor's having a bad day maybe the priest is having a bad day and your protestant in your protestant experience if you don't have good music you don't have a sermon you know you're in serious trouble in catholicism you can you can you're going to have that but you still get the sacrament and you still have the liturgy so learn about that stuff um yeah and then and then the other thing i would say is this um you know just be you don't feel like you have to change who you are as a person because now you're a catholic like don't and i remember feeling this way because i didn't really change a whole lot about who i was and i would have some catholics that would like push up against that they'd be like well you still talk like a protestant and i didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing um but i'm like well i just talk the way i talk because that's how i that's who i am because i'm talking because i'm talking but yeah you know you know the change that happens being catholic and getting that indelible mark sealed by the holy spirit yeah that's a lot of change at once right you are fundamentally changing and then trying to put the um i guess the externals of that experience out and force that change as your personality i think is is a very different thing than fundamentally being changed by that reception you know so don't start don't convert then all of a sudden you start wearing a you know franciscan robes all of a sudden i mean you're still you changed fundamentally and that's that's exactly what i'm talking about because i think you know and this is an interesting thing like and i experienced this a lot of course as an evangelical protestant you know every church has its own culture so like if you go to like to a a new young relevant church plant with the word city in it someplace you're going to see a lot of skinny jeans you're going to see a lot of girls knitting you're going to see all this you know you're going to like there's all this culture you know it's so weird and then but if you go to like a independent fundamentalist church you'll see dudes with with like you know cornmeal blue suit coats and and you know uh wrangler jeans and maybe some gareth 45 on his on his hip or whatever but like everybody has their way of talking their cultural way when you're in the protestant world entire churches get formulated around that type of stuff okay in catholicism there is a culture but that's not supposed to be the defining mark of catholicism you're not you don't have to go like okay well do i fit in here you know yeah because what defines whether you fit in in the catholic church should it be the kind of clothes you wear the kind of music you listen to or even like your racial makeup or whatever you know or where you live and that's what i love about the catholic faith so much is that all that stuff's just who we are in the world but when we step into the catholic faith like you know we're not segmented according to our life stage or our cultural um situation so like i used to live in a town where we had a church that had saturday night they had what they called jesus country worship and it was it was a country western worship service so if you liked country you went there then in the morning you had the traditional worship service then you had the contemporary worship service then you had the blended worship serve i mean all these different sec and the young adult bible study and the early 20s with no kids bible study and the late 20s with kids bible study and there's all this like segmentation when you come into the catholic faith just get ready to not have that which would be weird because you're going to get you're going to get put into community with people that you otherwise would never be put into community with in any other church environment so i used to be in charge of small groups and other churches i was in and different ministries and we used to like try to figure out how to group people together according to their common interests so that they'd become friends right so you'd have right you know guys that like to smoke cigars bible study you know women that like to uh you know make scrapbooks bible study or whatever you know and and different things everybody was always getting chopped up according to where they were when you become a catholic like and i tell the story in my book i saw this this ad in the bulletin for a rosary group that prayed every night and you know the i don't know if you guys have it in your parish but there's this group that prays every single night with like they have this the statue and it just rotates from house to house week after week and i noticed that it was in my it was on my block one night so i walked down the street and i walked into this house and it's like five um you know elderly people and they're like well hello what can we do for you and i'm like hey i'm here to pray the rosary i have my leather jacket on you know i'm just like and they're like oh okay skinny jeans and a leather jacket by the way you're welcome elixir i don't wear 9-1-1 yeah i don't wear skinny jeans anymore um well i try not to sometimes they become skinny jeans because um you know i think you said something important though is that that there will be people you know in the protestant world that will try to divide you into camps but the same thing is going to happen in the catholic world don't pay attention don't go onto youtube and have people say well you're this kind of the catholic or that kind of catholic yeah some of the greatest saints ever didn't probably even know who the pope was at the time because they were in the desert praying you know do you think um saint hilarian was worried about the particular bishops conference and how they were handling immigration in the you know eastern roman empire no you know don't let that happen to you now there's exactly there's everyone wants to do that because when you can compete break people into little categories it's easy to market to them it's easy to make money easier to control