Figuring Out the Church (part 2)
Figuring Out the Church (Part 1)
Figuring Out the Church (Part ?)
Figuring Out the Church (Part 3)
(have fun navigating)
I am the ultimate Preacher's Kid. My dad, my grandfather, some of my great-uncles, and my great grandfather were all pastors. As far as I know they were predominantly Baptist and specifically American Baptist. My dad left the American Baptists of his fathers and entered the world of independent bible fellowship. He and my mom started a college ministry 20 years ago that developed into a local church. It had elements from the Plymouth Brethren movement (weekly communion, plurality of elders) and the services featured the impassioned expositional bible teachings of my Dad. I prayed to Jesus for salvation at a young age and was baptised at 10
years old. I attended church and AWANA every week, memorized many Bible verses, and heard many calls for conversion. Because of my parent's strong faith, I was raised with an ardent desire to love and serve Jesus and to listen to Scripture--an invaluable foundation to say the least.
As I grew into my teenage years, I got very interested in music and theology. I didn't like the artistic trends in evangelical culture and thoroughly related to the book Addicted to Mediocrity by Franky Schaeffer. This was probably my first step in realizing that evangelicalism has a problem. While the book has a fairly caustic tone, it really described what I already felt. That art in the Christian ghetto had become too utilitarian. It went from there: I read Evangelical is not Enough by Thomas Howard and through that and online conversations with other Anglican Christian musicians I was drawn to and convinced of the importance of historical Christianity, predominantly what it said about liturgy. This was during my early college years when I was an executive team member and worship leader for the InterVarsity group on campus at SIU.
I was still hostile to Catholicism until I became disillusioned with private bible interpretation a couple years ago. Through studying theology, I realized that foundations of faith, and major doctrinal disagreements between denominations sometimes came down to one or two greek words. I saw the need for the teaching authority of the Church. I saw that Scripture was not alone and I needed a theological tradition to which to cling and wanted to rely on my own understanding less. I wanted to ask "what does the Church say?" and I wanted an answer. That forced me to reconsider ecclesiology and authority.
Not long thereafter, I found a book at my college library on the "Take for Donation" shelf. I think I put a dime in the box and came home with Surprised by Truth by Patrick Madrid, ed. The book is a collection of (mostly) evangelical protestants who converted to the Catholic Church. I devoured this book in one sitting. Except for ignorant and/or mocking comments, I had never given the Catholic Church the time of day until then.
On to Part 3
Figuring Out the Church (Part ?)
Figuring Out the Church (Part 3)
(have fun navigating)
I am the ultimate Preacher's Kid. My dad, my grandfather, some of my great-uncles, and my great grandfather were all pastors. As far as I know they were predominantly Baptist and specifically American Baptist. My dad left the American Baptists of his fathers and entered the world of independent bible fellowship. He and my mom started a college ministry 20 years ago that developed into a local church. It had elements from the Plymouth Brethren movement (weekly communion, plurality of elders) and the services featured the impassioned expositional bible teachings of my Dad. I prayed to Jesus for salvation at a young age and was baptised at 10
years old. I attended church and AWANA every week, memorized many Bible verses, and heard many calls for conversion. Because of my parent's strong faith, I was raised with an ardent desire to love and serve Jesus and to listen to Scripture--an invaluable foundation to say the least.As I grew into my teenage years, I got very interested in music and theology. I didn't like the artistic trends in evangelical culture and thoroughly related to the book Addicted to Mediocrity by Franky Schaeffer. This was probably my first step in realizing that evangelicalism has a problem. While the book has a fairly caustic tone, it really described what I already felt. That art in the Christian ghetto had become too utilitarian. It went from there: I read Evangelical is not Enough by Thomas Howard and through that and online conversations with other Anglican Christian musicians I was drawn to and convinced of the importance of historical Christianity, predominantly what it said about liturgy. This was during my early college years when I was an executive team member and worship leader for the InterVarsity group on campus at SIU.I was still hostile to Catholicism until I became disillusioned with private bible interpretation a couple years ago. Through studying theology, I realized that foundations of faith, and major doctrinal disagreements between denominations sometimes came down to one or two greek words. I saw the need for the teaching authority of the Church. I saw that Scripture was not alone and I needed a theological tradition to which to cling and wanted to rely on my own understanding less. I wanted to ask "what does the Church say?" and I wanted an answer. That forced me to reconsider ecclesiology and authority.
Not long thereafter, I found a book at my college library on the "Take for Donation" shelf. I think I put a dime in the box and came home with Surprised by Truth by Patrick Madrid, ed. The book is a collection of (mostly) evangelical protestants who converted to the Catholic Church. I devoured this book in one sitting. Except for ignorant and/or mocking comments, I had never given the Catholic Church the time of day until then.On to Part 3
posted by Chad Toney at
10:10 AM
