Journey Home

Pierce Benefield came from an Evangelical Christian family in Georgia, and got some good Bible basics from the Christian school he went to as a kid. As a young man, he became more serious about his faith, and began to explore Calvinism, and even briefly considered becoming a pastor. During COVID, he was working at the Post Office, and a coworker invited him to a Reformed congregation that began to zero him in on his faith further. For the first time, he started exploring the differences between forms of Christianity, and was startled at how strong the intellectual case was for Catholicism. In the course of this, he became convinced that he needed to come home to the Catholic Church.

Cary Klivan grew up Jewish in Brooklyn, and though he was culturally observant, he was spiritually agnostic, more along the lines of scientific materialism. He ended up marrying his childhood sweetheart, who happened to be one of the few Catholics in his neighborhood. He agreed to raise his children Catholic, because to him faith was just a cultural marker. The reality of becoming a father, however, got him asking deeper philosophical and spiritual questions. He began to see that the stories he learned in his Jewish background came to life anew in fulfilled form in Jesus, and suddenly, he found himself not only believing, but desiring to be baptized and serve the Church as a Permanent Deacon.

Mark DeYoung came from a Nazarene family, and was heavily involved in church. He went on to attend Trevecca Nazarene in Nashville, and then began work at a Christian music station, where he also hosted the morning show. During this time, he experienced some major challenges to his personal faith. When he began to rediscover it, it lead him to seminary studies, and eventually on staff at a seeker-friendly church. The toxicity he experienced there led him to leave ministry altogether, and wonder if he’d ever fit in at any church. After wrestling with alcohol, he realized he needed an anchor of stability that would align his faith and his personal life. Discovering Catholic media, he began to finally get real answers, and realized that his true spiritual home was in the Catholic Church.

David DeAtkine was born into a Baptist family, but they also explored Pentecostal and fundamentalist churches along the way. When he went to medical school, David began attending Episcopal services, because that was his wife’s background. However, this raised even more questions for him about Church history, the sacraments, and the nature of Christian authority, and set him on a quest to find out what kind of Church Jesus had truly founded.

Fr. Samuel Keyes was raised Baptist in Mississippi, but became an Episcopalian as a young adult, going on to serve as a priest in Massachusetts, Alabama, and Maryland. His spiritual trajectory continued to lead him deeper on the questions of tradition, liturgy and authority, and he eventually became a Catholic and an ordained priest through the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter.

David Lach grew up in a group called the Church Universal and Triumphant, a syncretistic form of Theosophy, which taught a sort of monotheistic spin on the idea of the God within. Among other things, he began to realize that his community’s concept of Jesus as an ascended master did not match up with the Jesus he saw in the New Testament. He visited a Catholic Mass, and immediately felt like this was the place where he could encounter the real Jesus. It started him on the path to explore the Catholic Faith, and eventually be received into the Church.

TJ Nielsen grew up in a Christian household, and his interest in philosophy and history led him to Hillsdale College. While there, he began to reflect more deeply on what it meant to take his Christian faith seriously, and his encounter with serious Catholics impacted him in such a way that he eventually felt called home to the Catholic Church himself. He has since gone on to found the Center for Evangelical Catholicism.

Amy McEntee was raised in the Church of the Brethren, and as she grew older, began to experience Christianity in a number of different denominational contexts. When she began attending the University of Dayton and meeting faithful and engaged Catholics, she began to discover the truth and beauty of the Church, and started taking steps to become a part of it.

Sam Nunnally grew up in Charismatic, Methodist and non-denominational Christianity in the South, and his desire to learn more about the faith took him right to the edge of believing in the Real Presence from his own personal study of Scripture, without any thought that he was drawing specifically Catholic conclusions. After graduating college, he kept feeling the pull to ministry, serving in youth, music, and associate pastor roles. Eventually, he decided he wanted to try and prove the roots of Charismatic Christianity in Church history; but what he found instead was a deeply Catholic expression of Christianity that led him to the conviction that he had to become Catholic himself.

Erika Bachiochi was not raised in a religious household, and her reaction to divorce in her family, as well as suicides among friends, led her to a dark place spiritually. Seeking truth and meaning, she was befriended by pro-life intellectuals, who helped her see that life was meaningful, and faith could be reasonable. She came home to the Catholic Faith in 1997, and has been active in the Catholic intellectual tradition and the promotion of Christian anthropology.