you are a catholic do not let yourself be brought into these little camps catholic is universal be that and avoid that other stuff like the plague yeah that's that's a great point because i mean that's that happens to me a lot now because i will have people that message me or reach out to me with like this list of litmus questions like you know do you do this do you do that and some things i go some things i'll answer and i'll probably give them an answer that they love but then i'll give them an answer they don't love and they don't know what to do with me you know like i go to latin mass but i also went to magikori so like people don't know what to do with that you know yeah our show's the same way you know people are like what are you yeah and you know where do you fit in well in the church that's it yeah exactly but even like even like the cultural things like you could be like okay am i supposed to dress this way or say those things or learn how to talk a different way or do this and my advice is this when you're first coming into the church so to all of you people that are thinking about rcia or come don't get hung up on any of that like just be you just be who you are and let jesus work on your heart and focus on what it's going to be like to come into the faith just as you are and don't don't try to like find out where the cool kids are sitting okay just just be who you are and that's okay and that that's really freeing actually because this is good advice for it's just any catholics it's actually any catholic yeah and and god god is calling each of you uniquely with your personality you know into the bonds of the church to share your gifts and your talents and your skills in a wonderful and unique way and keith you're doing that without a doubt and i have to say i've been i've been named a baptist minister a protestant minister just by the way that i i preach normally and it's just like you know it's just my i'm it's my personality it's just you know how i express myself and you know when it comes to god uniquely caring for his sheep and govern us into a body a group a family as as both of you we're sharing de la crosse and keith was sharing that's the whole idea of the rcia so to think that the process in which you're being joined to the fullness of the faith is that you would be joined to a community and that group of people are going to be discerning what the catholic church teaches in many different ways throughout a period of time lead it up to easter when then you were joined to the bigger universal family and that is the greatest aspect of the catholic church that it is universal and that that culture revolves around adoring the person of jesus christ present to us in the eucharist present to us in the word and that expression of worship is the same in india and africa in in the underground church in china and all these different places in and around the world that response is universal and that is something to truly celebrate and continue to advance with our own proclamation and testimony that was one of the things that really struck me with medjugorje too is like so many people from all over the world coming to magicoria and i remember holding hands with people this one guy tattooed up tattoos on his face and holding his hand with a leather jacket and then you know this elderly 80 year old woman you know italian veiled you know right next to me we were all holding that fans you know i was just incredible incredible experience i have to i have to share this one quotation and my class last year i shared this at the very last meeting and they said to me they're like please share this at the beginning next year and it's one of my favorite quotes from the catechism 1249 about catechumens catechumens are already joined to the church they are already of the household of christ and are quite frequently already living a life of faith hope and charity with love and solicitude mother church already embraces them as her own to realize that that your interest in being instructed in the ways of the catholic faith there and in that itself you are being joined mystically to holy mother church and nurtured and guided and isn't that true to our experience of listening to the testimony of our good brother keith today to hear that and that he initially started receiving instruction this is what the catholic church is then went to major gory and immediately joined to community and struck by community and family and then being joined together by this pastor into that larger sense of the right of christian initiation and and to be initiated by a pastor who was so willing to be involved in your journey and i assure you out there if you reach out to your local parish listen you know i speaking for myself there is nothing that makes me happier than meeting somebody who's curious about the catholic faith or inquiring about becoming catholic so don't be afraid it's the joy of the priesthood you know being able to walk with people and answer some questions and if you don't know the answer to the questions to look it up with them and to be able to share the journey that that brings so much joy just recently i was listening to a podcast from this past week francis chan is you know an evangelical pastor and he's sharing a lot about the eucharist over the past what year or two and he was on hank unplugged which is a bible answer uh answer man hank is just you know wonderful wonderful curious man and and he just continues to research the scriptures and he's on a journey and i love hearing all these evangelical pastors on this journey of just inquiring about the person of jesus christ incarnate truth and looking at the fathers and looking at the eucharist and realizing that over 1500 years you know the world's you know cult around around jesus christ was based on the eucharist and to hear your story about in testimony about the eucharist keith is is just incredible jesus is drawing people to the altar and we're returning to the altar and that is what it's all about being catholic