4 Generations of Pentecostal Preachers — Then He Became Catholic

Added: 2026-05-26

[00:00:00]Hello everyone. Welcome to this week's episode of Catholic Recon Testimonies from reverts and converts. I'm your host Eddie Tras. This week's guest is Aaron Moore. We first connected probably three, four months ago, and here we are May 11th. Good to see you, Aaron. Thank you for being here on Catholic Recon.

[00:00:19]>> It's my pleasure. Thank you so much, Eddie. I'm excited to share my story on your program. Um, I'm excited because this year I actually turned 21 in the faith.

[00:00:31]Obviously, I'm a little older than that in natural years, but what I mean by that is I was received into full communion in the Catholic Church on March 26th, 2005. So, over 21 years ago.

[00:00:43]So, now that I'm a adult Catholic, I feel like it's time for me to share my experience as a Catholic convert. Uh, the key reason why I think God prompted me to do this now is because I can testify that it sticks. Becoming Catholic is not a phase or a fad, but an authentic spiritual transformation that continues in spite of my flaws and failures to conform me more and more into the likeness of Jesus Christ as his disciple. Um it's well known in fact it's making worldwide headlines of course that the number of people especially young people joining the Catholic Church and the Orthodox churches recently has skyrocketed and many of those new converts have been sharing their stories. That's great. So for them and for their families I feel like God wants me to add a long-term perspective into the mix. The bottom line is this. Being Catholic is something that I celebrate every day and I would recommend it to to everyone.

[00:01:40]Before I get too far into my story, I want to begin with a passage from the Bible from Proverbs 3:es 5 and 6, a familiar one. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. This is one of my favorite passages, and I can attest to its truth in my own life. Ever since I was a boy, I've always been especially impacted by the testimony of others about God's goodness and how he is working in their life. I suppose that is what drew me to your program, Eddie, and others like it.

[00:02:14]It's my hope that my story encourages everyone who hears it because it is a testimony of God's goodness and faithfulness. It's a story of a person growing in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Now, after so many years, I can't include all the important events and details. I have to leave a lot out, but I've tried to put together a narrative that hits all the most important milestones with enough detail to keep it relatable and interesting.

[00:02:39]And as you can tell, I will be using notes to keep myself on track. So, here it goes. My story has a lot in common with many others who have become Catholic. So much so that it has earned a name, the Evangelical Anglican Catholic Pipeline. My family and I flowed through that pipeline years ago, and I'm so happy to get the opportunity to tell your audience about it. Because my story has so much in common with other converts, I'll only briefly touch on the themes that so many others have talked about in their stories with much more insight and eloquence than I could.

[00:03:13]Instead, I'll focus on some more unique things in my personal journey. For your audience, please understand that everything I say, I'm sharing. I'm not preaching. I'm sure that some things I say will be challenging to non-atholic viewers, but please know that I have only love and respect for all Christian brothers and sisters. Hey, we're all just doing our best to love and serve the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. So, if nothing else, I hope that my story promotes a better understanding among all Christians and sparks curiosity in any non-Christian that might say this. So, let me begin at the beginning and tell you a little bit about my early years. It turns out that my family has been a part of the Pentecostal tradition for as long as it has been around. To begin to understand my story, here's what you need to know about Pentecostalism. It began as a movement in the early 1900s. It's considered a subgroup within conservative evangelical Christianity that emphasizes experiencing the Holy Spirit. They believe that every Christian should seek should seek an experience after their initial conversion to Christ called the baptism of the Holy Spirit. This is an intense spiritual experience that is said to qualitatively transform you into a more holy and powerful Christian. They generally believe that the evidence of this experience is miraculously speaking in a language you have not learned naturally, also known as speaking in tongues. Pentecostals are also known for engaging their emotions in their faith.

[00:04:43]They might literally cry in sorrow for their sins in response to God's goodness. They might laugh, shout, jump, and dance. Some well-known Pentecostal denominations are the Assemblies of God, which I'll refer to as the AG from now on because that's a mouthful, the Fourquare Church, the Church of God in Christ, which is primarily an African-American denomination, and the Church of God in Cleveland, Tennessee.

[00:05:06]And of course, there's many other small Pentecostal denominations and independent congregations.

[00:05:11]So, as I was saying about my family history, my great-grandfather on my mother's side was a Pentecostal church planter and pastor. My grandfather on my father's side was a Pentecostal preacher and missionary. My mom and dad met at a small Pentecostal Bible college. While they never entered into full-time ministry, they were extremely active in many areas of ministry throughout my life. And on my mom's side, I also have four uncles who were ordained and active Pentecostal ministers. And finally, my wife was a licensed minister in the AG for two years. So that's four generations of Pentecostal ministers that shaped my life and I treasure all of that godly influence. Growing up, my church was the template of my life. We were there practically whenever the doors were unlocked and it was the source of most of my social activity along with the time spent with my devoutly Pentecostal extended family. In terms of my personal faith, Pentecostals don't baptize infants, but I say they might as well have baptized me as a baby because I cannot remember a time in my life when I didn't love Jesus, believe in him as my Lord and Savior, and do my best to live for him, and to show his love to others. I am not, nor was I perfect. Far from it, in fact. But my relationship with God has always been very important to me. So, it was a wonderful childhood. I knew I was loved by God, my family, and my church.

[00:06:36]What I appreciate most about those years was that I learned in church and by example to put God first in my life. I was encouraged to develop good habits of prayer and repentance, Bible reading, church attendance, and making good choices about my social and leisure activities. Again, I wasn't perfect, but my faith was always a high priority.

[00:06:57]So, with an upbringing like that, it's probably no surprise that when I went off to college, my first Sunday away from home, I went to the local AG church where I met my wife Kay. We started dating right away and were engaged the following spring. Um, she was starting college the next year at one of the AG's colleges because she felt a call to ministry. So, after we got married, I transferred to the state university in the same town as her college, and life was wonderful. A couple of years later, one of Kay's best friends, the daughter of Kay's pastor growing up, this was the man who married us. Well, she had moved away to be a teacher and had stopped going to an AG church and was active in an Episcopal church. Well, remember our Pentecostal pedigree, fourth generation Pentecostal ministry. Uh, this news was a little shocking and concerning to us, but before too long, we went out to visit her. in large part just to visit a friend and to have an adventure, but with the added purpose of checking out this new church of hers. Now, I had very little exposure to other types of Christianity. And by the way, I knew next to nothing about Catholicism. Uh Kay, my wife, had a more diverse group of Christian friends, but my Christian worldview was very, very small. Again, because of my background and wonderful childhood, I was never really interested in what other churches believed and practiced. For the most part, all I had was the general knowledge about the spectrum of Christianity that one would pick up growing up in a small rural town and also from TV and movies. So once again, for those who might not be familiar, here's a real quick summary of the Episcopal Church. So the Episcopal Church is the American branch of the Church of England. The Church of England broke away from the Catholic Church under King Henry VIII in 1534.