Deacon Stephen Nash was baptized Catholic, but several of the family members who had been anchors of faith in his life passed away when he was young. There were sparks of faith along the way that caused him to pop in and out of Church occasionally, especially in college, when he became friends with a classmate at Princeton who was discerning the priesthood. When he married his wife, he started going to church regularly with her, but when their second child became ill, he really began to get serious about faith. That experience, combined with the persistent prayers of his Catholic family, were pivotal in him finally coming back fully to the sacraments, and eventually discerning a vocation to the diaconate.

Monique Ruberu was raised Catholic, but picked and chose what aspects of Catholicism she was going to prioritize. In 2012, her marriage began to experience crisis, and she knew she needed to take her faith much more seriously if her marriage was to survive. That search led her on a deeper journey of love for the Eucharist, but also into a renewed understanding of the sanctity of life, and she began the path toward becoming a NaPro Technology trained OB/GYN.

Chad Nelson grew up Catholic, but his faith caught fire as a teenager when he encountered Pentecostalism, and he eventually became an ordained Pentecostal preacher. Eventually, through studying history and scripture, he began to discover that many of the things he loved most about Pentecostalism — a sensitivity to the Holy Spirit, the power of miracles, and the reality of God working in power through His Word, all had their fulness in the Catholic faith he’d left behind in his teenage years.

Jeromy Darling was a deeply devoted Christian, who got into church planting and the house church movement through his dad’s pastoral ministry. When that community completely collapsed, it caused Jeremy to ask some serious questions for the first time: what did early Christianity actually look like? What kind of communities did the apostles found? How did we get the Bible in the first place? The answers to all those questions kept leading him to the same place: the Catholic Church. He now seeks to share his faith through music and film.

Deacon Michael Nixon had a deeply troubled home life, and after a few years of homelessness, joined the Hare Krishnas at 13 and started selling drugs on the side. When he met his wife, they began a journey of spiritual exploration together, and in the most unexpected fashion, found a home in the Catholic Church, entering with their very young children. One of them, Fr. Michael Nixon, was a guest on The Journey Home in August 2025.

Dr. Lisa Heerema came from a Reformed Christian background, and became interested in the Catholic Church through history, liturgy, and the sacraments, but had many questions, including about the saints, and her background in Calvinism was a significant hurdle in understanding the Catholic perspective. Attending a Coming Home Network retreat was key in helping her feel more at peace about her journey to the Catholic Faith. She was received into the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil in 2023.

Fr. Allan Phan grew up in a family with Buddhist roots, but they sent him to Catholic school in Nebraska, where he began to flourish, and develop spiritual connections with all kinds of elements of the Catholic life, including and especially with St. Francis of Assisi. Despite some objections from loved ones, he made the journey home to the Catholic Faith, and discerned a vocation to the priesthood, learning even more lessons about the life of faith through his experience of cancer and COVID-19. He is a priest of the diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska.

Garrett Hines was raised in the non-instrumental Church of Christ, but had a renewed excitement for Evangelization through a nondenominational congregation, and became a missionary to Indonesia for a few years. That ended poorly, and shook his faith. During COVID especially, he began to explore other ways to renew his Christian commitment, and became fascinated with the Catholic Church. He became Catholic, and began to use his artistic gifts to train as an iconographer.

Brenda Caster was raised SDA, and even went to an Adventist boarding school. She rebellled a little in her teens, but ended up staying SDA, and eventually married a man who became an SDA elder. When she found a network of ex-SDA people trying to help people out of the church, it opened her eyes to a whole new way of looking at the world. Brenda shopped around Protestant congregations, but was intrigued by the Catholic faith, which seemed both foreign and familiar to her. She discovered The Coming Home Network, and suddenly many of the questions that had been unanswered in her SDA background found fulfillment in the Catholic Church.

Patrick Correa’s mom was Pentecostal, but his dad was an atheist. At age 15, after his brother’s suicide, Patrick decided he was an atheist as well. In 2004, at the age of 29, he hit rock bottom and had a born-again experience, going between different churches, and in the course of that, felt God strongly calling him to commit to RCIA at the Catholic parish his wife had been attending. His faith caught fire, and now he helps lead men’s ministries and retreats in his parish.