and and i'm just so happy that you've been on the show amen thank you so much so a couple things before we wrap up um again uh keith why don't you tell everybody what the name of your youtube channel is where they can find you and how they can learn more yeah so my youtube channel is just keith nester and i post different types of videos on there since the quarantine began i started doing a daily live stream rosary we started at march 18th and we've been doing it every day since 5 p.m central and that's been that's that's turned into this amazing community we call it the rosary crew and there's people from over 50 countries that are logging in every day into this crew and it's just it's it's been incredible so we do that every day at five on sunday nights after the rosary i do this thing called unpacking the mass where i walk through the week's readings of the church basically it's just my way of doing a sermon on the on the on the scriptures from that morning um so we do a little bible study and then um my podcast is called catholic feedback with keith nestor and that's a podcast where people send me questions and the purpose of that podcast is to connect the eternal truths to catholic faith to everyday life so that comes out every tuesday and then i make other little videos and stuff here and there on that channel so my ministry is called down to earth and that's really has a double meaning the first meaning of course is that jesus christ came down to earth you know god came down to earth the incarnation but but the other idea is that that's just the way that people have mentioned to me well when you speak you speak down to earth you bring it to like where the rubber meets the road so that's just the way i try to bring my faith and the truths of catholic faith to people so um down to earthministry.org and uh as soon as the quarantine's over i can't wait to get back out and visit churches and parishes and stuff like that and um so that's yeah that's what i've been up to lately and it's been it's been incredible awesome yeah i mean we're fans of the studio we need to get you down there in the studio and we get back into that thing soon too oh that'd be fun yeah yeah pretty soon guys we're going to be there it's going to be man i i've accumulated um almost an armada of booze and cool things to bring down because we haven't been around each other in like six months it's gonna be fun uh but yeah we were fans of keith's um i've been watching his videos for a long time i mean it's really awesome to finally get you on the show oh man his channel the things he does you can really tell like his father recognized that he does have a gift for ministry he has that gift and he's living that out now in the catholic church and a lot of people are benefiting from those fruits so i really can't thank you enough and recommend his materials enough appreciate that i also want to make sure that we mention our sponsor ave maria university again they're another institution that is really helping the church live out its mission in a lot of ways through putting professionals into the professional fields who have been properly trained in both academia but also in the faith so that the faith can be witnessed in the workplace and in the home ave maria has over 40 different majors and minors beautiful campus go to avemaria.edu to learn more and then again i want to thank all of our patreons you can go to catholictalkshow.com forward slash patreon we have a bunch of cool tiers on there all kinds of great gifts that we give to you in gratitude um any day now we're going to start getting new exclusive content on there which is going to be really awesome and go to catholictalkshow.com to subscribe if you're watching right now make sure you click the button that says subscribe and click the little bell so you get notified so every time we have a new video you'll be able to see it it means a lot to us and that's how you can help participate in our mission of growing this ministry that we are on as the three of us and keith is on now as a brother of ours as well so we want to thank you again for all of your support especially in prayer as we continue to forge this communion when we gather in the name of the father the son and the holy spirit this trinitarian communion of persons is extended to us by god's mercy to participate in and that's when we're united in prayer we unite with the holy trinity and that's what god desires for each of us remember the desire of the father that jesus announced that unum sent that we would be one and today we celebrate that oneness and the person of jesus christ and the conversion story of our brother keith nestor keith we thank you again and we celebrate our oneness through the means of digital content so thank you again to our patrons who support the channel financially that that help us to continue this this content generation and we look forward to developing these shows please pray for us especially when we gather back together again and shoot a new batch of episodes with greater effort we thank you for bearing with patience you know during the remote uh shows that we've been doing and we want to give a big shout out to kyle and to howard and to so many others that support you know the back end of our show we wouldn't be able to do it without you and we will see you next week god bless [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: The Catholic Talk Show

Views: 57,654

Keywords: Catholic, Catholic Podcast, Catholic Talk Show, Ryan Scheel, Ryan DellaCrosse, Father Rich Pagano, Catholic Radio, Catholic Show, Taylor Marshall, Matt Fradd, Mike Schmitz, Robert Barron, Catholic Answers, Catholic Stuff You Should Know, Church Militant, Bishop Barron, Keith Nester, Breaking In The Habit, Convert, Catholic Convert, Pastor Converts To Catholic, Protestant Converts to Catholic, Protestant Pastor Catholic, Becoming Catholic, RCIA, Catholic Feedback, EWTN

Id: ZV70LQJoxDw

Length: 72min 1sec (4321 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 31 2020