[00:08:43]It's distinctive among Protestants because it retained many Catholic teachings and traditions, especially in the way they worship. Many people refer to it jokingly as Catholic light. So, let me reiterate, the Lord knew that for me and my family, there was no way that we would be open to the Catholic Church at that time. So, our journey home to Rome was or in our journey home to Rome.

[00:09:09]He was kind enough to allow us a layover in England. And it all started when we went with Kay's friend to this Episcopal church uh on June 5th, 1994.

[00:09:20]For me, June 5th, 1994 was like Moses in the burning bush, St. Paul on the road to Damascus. Or perhaps the best parallel from a biblical story would be the one about Cleopus and his traveling companion on the road to Emmas on the day of our Lord's resurrection. Bottom line, I was not expecting the revelation that God had in store for me that day.

[00:09:42]It started from the moment we entered the church. Something was different. I was immediately captivated by the tangible presence of the Holy Spirit. I could see theology built into everything, even the architecture and the furniture. For example, I noticed that the altar was in the front and center of the sanctuary, not the pulpit, which to me created showed me the a real atmosphere of sacrifice, which I knew was the the essence of worship. And then the stained glass, the dark wood, the stone, the pipe organ, it all created sort of an ancient atmosphere. I could just tell that I was in a sacred space.

[00:10:17]There were kneelers in the pews which demonstrated to me a real seriousness about the importance of prayer and we used them extensively in the service. So before the service began, someone helped me find my place in the prayer book.

[00:10:30]This would become my personal copy later on. Um and this was very different than what I was used to, of course, because in my church growing up, we didn't recite prayers and we certainly didn't use a prayer book to order our worship service. But to my great surprise, I loved it from the beginning. To me, lurggical worship felt like amplified worship, harmonious and undivided worship. It had a real we and Jesus vibe rather than a me and Jesus vibe. And what was immediately obvious and honestly overwhelming to me was just how robustly biblical and deeply theological the service was. I really felt like the flow of the service was taking me on a journey deeper and deeper into an encounter with God. And again, no offense to any non-lurggical church members viewing this, but it felt more Christ centered than preacher centered or worship team centered. So during the first part of the service, what I would later learn is called the liturgy of the word. We heard substantial pra pass passages read from the Old Testament, the Psalms, and the New Testament letters. We actually prayed the psalm together like Jesus would have. And when reading when each reading was done, the reader declared the word of the Lord.

[00:11:45]And we responded, "Thanks be to God."

[00:11:48]And then there was the gospel reading accompanied by music and singing. The priest and the acolytes, those are the kids who were helping out with the service. They processed a special book of the gospels along with a processional cross and the candlesticks from the altar down the center aisle to the middle of the congregation who were now standing in honor of God's word anticipating the reading from the gospel. And again, this is soaked in theology about the incarnation and the plan of salvation that I immediately recognized. Jesus, the word made flesh, came down from heaven, dwelt among us, and proclaimed the gospel. It was amazingly beautiful. After that was the homaly and I actually remember what the homaly was about. So that's a big clue right there about how significant this was for me. Um after that I loved reciting the nyine creed together which I had no familiarity with before then but it seemed like a fitting response to all of the spiritual food we had just received from God's word.

[00:12:48]But just then when I thought it couldn't get any better we moved into the liturgy of the eukarist. Now, that word Eucharist was a word I had never really heard before, and I didn't know what it meant. Well, there was a palpable change in the air. I could tell something very important was about to take place as the bread and wine were processed up to the front. And we stood, as it says in the liturgy, to lift up our hearts to the Lord and give thanks. During this part of the service, every prayer and gesture, response, and even silent moment was soaked with meaning. the epiclesis, the anomnesis. By the way, I'm a teacher by profession. So that's your homework. If you don't know what those words mean, look up epiclesis and anomnesis.

[00:13:32]Um, also I was struck by the intensity of the words of institution. And the fact that we approached the altar to receive communion, like we were going forward for an altar call. All of it just overwhelmed me. By the way, I should explain that any baptized person is allowed to receive communion in the Episcopal church. Now, it probably felt like just another Sunday to everyone else there, but for me, it was like I was in heaven. The way I had worshiped God that morning seemed like the right and just way to worship him. Uh, regarding communion, the only thing I had ever learned about it was that it was purely symbolic. Well, even if that were true, and I would learn later on, it turns out that in non-atholic or non-Orthodox churches that this is true, that the way of observing the Lord's supper, that pardon me, that way of observing the Lord's supper did justice to the symbolic value.

[00:14:25]So, since the Episcopal Church comes from an Anglican tradition, I'll use a very British term to describe my state of mind by the end of the service.

[00:14:35]Gobsmacked.

[00:14:36]I was completely and utterly gobsmacked.

[00:14:40]I floated out of there that God and coni I was convinced that God had spoken to me. He uh wanted me to look into this lurggical worship stuff and figure out why it directs so much reverence towards the Lord's supper. Well, it took me a while to track down some helpful resources. Our personal library and the Christian bookstore we frequented were not much help. As it happens, this was also around the time of the dawn of the internet. So something as a last resort, I did a Netscape search for Pentecostals who do lurggical worship. Uh and to my great surprise, I actually found something. Um there was a budding movement called the convergence movement, also known as three streams Christianity. This was a whole community of Christians with charismatic and Pentecostal backgrounds who had discovered liturgy, sacraments, and Christian history. And they were trying to blend the lurggical and sacramental with the charismatic and Pentecostal along with the evangelical and reformed traditions into a coherent fellowship of Christians. The most prominent denomination to come out of that movement is probably the charismatic Episcopal Church.