Steve Sjogren had an encounter with Jesus as a young man that led him to become involved with the pioneers of the Vineyard movement, eventually planting one of the most successful Vineyard congregations in the country in Cincinnati. However, a combination of burnout in ministry and dissatisfaction with whether or not he was doing Church the way Jesus intended led him to go deeper, and the more he looked into the riches of the Catholic Faith, the more he realized that everything he was trying to invent in his churches had been there in a fuller sense in the Catholic Church all along.

Matt Daniels was raised Baptist, and his dad was a football coach, which meant he moved around a lot. When he was in college, his dad had a heart attack, and it forced him to lean on God and turn to prayer. Around this same time, he was also studying in Rome, and while there, decided to try to pray the Rosary for the first time. It made a profound impact on him, and began to connect him with the spiritual riches of the Catholic Faith. He went on to become a coach and a teacher himself, and is now Superintendent of Schools for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati.

Shaun McAfee, contributor to Catholic Answers and the National Catholic Register, discusses how the experiences he had during his military service and the development of a relationship with a Catholic counselor played into his decision to join the Church. His wife, Jessica, discusses how her own formation in Evangelicalism was challenged by the things she was discovering in Catholicism as well. They also discuss the unique ways they’ve been able to share their gifts in the Church since becoming Catholic.

Lee Sondeno was a Pentecostal worship leader, and Dr. Marcus Peter was an evangelist and preacher in the Assemblies of God. They share the stories of how each of them became Catholic, and look at some of the main differences between Pentecostal and Catholic theology. They also explore some of the key experiences and practices that Catholics and Pentecostals share in common, as a way of helping Catholics to have more fruitful conversations about the Church with their Pentecostal loved ones.

Ken Reiman was raised without any formal religious background, although he was exposed to many traditions, especially Buddhism through spending summers with his grandmother in Japan. He gradually moved from atheism to agnosticism to deism, unsure of what religious tradition was true. Once he felt drawn to Christianity, the questions about scripture and tradition that he asked led him to the Catholic Church. He was eventually baptized in Beijing. He shares how his experience working as a U.S. diplomat has been shaped by his faith journey.

Both Wade and Neena grew up strongly Christian, and at the same time that they were beginning their life together, Wade got a contract playing minor league baseball for the Detroit Tigers. Even in the midst of an intense travel schedule, they still made time to attend local Methodist churches when they could. The struggle to find a solid church home while they were on the road led them to seriously consider the question of Christian authority, especially on questions of morality. Wade's realization that his own mother had chosen life for him despite challenging circumstances led him to dig deeper into the pro-life question; in the midst of that, he discovered the writings of Pope John Paul II, and realized there was a lot more to the Catholic Church than he'd realized.

Roger came from a Fundamentalist Christian background and went on to become a Baptist pastor. When cracks in his "sola Scriptura" foundation began to appear, it shook his faith, and he wondered if Christianity was true at all. Through the help of a friend who started walking him through apologetics, he began to realize that "sola Scriptura" was not the only framework for understanding Christianity, and that the Catholic Church’s three-legged stool of Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium was how Jesus had set things up to begin with.

Jeff and Lois were both raised in Christian households, and Lois’s parents were missionaries. They met at a Wesleyan school, and began ministering together while still attending college, eventually serving as a pastoring couple for 34 years. Growing questions about what was meant by “the Church” bothered them, as well as difficulty in resolving theological disputes within their own congregations. Who had the right interpretation of Scripture? After two of their children became Catholic, Jeff and Lois began to explore the Church, eventually resigning ministry and receiving the Sacraments of Initiation.

Grant had roots in both Baptist and Assemblies of God congregations, and went on to seminary to prepare for ministry. While there, he was introduced to the Church Fathers, who had a very different view of Baptism than the one he’d grown up with. Seeing that they treated it as a sacrament made him wonder if his view of Communion was also out of step with historic Christianity. After serving seven years in ministry, as both a children’s and student pastor, Grant ended up coming home to the Catholic Church.

A committed Christian who followed a call to Baptist ministry, Gary’s life took a dramatic and unexpected turn when he was invited to help develop a network of Cowboy Churches in Texas. He flourished in this role, and it grew rapidly. However, the chaos of COVID, combined with partisan political infighting in his congregations, led him to seek an anchor in a theological tradition that could transcend the spirit of the age. This led him to discover the history and authority of the Catholic Church, and he knew that he had to come home.\

Vijaya was baptized in a Methodist church and raised Anglican in India, but some painful experiences in her youth led her to mistrust God as Father, and she stopped praying in her teens. She went on to become a scientist, and abandoned religion altogether for years. After 9/11, she and her American husband began to read Bible stories to their children, but didn’t know which church to go back to. The denominations she’d left had changed dramatically in the decades she was away, and the only solid rock she and her family could find was the Catholic Church.

