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| The next time I post, hopefully what I'll talk about is more detail about why I chose the Eastern Orthodox Church over the Roman Catholic church. Small post today. God bless. | | |
| When I was 14, I was "saved" at a Free Will Baptist Bible Camp for youths. This was about 13 years ago. A few months later, I was baptised. At the time, I didn't know what baptism meant, from a biblical perspective, or even to Baptists. All I knew was that it was something some people do. About three years later, I began to attend an Assemblies of God Pentecostal Church. A few months after that, I was "baptized in the Holy Spirit", and began to "speak in tongues". After about a year or so of that, right after I graduated high school, I got involved in drugs, and the occult. I done that for about 4 years, then I came back to Pentecostalism. I moved back to my "home state" and began to attend a Southern Baptist church. After attending there for only about two months or so, I began to notice that the church put all its energy into the "Passion" movie of Mel Gibson, and Rick Warren's "40 Days of Purpose". I began to question why I was in these churches, especially since I began to disagree with them on some subjects. I noticed more and more that I was becoming dissatisfied with these churches, or with church as a whole. I also began to wonder what happened in Christianity from the time of the closing of the New Testament to the present day. What I would discover would change my life. I was searching for a church that came closer to what I was discovering in the Bible. However, I thought that I would not find a church that agreed with what I was finding, at least not fully. I was also looking for a church that was "stricter" so to speak, in regards to ecclesiology. When I began to study church history, I came across a church called the "Eastern Orthodox Church". I was confused, because I had always thought that the Roman Catholic Church was the only "traditional" and "historic" church. But I also thought that this Eastern Church probably no longer existed. The book I had read on church history, undoubtedly written by a Protestant, didn't say much about this Orthodox Church, speaking of it as only an afterthought. After I read this book, I wanted to read something closer to early Christianity, so I found a copy of Eusebius' "Church History". As I read through this volume, I began to wonder "Where is this church that he speaks of?" because I wasn't seeing it anywhere. Thinking that my search was becoming futile, I began to think that I was on my own. Then one day, I'm searching through Yahoo's User Created Chat rooms, and found one called "Orthodox Old Believers." I entered, thinking that I was only going to find maybe one or two people, three or four at most. To my surprise, there were about a dozen people in there. "Had these people discovered what I had?" I thought, "and, like neo-pagan reconstructionists, were trying to resurrect this ancient church?" I began to speak about what I had found, and, to my surprise, not only did this church still exist, it was the second largest church in the world, if one does not group all Proestants together as a whole. From there, I began to find out all kinds of information about the Eastern Orthodox church, and, again to my surprise, I found that I lived within about 40 miles of FIVE of these churches. After learning much about this church, I finally gathered the courage to attend one of these churches. After my first Liturgy, I could not stop smiling all the way back home, and couldn't wait to get on the chat room and talk about it. I never had the chance to be catechised, however, because I had to move, unfortunately, in the middle of nowhere, where the closest Orthodox Church is about 200 miles away, but God willing, soon me and my wife and child will be moving soon, much much closer to several Orthodox churches, and finally be accepted into the ancient faith of the Apostles and Fathers of the Church. God willing, this will happen soon, so pray for me. Until then, I will still follow the Holy Tradition of the Holy Orthodox Catholic Church of the East to the best of my ability, and continue to learn all I can about the true faith of the Christian Church, so pray for me. Until then, God bless. | | |
| While I don't have the time to do so now, hopefully God willing, within the next few days, I'll be able to post some of my story. But I will say this, coming from an evangelical and Pentecostal perspective, my journey to the Holy Orthodox Catholic Church of the East has been an interesting one, hopefully for others as well as myself. God willing, as well, I hope it to be an inspiration, to both Orthodox and non-Orthodox Christians, as well as to anyone else who might read it. Great Lent has begun; God bless. | | |
| This will be a site about my journey to, and experiences in, the Eastern Orthodox Church. This will have ALOT of theological issues and discussions as well, because that is what I'm mainly interested in. God bless. | | |
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