[00:15:48]I also eventually found and read books like this one uh Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail by Robert Weber and ones like it. I also remember that one Christian musician that I was familiar with had adopted a kind of medieval vibe, John Michael Talbat. And this was also the mid 90s when Gregorian Gregorian chant was all the rage. So I bought a I bought a CD by him called Chant from the Hermitage. I know John Michael has been on your program in the past. Um he's become one of my favorite people on earth and I highly recommend his music book. Good man.

[00:16:21]>> Yeah. I encourage everyone to live visit Little Portion Hermitage in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.

[00:16:27]>> So, let me get a quick drink.

[00:16:30]>> Yeah.

[00:16:32]>> So, all of these initial resources pointed me back in time through church history, especially to the early church fathers. And this direction made sense to me. With all of the division in Christianity, it seemed like a good thing to just keep going back into church history until I reached a point where there was just one thriving church. What did they believe? How was it governed? How did they worship and spread the gospel? So, like many others who have become Catholic, I made the wonderful mistake of reading the writings of the early church. To cut to the chase, what I read was both shocking and devastating. The early church had these four of these four unmistakable characteristics that were unfortunately not part of Pentecostalism.

[00:17:17]Number one, they worshiped lurggically.

[00:17:20]Maybe not, you know, high Latin mass liturgy, but definitely lurggical. And above all, it was centered on the Eucharist. And speaking of the Eucharist, number two, they believed in sacraments, not purely symbolic ordinances. They clearly taught baptismal regeneration and the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

[00:17:41]They believe that the Holy Spirit works through these and other sacred rituals established by Christ and the apostles in an efficacious way to apply to a person with the right disposition the grace and blessings won by Christ's life, passion, death, and resurrection.

[00:17:59]Number three, its form of church government was hierarchical with the offices of bishops, priests, and deacons. And the bishops were considered to be the successors of the apostles.

[00:18:11]That hierarchy flowed up to a major Christian center like Rome, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Antioch, or Alexandria.

[00:18:19]And finally, number four, it had an unwavering commitment to pass on the faith as it was handed on to them without any deviations into error. And the two chief mechanis mechanisms of this were apostolic succession, the ability to trace your ordination directly back to one of the apostles and church councils.

[00:18:42]Well, what about the Bible? That was always important to me. So the early church was firmly built on the Bible. As I shared earlier, the church had a well-developed liturgies by this time where the word of God was the focal point of the first part of the service and scripture saturated all of the prayers used throughout the service. In addition to that, we have from this time period the written works of scholars, theologians, and clergy who wrote commentaries on the scriptures and papers on doctrine and sermons. But once again, while studying this, I was shocked to learn that the table of contents of the Bible, what is known as the, you know, the canon of scripture, was not officially established until around 400 AD. Before then, there was some debate among the churches about which books were considered inspired and used in worship and which ones weren't.

[00:19:30]In fact, the first time we see the list of the 27 New Testament books we have in the Bible today with no more and no less was in 327 AD.

[00:19:40]So the canon of scripture was officially established at about the same time as other major dogmas of Christianity at ecumenical church councils. Doctrines like the trinity and how Jesus was both fully God and fully man.

[00:19:54]So the church that God used to assemble, transmit and protect the canon of scripture was the same church that God used to define with necessary precision the revelation of the Holy Trinity and the dual nature of Christ. And as I said earlier, unfortunately, this church that God used did not resemble my Pentecostal tradition in many important ways.

[00:20:16]So out of love for my wife, my family, and respect for my own patrimony, I even tried to see if some early church characteristics would be welcome in the AG. Our pastor at the time, and God bless him, actually allowed me during Holy Week in 1997 to do a lurggical Holy Thursday service with communion. He participated in it, but he actually let me take the lead. Well, unfortunately, it wasn't that well attended and a few people came up afterwards and told me that they were very bre blessed by it.

[00:20:47]But I know that most people were uncomfortable with it. It was just too Catholic for them. So, by this point, I had done everything I felt I could do to stay true to the denomination of my childhood. But it became clear to me that it was time to move on.

[00:21:03]So, turns out that moving on did coincide with me finishing graduate school and getting commissioned as an officer in the US Navy. This was late 1998.

[00:21:12]So, Kay and I along with our two kids at the time moved to our first duty station. Now, I mentioned that the Charismatic Episcopal Church was we thought the best fit for us at the time, but there was no CEC church in the area where we lived. So, after visiting several churches, we settled into a highquality Episcopal church. I'll say again, at this point, Catholicism was still not on my radar, but that would begin to slowly change over the next few years. There are a few things that I'll focus on that I think best explain how I began to feel the nudge to begin the next leg of the journey.

[00:21:48]One night, I was browsing through the religious section of uh Barnes & Noble, and I came across a book entitled The Lamb's Supper by some guy named Scott Han. So, here it is. So Kay noticed my interest in it and uh bought it without my knowledge and gave it to me as a gift soon thereafter. I read it cover to cover in just a couple days, fascinated by the idea that the book of Revelation is a window into the worship of heaven.

[00:22:13]It describes how the worship how that worship is mirrored in the Catholic mass. And I didn't realize it until I was well into the book that Scott Han was a convert himself, which made it even more fascinating to me. And this was probably the first time that I had read about an evangelical Christian, a pastor and Bible scholar in fact, who had left Protestantism for the Catholic Church. Moreover, his motivation for doing so was very similar to mine for becoming an Anglican to participate in the worship of heaven to adore and receive our Lord's real presence in the Eucharist. So, this was an initial seed that was planted. But if you would have asked me at the time if I thought that I was Catholic, I would have boldly answered why yes, in the Episcopal Church I recite every week in the creed how I believe in one holy Catholic and apostolic church. The people I was most influenced by at the time contended that Anglicanism possessed apostolic secession and maintained all the essential doctrines and practices of the undivided church of the first millennium. If pressed, I would have called myself Anglo Catholic, not Roman Catholic, because I knew that the Episcopal Church was not under the authority of the Pope. But I leaned into all of the smells and bells and other customs that Anglo Catholics shared with Roman Catholics. For example, when I had the option, I would shop in Catholic bookstores rather than Protestant ones.