Rebekah had Judaism in her background, but was raised in a fundamentalist form of Pentecostalism that she rebelled against strongly, going deep into a world of regrettable life decisions. Through God’s providence and some key relationships, she began to come back to faith, and was surprised to find, after her initial Christian conversion, that her true spiritual home was in the Catholic Church. She now works helping women in crisis pregnancies in Steubenville, OH.

Jennifer Wood’s desire to serve the Lord led her to pursue formation in a Lutheran seminary. It was in her ongoing research and study that she began to realize that there was a deeper and more faithful form of Christianity, and that had its most definitive expression in the Catholic Church. Her desire to work in evangelization and discipleship led her to get involved with Spiritus Ministries, forming missionaries to work in Catholic youth ministry.

Jeff’s family was Episcopalian, but early in his childhood, his mom started taking him to a Pentecostal church, which caused a lot of confusion for him over the years. Seeking some spiritual stability, he later began to explore the Lutheran church, but that opened new doors for him of history, liturgy and sacramentality, and eventually led him home to the Catholic Faith

Ken Oliver-Mendez came from a Presbyterian background, attending both Cedarville College and Covenant College. His experience of faith formation and journalism gave him a broad view of the many different expressions of Christianity, but in the midst of all of them, he realized that his true spiritual home was in the Catholic Church. He currently brings his faith and his professional experience together in the world of Catholic journalism as editor-in-chief of Catholic News Agency.

When a friend said he was becoming Catholic, Chris began to explore this foreign Christianity and fell in love with the Church, fully entering with his wife at Easter Vigil 2021.

After 34 years as an Evangelical pastor, Gerard began to dig deeper into issues dividing Protestants and Catholics, realizing it was time to return to the Faith of his childhood.

Terry and Renee grew up in the Assemblies of God, and avoided some anti-Catholic prejudices because of the Catholics they met in charismatic ecumenical gatherings. Terry went into medicine, and in his 40’s, he and his wife felt a call to become overseas medical missionaries. After years of service, Renee’s illness led them to have to come back to the states, where Terry began working in a Catholic hospital. The relationships they developed through that experience helped lead them slowly and surely into the Catholic Church.

Jennifer was raised Christian, but by middle school had decided that religion was a stupid thing for stupid people. As an exchange student in Austria, she began to be intrigued by Catholic culture, but still saw it as outdated and superstitious. While studying Marxism in East Germany at Karl Marx University, it gave her a realization she needed to have a better grounding in philosophy, which led her to reconsider Catholicism. In addition, her experience as an interrogator for the US military helped shape her anthropology in a way that she came to understand that the Catholic Church had the fulness of truth about philosophy, God, and the human person.

David and Roseanna White came from a strong Baptist faith, and Roseanna began a successful career writing Christian historical fiction, with David founding a publishing house. Fascinated by CS Lewis and his description of Christianity as a house with different denominational rooms, Roseanna decided to search out which “room” she belonged in. The more she and David researched it, the more they realized that the roots of Christianity were ultimately Catholic; it was the Catholic Church that put together the Bible, that preserved the Faith, and that had the fulness of truth. They came into the Catholic Church together in the Fall of 2021.

Eben Emerson, a former Church of Christ minister and missionary, was originally on The Journey Home in 2011. In the decade and a half since that, Eben has some powerful insights to share about common mistakes new converts make, many of which are lessons he himself learned the hard way. Eben's experience is hopefully a great encouragement to those of you who are new Catholics, and trying to take the steps to grow in your faith, maintain your relationships, and help loved ones understand your journey.

Although raised Methodist, Susan Sucher began attending an Assemblies of God youth group in her teens, which is where her faith really took off. As she and her husband were discerning marriage, they were also processing together some of the inconsistencies they’d been noticing in Pentecostal theology, particularly when it came to the Lord’s Supper. She decided to explore the Catholic Church, and was surprised to find that it answered many of her questions. While she initially objected to Church teaching on contraception and women’s ordination, even those began to make sense to her, and she knew she had to become Catholic.

