I was raised in an active Southern Baptist home. Growing up, we seemed to be in church about every time the church doors were open. At the age of eight I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior, and was baptized on April 19, 1979 at the First Baptist Church of Windsor, Missouri. As I grew up, I continued to grow in my knowledge of God, and was excited about being a Christian.
Then during my junior year in high school, I began a time of rebellion that lasted through my freshman year in college. I got into the partying lifestyle. But during my freshman year in college I finally hit rock bottom. I would come home from a night of partying, and simply lay in my bed crying over how lonely and sad I was. The lifestyle that I once thought was so fun was no longer fun. One night I remember simply crying out to God and begging Him to help me. It was then that my life began to change.
I found myself all of a sudden wanting to read the Bible again, and watch Christian television. The partying lifestyle that I was once attracted to no longer was appealing, and I didn't want to be a part of it anymore. I recommitted my life to Christ, and dedicated myself to following Him. I moved back home with my parents to get away from the environment that I was in, and got involved in church again. I began working with our church's youth group, which was where I first began to sense a call on my life from God.
One summer I was a counselor at a youth church camp called Super Summer. It was here that I knew that God was calling me to the teaching ministry, and I accepted that call. I went back to my home congregation in Windsor, shared my decision with the church, and a year later was licensed as a Baptist minister by that congregation. Several years later I was ordained a minister, and became an associate pastor of a small congregation. Besides my duties as associate pastor, my wife and I also worked in the youth ministry of that congregation, and helped out with the youth ministries of other congregations.
Although I was excited about the ministry that I was doing, there was still something more that I felt that God had for me. I began to be interested in the early Church, and being a part of restoring the Church to how it was in the beginning. So I began an in-depth study on early Church history, and the historical and cultural contexts of the writings of the New Testament books. But it was during this time that I started to discover things in the Scriptures that didn't line up with my beliefs. It finally got to the point where I didn't feel as if I could go on being a minister, so I resigned my position as associate pastor.
My wife and I then began attending a non-denominational congregation, and I continued in my studies in early Church history and the historical and cultural contexts of the Bible. I began reading the historical writings of Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp, who knew and ministered with the apostles personally. As I read the writings of these men who were taught by the apostles themselves, I was amazed to discover that they adhered to Catholic beliefs, such as apostolic succession, the authority of Tradition, the Real Presence of the Eucharist, baptismal regeneration, etc. This surprised me because I would have never thought that those who were students of the apostles would be Catholic. In fact, this was farthest from my mind.
This discovery led me to look into what the Catholic Church taught, and the reasons why it taught it. I would look at pro-Catholic websites and research every claim that they made. I would then look at anti-Catholic websites, and do the same. I compared the teachings of the Catholic Church with the Scriptures, and with the historical and cultural evidence of the time period in which the Bible was written, and after much prayer and studying, embraced the Catholic Faith as being the truth.
I shared my findings with my wife, shared with her that I felt that God was calling us to the Catholic Church, and she flipped out. She was a very anti-Catholic person, and didn't want anything to do with the Catholic faith. She even threatened to leave me if I went through with my plans to join the Catholic Church. I simply told her that if she chose to leave me, then that was her choice. But I had to follow God's will and what I knew to be the truth. After several months of not being willing to even talk about the Catholic Faith, she finally relented, and said that she would at least look into the reasons of why the Catholic Church believes what it does. Several months later both Penni and I joined the Catholic Church together during the Easter Vigil service in 2000.
It has been a long, hard road, but very well worth it. In finally coming home to the Catholic Church, I have found a peace and joy that I never thought possible.