[00:23:36]This led to the next important event leading me to becoming Catholic. I bought a CD at a Catholic bookstore called The Cup of Life right here. Okay, this is my second hop copy. Actually, I wore out the first one because I love it so much. So, because I I bought that CD, I started getting flyers in cataloges in the mail from Catholic publishers. And while browsing through a catalog one time, I noticed a VHS tape for sale called No Price Too High, the story of a Pentecostal pastor named Alex Jones, who brought his congregation into the Catholic Church. As I said in my introductory comments, I've always been especially interested in hearing people's testimony, and I felt a special connection with this one because it involved a Pentecostal minister. So, I ordered the tape, but I didn't get a chance to watch it right away. I actually found it in in a trunk the other day. Still have it. So, um Oh, and and there's a side note here that I want to get in. I I've always been uh Christian music has always been important part of my life, an important source of spiritual inspiration for me.

[00:24:41]I listen to both contemporary Christian and Catholic radio stations. Um, but even back then I preferred to listen to Catholic radio like EWTN and sometimes I would watch EWTN on cable and I remember watching EWTN one night and for the first time I think I watched a program called The Journey Home with Marcus Grody which I know you've been on yourself Eddie and so I was captivi I was uh captivated by this program because once again I love to hear people's stories especially stories of conversion and This night the guest happened to be a man who had been a priest in the charismatic Episcopal Church. So I watched this episode intensely. I was perplexed because I thought that the CEC would be like a final destination for Christians seeking early church Christianity, no different than Catholicism. And I would later learn that many CEC bishops and priests eventually swam the Tyber and became Catholic. Some of them are Catholic priests today through the ordinaria to the chair of St. computer. So, that was the next important thing that got me back into what I'll call investigation mode. At some point after that, I finally watched that VHS tape, No Price Too High, by Alex Jones. And what he said really got me thinking about these two questions. One, what church did Jesus establish? And two, what reason is good enough for me to not be part of that church? What excuse could I come up with that would be good enough for me to not be part of that church? So I began because of that video, I began to take seriously the possibility that the Roman Catholic Church was the original church, the one established by Jesus and therefore the one protected, nurtured, and expanded by Jesus through the Holy Spirit.

[00:26:32]I began to pay more attention to apologetics content like uh Catholic Answers live and other content that explained and defended the Catholic faith like uh like this. This is just an example of you know one book that I got the uh the essentials.

[00:26:47]Anyway, >> survival guide is that what?

[00:26:49]>> Yes, the survival guide. I think I got that for donating money or subscribing to a magazine or something.

[00:26:56]>> That is great.

[00:26:57]>> But it's a great resource. Anyway, some of these programs that I was watching included Scott Han, which was interesting and significant to me, and uh Tim Staples, who has also been on your program, and I learned that he had a Pentecostal background like me and has a very familiar Pentecostal way of presenting information. If anybody out there is not familiar with Pentecostalism and want to know what it's like, watch something with Tim Staples in it. That you got it. That's that is Pentecostalism in the 1980s. He epitomizes it for sure.

[00:27:25]>> You got it, brother.

[00:27:26]>> Yeah.

[00:27:28]So, also there was Steve Ray who's also been on your program. He was in the No Price Too High video. He was the one that introduced Alex and and helped Alex and and his congregation come into the church. So, so uh Steven Ray has always been a big uh help to me as well. Uh so, at this point, what I did was I began to lay out all of the differences between Anglicanism and Catholicism. I began to consider all of the evidence to make a decision about which side was right. And you know what? It was no contest every time. The Catholic positions seem to win the argument fairly easily. You name it, the papacy, the Marian dogmas, purgatory, clerical celibacy, distinctive Catholic moral teachings like those against um artificial forms of birth control, divorce and remarage, I had never given any of these issues much thought. But when I finally got around to it, the Catholic position seemed to be the most convincing and consistent both biblically and theologically.

[00:28:24]So, now came the hardest part. I had to tell my lovely wife, my family, and my friends that I was convinced I needed to become Catholic. And it was harder this time because the Episcopal Church was at least Protestant.

[00:28:37]I dare say that through no fault of their own. Through no fault of their own. Most of the important people in my life would have considered Catholicism a different quasi Christian religion, categorically the same as Mormonism or Jehovah's Witnesses, but that's because they just didn't know much about it. and what they believed about it was really a twisted caricature born out of 500 years of conflict rather than accurate information.

[00:29:03]And while I never pressed Kay to join me in this, she ultimately trusted my judgment and we started RCIA in the fall of 2004 and and now it's called OCIA, but it's the program by which non-atholics can become part of the Catholic Church as adults.

[00:29:19]So for my family and friends who deserved an explanation, I decided to summarize all my reasons for becoming Catholic into a paper. I even recorded a video just in case anyone preferred to learn about it in that way. I wanted to come up with something easy for them to remember. So I organized all my testimony around the word basic basic.

[00:29:41]I explained that there were five basic reasons why I became Catholic. So I'll recap each one of those now. And so um now is when I would need to do the PowerPoint. So >> yes, before we transition to the PowerPoint, I do I want to ask um just just two questions about that first portion of the journey.

[00:30:01]>> You said family and friends.

[00:30:04]Were there friends I like asking this on a regular basis. Were there friends that were aware of what you were doing? What groups were you really close with at that time? What what were they practicing?

[00:30:16]So, uh, of course with K being, you know, a licensed minister, a lot of our friends were also licensed AG ministers.

[00:30:22]And so that >> uh you know it was one of those topics where >> you didn't say too much because you just you know you didn't want to offend anybody and you just didn't want to get into it and and and you knew that you know God was in control and and you just at that point we just wanted to sort of live what we knew was the truth and and just be a testimony be a witness to to all of our our friends and and family and and to be honest in general uh everybody received it. Well, I mean, I think that they they knew that we were uh we were still in love with the Lord and were dedicated to the Bible and um and we're just good people. So, it didn't really I was surprised at how little uh you know much trouble it actually caused when you when it comes down to it. And when we became Catholic, um it was it was a little more challenging in particular with uh you know some of the closer friends that we had again from our Assembly of God years. Um still again they they didn't you know shun us or anything like that but they they they got in a few digs every now and then but nothing nothing big. No big deal.

[00:31:33]>> No that that's that's helpful. The other thing is you mentioned that the Anglicans, Episcopalians that they were saying uh that they have retained some fundamental doctrines or dogmas or however you want to frame it. Do you know what councils they affirmed, >> right? Yeah. So they would uh basically affirm the first seven councils I believe basically of the undivided church. So whatever the Eastern Orthodox affirm, they would also affirm.

[00:32:01]>> Okay. And um but that's not uniform because Anglicanism is strange in that it's a it is a um it's kind of an agreement that several groups come together and some of those that are more reformed and Calvinistic, they may not even affirm the the ecumenical councils.

[00:32:20]They would just say scripture alone. And um but you know it it I I've kind of lost touch because I've been Catholic for 21 years. I don't know how things are right now. But but back then Yes. A as a whole, I think they would have affirmed the first seven ecumenical councils. Yeah.

[00:32:36]>> All right. Well, go ahead and share.

[00:32:39]Yeah.

[00:32:39]>> Yeah.

[00:32:48]>> This is going to be fun.

[00:32:50]>> Yeah. Experiment.

[00:32:51]>> The first of its kind.

[00:32:55]>> All right. So, again, thanks for letting me do it this way. I, you know, I I like to keep my my thoughts organized.

[00:32:59]Otherwise, you know, because I've got so much material, so to speak, I could easily just get wander wander off into tangents and things.

[00:33:05]>> Well, let me say this actually for anyone that's listening on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, um, come over to YouTube to check out Aaron's presentation that he's about to start this visual presentation. So, >> yeah, it I'll be saying everything as well, but that that you know, that's the addend and all the visual aids that I've shown you. Yeah.

[00:33:23]>> And now I have more, too.

[00:33:24]>> Anyway, all right. So um as I said what I did was I organized my explanation around the word basic right so what made me Catholic well there's five basic reasons why I became Catholic they are Bible authority sacraments information and continuity so first of all the Bible the Bible made me become Catholic how did it do that well first of all there were a lot of Catholic verses that I discovered as soon as I had that experience in June June 5th, 1994, I started to see all these verses in the Bible that seemed pretty Catholic. Um, but the story I have to tell about that actually involves my my wife because it's the one that I remember the most. So, she had read um in John 20:es 19-23. That's the one after the the resurrection where Jesus appears to the apostles in the upper room and he breathes on them and he says to them, you know, whose sins you forgive are forgiven and whose sins you retain or retain. And so Kay was so, you know, confused by this that she actually wrote her pastor a letter. This was back in the day before email and texting and stuff. So she wrote a handwritten letter asking him to explain this passage. And so he wrote back to her a handwritten letter. And I remember sitting in bed one night and the two of us reading that letter of response from him. And it just, you know, wonderful person, very smart, very intelligent, but it the answer that he gave just wasn't very satisfying. He didn't really answer the question. And so, you know, we just it it just didn't it just didn't sit right. Um and so that's just one example of the many verses that just kind of jumped out at us as we began to read the Bible that seemed, you know, pretty Catholic in the reading. And then also, um like there was another book that I bought, you know, this one's a little bit hard to see.

[00:35:09]>> You got to hold it right in front of you. Yeah.

[00:35:11]>> Yeah. There's called the Catholic Verses by a guy named Dave Armstrong. And so it kind of, you know, highlights all those verses that >> Fantastic book. Yep.

[00:35:20]>> Yeah. Yeah. It's a great book.

[00:35:22]So, um I don't even know if it was in book form at the time. It may have just been stuff from websites that I was seeing, but I I eventually got the book.

[00:35:30]So, uh it it does a really good job of explaining the biblical basis for a lot of good, uh Catholic beliefs. So, that was something that about the Bible that I thought was helpful in me be in, you know, convincing me to become Catholic.

[00:35:43]Um, and then as I mentioned earlier, the the the Catholic Church was instrumental in deciding, you know, what was the table of contents of the Bible? You know, how did we get that that cannon of scripture? So, it was discerned by Catholic bishops at Catholic church councils. And that meant a lot to me. I I could respect that for sure. So, something else that became obvious to me about the Bible is just that it requires interpretation. And and that really I don't think that, you know, needs any proof. I think that's just self-evident.

[00:36:12]But what it says to me is that the Bible alone is not sufficient. It's there's the interpretation of the Bible is inherent in learning what the Bible teaches. And so, you know, that means to me that we need a church to help us to understand what the Bible really means, what it's there's what it says and then also what it means. And so, you know, we need the church to help us to understand that. And so, you know, what I was thinking at the time was, well, why don't we go back to what the early church said that those verses mean, what, you know, that part of the Bible means. And and we we got so many documents, so many writings from the early church. So, again, it made sense to me to go figure out what did the early church say about those Bible passages. And let's let's stick with that since they were much closer to the time of Christ and the apostles. Uh, I think that's probably the best interpretation. And again that it's clear it became clear to me that that early church was the Catholic church. So um and then as I mentioned earlier and this is this is a little bit you'll forgive me for being a little exaggerating quite a bit but I you know infinitely more Bible that I experienced in Catholic worship than I had experienced in my in my Pentecostal worship services. How it had so many substantial readings and the you know all the prayers were saturated with uh with Bible verses and things like that.

[00:37:29]I just I had I I just felt like Catholic worship was so much more biblical uh than what I had experienced. And so then when it comes to authority um the first thing is really related to the Bible and that we need as I said somebody to give us a trustworthy interpretation of the Bible and and that's what that's why we need uh you know the church with some authorities. The church can say okay this is what the Bible means. Um and we saw this in or we see this in in the New Testament in the book of acts chapter 15 it's also referred to in Galatians chapter 2 but also um remember in the council of Nika where we had the heresy of aryanism many people and many leaders in the church bishops were saying that Jesus was not co-eternal with the father he was the highest created being but he was nonetheless a created being he was not fully divine and they had their bible verses to justify their you know their their thoughts about that and so you needed an authoritative uh declaration like no that is not the right way to interpret the Bible this is what we received from the apostles this is the correct way to interpret the bible so that's a you know important part of authority that convinced me to uh become Catholic but then also as I mentioned I sort as I was reading the Bible with you know sort of fresh set of eyes um I saw in the Bible the papacy and bishops and pri priests and deacons and also not not only in the Bible but in those early church documents that I was reading you know for example the papacy in the you know the popular verse Matthew 16:18 and 19 um convinced me that Jesus had established Peter as the chief shepherd um and so you know I that's that's a feature of the Catholic church and so I I was convinced by that 1 Timothy chapter 3 Titus chapter 1 talk about bishops and presptors and deacons um and Then the in the early church that really gets standardized and solidified and we see that in really early church documents like the the popular one is from um St. Ignatius of Antioch. He wrote around 107 AD um that he wrote it in a letter both to Smyrna and to Magnesia. He said don't do anything without the bishop. So the importance of the bishops um was emphasized early on in the church. So there's that and then it also just some common sense. It's just necessary you know without you know authority then what you get is you get division and you get confusion and so it just also just made sense to me just you know a healthy dose of common sense for that reason. Now, on the authority side, if if and I'm sure you've heard it, if you have a Protestant pastor saying, "Well, I've been trained, right? So, I do have the Holy Spirit is is within me.

[00:40:22]I've been trained appropriately. I have a master's of divinity, >> right?

[00:40:27]>> I am equipped to be the authority, >> right?

[00:40:31]>> So, what would someone say to that?"

[00:40:33]>> Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, that's good, but that's not I I would say it's not good enough in my opinion because of something that I'll get to the idea of apostolic succession because so you were trained >> and you know, you're equipped, but are your >> first of all, is your doctrine consistent with church teaching throughout church history? But also the with the idea of apostolic succession, it's like, well, who >> gave you that authority? from where did you get that that uh that you know authority to lead a group of Christians?

[00:41:08]So that's that's what I would I would bring up with with somebody in those uh circumstances. But um so those are the you know the the reasons that have to do with authority. And then for the sacraments uh and again you know I'm not not going to get into too great detail.

[00:41:22]I'm not going to cover all seven sacraments or anything, but I I began again with these fresh eyes to just see abundant examples of of the sacraments in the Bible. Um, and I'll just, you know, the of course the Eucharist is the the sacrament of sacraments. And so I'll just give a couple examples about that.

[00:41:38]So, you know, the the common bread of life discourse passage in John chapter 6 where Jesus is telling this crowd that he is the bread of life and they need to eat his flesh if they want to have eternal life. and they're very confused and they're they don't know what to make of this. But Jesus doubles down and in verse 53 of chapter 6, he says, "Unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life within you." So he doesn't back off. He doubles down and he and he, you know, he leaves and when that in that kind of state where they have to decide, you know, are they going to have faith and and continue to follow him or are they going to leave? And he's even willing to let some of the disciples leave him if need be to, you know, over this particular teaching. But what I love about it is that as strange and as confusing as that teaching might have been, it wasn't that long before St. Paul actually provides the answer. And when I saw this, it was just like a light came on. And that is in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 16 where he writes, "The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break is it not a participation in the body of Christ. So Jesus said all these things that we have to you know we have to eat his flesh and drink his blood. Well how do you do that? Well St. Paul gave us the answer through the Eucharist through the cup of blessing through the the host through the the the bread of the Eucharist. We participate in his body and blood. We obey that commandment of Jesus to uh to eat his flesh and drink his blood. So uh you know I began to to see these things in the scriptures. Another thing about the sacraments that just really made sense to me and helped me and this again came from another book that I had read at this time and this one oops this one's really not going to show very well. So Scott Han a book he wrote called Swear to God. The reason why I printed this one off like this is because I've either lost it or I have it as a digital copy.

[00:43:29]So there's some some books I just couldn't find and and I do have digital copies of these so I just printed off the cover. But anyway, in that book Dr. Han explains how the sac well the word sacrament is is comes from the Latin word sacramentum which was used to refer to a solemn oath in particular the oath that one would take uh if you were joining the the Roman army um and of course in an in an oath you there's an exchange of vows so it's kind of like a a wedding ceremony right where the bride and the groom they both say vows right so in the sacraments of course the person who's receiving the sacraments will in a sense make their vows both verbally by things that they say like they confess sin, they confess faith. Um but also uh there there was the the words of the other party in the in the oath and and for us when we it's not so much an oath as it is a covenant, right?

[00:44:26]Where where a covenant is like an oath, but it's an oath that makes family bonds. It's a it's a way to expand the family. So um so in the covenant we of course will say the words that we need to say but God if he were to speak audibly we would be reduced to subatomic particles immediately. So he's kind enough to use signs as visible words. So so it's important for these ceremonies to have the sign because those are God's visible words. His part in the covenant ceremony. his part in making the oath with us to to to be our God and to be our father and and we will be his his children in the family. So I think that Dr. Han's book did a really good job of explaining that and that and that was part of what convinced me to become Catholic. And then again just the idea of um how the sacraments are just u a testimony to how God wants to redeem the whole person. You know Christians are not gnostics. We believe in uh that God created a physical universe and the spiritual world, right? Both. And both are good. And human beings are physical and spiritual beings. We have a a foot in in in each world. Um and so it just makes sense that God wants to redeem both the physical and the spiritual. And so it also makes sense that you know the means of grace, the means of that redemption would include physical things like water and wine and bread and oil, things like that. So it just again just made sense to me and it was within the character of of God. And so one more book I've got with that and this is a more recent one uh but I didn't have this one when I was converting but it's a book by Joe Heshmire called the Eucharist Really is Jesus. and it did it does a great job of both explaining what Catholic teaching is on the Eucharist, but how it is so central to the Christian life. And so I I would recommend um that one. But a lot of people will say that, you know, all the sacrament stuff is just it seems too like voodoo kind of like it's magic and it's not magic. It's the Holy Spirit.

[00:46:31]It's just that's the way that God has instituted to to to do these um these remarkable works of of grace.

[00:46:41]So the next thing is information and again that's a little bit forced but what I mean by that is uh information convinced me to become Catholic because what I kept encountering over and over and over again is just this overwhelming abundant convincing evidence about the church's claims. So I've actually got a little video clip that I want to show of this is part of the uh no price too high video where Reverend Alex Jones is explaining um about that. And I just want to give you a little taste of it.

[00:47:13]>> Me to the Catholic Church learning two truths in the course of my study, course of my reading, two refutable truths.

[00:47:36]one ka and upon this ka I will build my church and the gates the plans all of the will of hades will not overthrow it will not destroy will not corrupt because it's my church.

[00:48:13]So, whoa, he's giving the church perpetuity.

[00:48:18]In other words, there will never be a time where the church is not.

[00:48:23]So, I begin to look as, well, my church started in 1982.

[00:48:36]Church of God in Christ started in 1896.

[00:48:42]I couldn't date all of the beginning of all THE CHURCHES. WHERE WERE THEY BEFORE the 16th century?

[00:48:56]What saying is the church that he began in the upper room and breathe on them and said, "Receive ye the Holy Spirit."

[00:49:08]That's the church. NOW, IF YOU CAN TRACE THAT DOWN TO THE DEAD, THAT'S THE CHURCH.

[00:49:19]NOW, this takes some serious consideration.

[00:49:23]Second promise, John 16:13.

[00:49:28]I'm going away, but I'm not going to leave you orphans, but I'm going to send you a comforter, a paracet that will be with you forever.

[00:49:44]Now he will lead and guide you into some truth.

[00:49:52]I say those who answer are trained Pentecostal.

[00:50:06]Let me let me hit you.

[00:50:11]Preaching in the Pentecostal at church is a is a is a dialogue.

[00:50:17]You have to talk back to really become a part of the message.

[00:50:22]So the Holy Spirit will lead and guide you into all truth.

[00:50:32]Now you know what that says. You know what that says?

[00:50:37]That says that the church our Lord initiated The upper room would never become corrupted.

[00:50:46]I taught the Cath church was good for a couple hundred years, then it fell off the edge of the earth.

[00:50:54]That's not what our Lord said. He said the Holy Spirit will be with you forever.

[00:51:01]NOT UNTIL THE APOSTLES DIE BECAUSE YOU'RE GOING to really need it when they die.

[00:51:09]But he's going to be in the church guiding it, teaching it, unfolding the mysteries of God, taking the things I've said to you and opening up to you and showing you that this is what the real truth is about.

[00:51:24]So now, if the church has perpetuity and the church has incorruptibility, that mean there has to be a clear line from the upper room until 1998.

[00:51:38]That's what I was thinking.

[00:51:42]Now, let's let's talk about the church who's got these qualifications.

[00:51:47]No, not that one.

[00:51:50]No, not that one.

[00:51:53]No, not that one. There's only one left.

[00:52:00]No. No.

[00:52:04]So, hope everybody enjoyed that. that what uh well who would later be deacon Alex Jones was saying was that uh you know the Catholic Church and I became convinced of this was the one established by Jesus and he is the one that maintained its unity and so that leads me to the the last letter there and the word basic continuity is a reason why I uh you know felt convinced to become Catholic. So the other idea behind that is that it's it's tried and true. So you know it's been around for 2,000 years practically. It stood the test of time and unlike any other entity in in history, it's stood up to a lot of uh opposition over those years.

[00:52:52]And what we see is that we see developed teaching but unchanged teaching. So you know a lot of people give the Catholic Church a hard time because they say, "Oh well, wait a minute. you know the the assumption of the blessed virgin Mary wasn't declared dogma until such and such day and that's true but that's just because that's when it was defined as dogma people believed it from since the days of the early church so that's what I mean by you know it's the same teaching but it gets developed the doctrine gets developed over time um and you know even doctrines that every Christian holds in common like doctrines of the trinity I don't think that the apostles when they walked out of the upper whom you know uh could use like the same terms that we use today to define the father, the son and the holy ghost, right? That was a the definitions of those of that doctrine uh was defined def you know by a church council the council in na and and later church councils to address heresies. And so what you see is not a, you know, an origin of a certain Catholic teaching, but you see a a definitive time where it was defined in order to address a particular heresy. But nonetheless, what you see without question is is continuity in in church teaching over those uh 2,000 years.

[00:54:12]So those were the reasons why I became Catholic. But what I'd like to do now in the last part of my talk here, and I'll try and speed this up a little bit because I know we're getting close to an hour, is I want to talk about the things that keep me Catholic. So it starts with those same five things. The Bible, the issue of authority, the sacraments, information, all these things are playing a big part in just keeping me Catholic.

[00:54:38]But one thing that I want to do is again just to make the point that I feel so blessed to be a Catholic and it's just I I don't regret it at all. Every day I'm just so um thankful that I am a Catholic Christian that I want to you know show sort of the abundance of that. I want to reflect the the abundance of that by going sticking with the same acronym basic but I'm going to give you three more reasons for each letter. So it's still it's a little bit forced. Some of these are are are a little bit forced but you'll get the idea. It's just so I'm going to give you three more of each letter to explain you know uh why I stay why I remain Catholic because again remember that I started out this this uh presentation just one of my biggest motivations is I want new converts to see that it sticks. This is something that um they can hold on to for the rest of their life. So that's the first one that you know the blessings that I've received. That's very generic, I know, but it's just meant to convey that idea that being Catholic is is a huge blessing and I and I I uh I just love it every day. So, another B reason why I love being Catholic and stay Catholic are the biatitudes. So, what I mean by that is that this is is kind of a placeholder for Catholic moral teaching.

[00:55:49]Um I I I see this emphasized more in the Catholic Church than in other places.

[00:55:55]But they uh the the bedrock part of the bedrock of Catholic moral teaching is just these biatitudes which of course come from the sermon on the mount in the gospels. And I want to read something from the catechism. This is paragraph 17 in the catechism of the Catholic Church.

[00:56:11]It says the biatitudes are at the heart of Jesus preaching. And what they are is they are the laws of the kingdom of God.

[00:56:21]And you think about it where you live, you live in like, you know, a certain kingdom, the United States. Let's say you it's important for us to know and obey the laws of the United States.

[00:56:29]Well, if we also want to be residents, citizens of the kingdom of heaven, then we need to know what those laws are.

[00:56:37]What are the rules in the kingdom of heaven? So you know for example the first one blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. So and and what that means is to be poor in spirit is to have a holy detachment from everything. So it's not just you know uh material things but just you just you you take what God gives and you and you have a grateful heart for it but you don't seize it. You're not too attached to it. And that's just a rule in the kingdom of heaven. So um if we want to be citizens in the kingdom of heaven then that's the kind of beatitude that that we need to have. And so I I just uh really appreciate that teaching about the biatitudes that is you know much more common place in the Catholic church and then brothers and sisters. And so what I mean by that are monks and nuns by at this point 21 years later I've met quite a few monks and nuns and I just love all of them. They're just amazing people. I I wish that the church had 10 times more of them than we do.

[00:57:36]So those are some extra reasons why I've remained Catholic all these years. And so some more that start with a so first of all adoration and other devotions. I cannot imagine my life without the without eucharistic adoration uh without the rosary without um other devotions like the stations of the cross um lexio deina. So all these special ways of praying are just amazing and they really enriched my life and I just can't imagine my life without them. So aisus is the next a word for why that keeps me Catholic and that's a strange word for most people. I realize that. So what that means is self-discipline. Again this is something that I think is a hallmark of Catholic teaching that it's important to have, you know, selfmastery, self-discipline, mortification, fasting. And I've encountered this well, you know, it's a it's a huge part of uh Catholic spirituality and it goes all the way back to like the desert father, St. Anthony of the Desert. Um, and it it's uh recently a program that I do that involves uh aseticism is Exodus 90. And I've gotten so much out of that. Uh the idea of you, you know, let God sort of take you down to the studs. You give up all everything. and give up TV, give up alcohol, give up sugary drinks, and and you know, for 90 days. Um, and it just it it helps everybody to become the our phrase is uncommonly free, you know, um, it it really really helps with that. And so I appreciate that as part being part of Catholic life. Um, and then altruism.

[00:59:16]So again, if you don't know what that word means, you know, it's not one that people use every day. uh that's just you know sacrificial generosity and I love the fact that the Catholic Church is a is the biggest charitable organization in the world right for the uh the saints and angels. So again just the communion of saints and and the the angels guardian angels the St. ical prayer. I pray that practically every day, but I look forward to every saint day to learn a little bit about the each saint. Um, and just really appreciate that sacredness. So again, I think that the Catholic Church has done a a wonderful job of maintaining the idea of sacredness and even like uh uh sacred time and that really shows up in like the church calendar um all of the feast days and the seasons and the preparatory seasons, Advent to prepare us for for Christmas and Lent to prepare us for the Easter season. And then uh the liturgy, the hours is even making the hours of the day sacred. I started doing that in the past year and that's made a huge difference in my in my prayer life. So uh I look forward to that. And then along with that just silence. Um again a big part of Catholic spirituality. I uh hear God in the silence. And so I you know I I'm glad that I we receive that as part of the spiritual tradition and and and in the teaching. Um I so again the Catholic Church is just so incarnational. The idea that um you know he became or what is what's the phrase? Jesus shared in our humanity. so that we could share in his divinity. So that just informs so much of what we believe and do. Um it's a bedrock principle for just so much of what we do. And then just to reemphasize the idea that the church is, you know, indestructible. And just to emphasize here at this point how the the biggest threat to Catholicism is not from without, it's more from within. How Catholics are kind of the biggest threat. But, you know, after all this time, so many, you know, Catholics done their best to try and bring it down.

[01:01:19]They they haven't done so so far. So, I I uh look that that's wonderful. And then all of that just is just very inspirational to me. I uh everything uh about the church just, you know, I I find inspiration in and it just uh motivates me every day to be grateful and to continue on. And then finally uh the three C's are it it's just so comprehensive. You know the the Catholic Church if you if you enjoy living in Western civilization thank the Catholic Church because you know most likely if you trace any important aspect of of Western civilization back to its roots.

[01:01:57]It was probably a Catholic monastery or Catholic university that was responsible for developing that art, science, law, you know music, uh all of it. Um it's so contemplative. So again the idea of whether it's a crucifix or a statue or a stained glass window um how we are asked in our prayer life to just sit and contemplate or a Bible verse like lexio deina like we just sit with that Bible verse and just contemplate it um in our prayer time and then christoentric again a lot of times I think the church gets accused of you know putting other things ahead of Christ and I just that hasn't been my experience it's so centered around Christ. If you read uh the teachings of the church, it's all centered around Christ, which leads me to you actually get three bonus C's sort of and that is the catechism of the Catholic Church. That's the last thing that I think is big time responsible for me remaining Catholic recommend anybody who's Catholic or who's thinking about Catholic to reading the catechism um some way. It's it's so uh it does such a wonderful job of explaining what the church actually teaches and and dispels a lot of the myths about and you know misunderstandings about what it teaches.

[01:03:15]Um I think I'm going to stop the share now.

[01:03:21]Aaron, great presentation. That that that is great that you broke it down with that level of clarity and it had these attributes that have been present in so many of the testimonies, but you certainly brought it all together in a way that was very compelling. And I and I hope that many folks will come across that research that you've done, come across this video and understand um the effort that was part of your that your journey. You you went after with surrender and you went after it wanting to know exactly what is going to make sense here. What what did God what did God put in place that's here for us? And that video of Alex, what's his name again? Alex Jones.

[01:04:11]>> Alex Jones. Alex, he's he's passed. So, you know, he rested peace light perpetuals shine upon him. But he he actually became a Catholic deacon and I had the opportunity to meet him in I think it was around 2008. But yeah, Alex Jones. Yeah.

[01:04:23]>> But yeah, I I just love how passionate he was in that video. I've never seen until you showed that.

[01:04:29]>> I had not seen that video. Is it Why is that not popular? I'm Maybe it is. Maybe it is.

[01:04:35]>> It is. I mean, I don't know. But it it actually streams on formed. People can watch it on formed.

[01:04:40]>> Really?

[01:04:40]>> How did I miss it on for? Okay.

[01:04:43]>> Yeah.

[01:04:43]>> Well, yeah, fantastic work. I want to thank you for putting that all together.

[01:04:49]I that was a lot of fun that you were able to share that. And >> little unusual. So, >> no, no, no. I appreciate that. And is there anything you want to add? Um, anything to leave the audience with?

[01:05:01]>> No, just first of all, thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to to to share my my testimony. I I just uh felt like it was time. As I said, I hope that everything I said was first of all, it gives God glory and that the Holy Spirit can use it to just uh meet anybody where they are and just, you know, give them what they need uh to hear, to be encouraged, to to seek the Lord. Really, that's really all I want is people to just uh seek the Lord in the best way that they know how.

[01:05:28]>> Amen. Amen. Thanks again, Aaron. Thank you everyone for watching. Please pray for those that are coming into the church. they've just joined OCIA, people that are coming across testimonial videos. Please continue praying for the church to be strengthened, for more people to bring uh uh this spirit of unity into the church. And until next time, take care and God bless you all.

[01:05:51]Bye.