Shane Page was raised in a United Methodist family in North Carolina, and went on to become an elder and a pastor in a congregation there, serving 18 years in church leadership. He didn’t grow up with any experience of Catholicism, and had almost no knowledge of it, but his desire to be as fully formed as possible in his faith led him to dive headfirst into questions of history, liturgy, and even the lives of the saints, especially St. Therese of Lisieux. In 2021, after resigning his ministry, he entered into full communion with the Catholic Church.

Heidi had a strong faith life, and went to Azusa Pacific hoping to do some kind of ministry. She was leading music at a Baptist church and preparing for a mission trip to Europe when her pastor announced he was becoming Catholic. This threw everything into question for her, and she began to wonder, if God was calling someone she deeply respected into the Catholic Church, what might that mean for the way she thought about Catholicism, and where she ought to be using her gifts? After an extended period of prayer and discernment, she ultimately felt that Jesus himself was calling her home to the Eucharist.

Michael Garcia was baptized Catholic, but wandered a bit as a young man. When his brother got involved with a Oneness Pentecostal community, Michael was intrigued, and after exploring it, felt that this was the kind of community God was calling him to. He quickly began to sense a call to ministry, serving in a couple of different United Pentecostal congregations along the way. However, when Michael visited Europe, he was struck by the ancient quality of Catholicism and began to wonder more deeply about the faith of his youth. He reached out to the Coming Home Network, and after a period of working with fellow pastors who had become Catholic, Michael and his wife came home to full communion with the Catholic Church.

It has been a longstanding tradition in the Coming Home Network, which is located in the Diocese of Columbus, to invite the sitting bishop to share his story on The Journey Home -- even if he's not technically a convert! In the case of Bishop Earl Fernandes, there is a lot of story to tell -- from his immigrant parents' faithful handing on of the Catholic Faith, to his vocation to the priesthood, to his appointment as the first Indian-American bishop in the USA, it's a fascinating journey!

Deacon Matt Halbach grew up Catholic but wasn’t very well formed. As a young man, he began to struggle with depression and anxiety, and was even thinking of suicide at one point. In the midst of that, a coworker began to share his Catholic faith, and invited Matt back to Mass. Finally, he agreed to go, and went back to Confession. Everything changed for him from there, and he had a major conversion. He went on to do youth and family ministry, and eventually discerned a vocation to the diaconate.

After beginning a personal relationship with Jesus as a teenager, Joshua Mangels felt a call to ministry and eventually became an Assemblies of God pastor. As he studied the Church Fathers, he discovered a sacramental worldview that was completely new to him, and he had to know more. Initially, he and his wife hesitated to dig deeper for fear of risking their ministry. However as Joshua began teaching about the Fathers to his congregation, more of his members became interested in Catholicism. They connected with the Byzantine Eparchy of Phoenix, and some of the Mangels’ congregation entered the Catholic Church along with them.

Bishop James Conley was raised Presbyterian, and studied Applied Humanities at Kansas University in the 1970’s, falling in love with the Great Books. That led him to become Catholic his junior year of college. He traveled Europe for a bit after that, considering a monastic vocation, before following a call to diocesan priesthood, and eventually becoming an ordained bishop. He has since become increasingly passionate about the importance of solid Catholic education, and a powerful voice in regard to caring for mental and spiritual health in the context of the sacramental life.

Fr. Michael Nixon was born in Hawaii to parents who were Hare Krishnas. When he was in elementary school, his whole family became Catholic, which was a radical change for him. He began the process of discovery of the Catholic faith among fellow Catholics his age who had known all this stuff from birth, and that perspective as a child discovering Catholicism in the context of his family’s conversion led him to an openness to a call to the priesthood, and a desire to use his gifts to evangelize through new media.

Fr. Scott Wooten grew up firmly Anglican, but attended Catholic school. As he continued toward ordination as an Episcopal priest, he persisted in the belief that the Anglican, Orthodox, and Roman churches were all legitimate branches of the true Catholic Church, so he didn’t feel that there was ever any need for him to become a “Roman” Catholic; he considered his form of Anglicanism to be legitimately “Catholic." Eventually moral questions in the Episcopal church forced him to decide whether to stay Episcopalian or join the Anglican Church of North America. Pondering this question about the ultimate character of Christian authority, Fr. Wooten finally felt fully convicted to become Catholic, being received and eventually ordained a Catholic priest through the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter.

Dr. Matthew Wiseman was raised with strong Baptist roots, and even as a young child, he was constantly reading and studying the Bible. His family attended progressively smaller churches, and even a house church, determined to live the Scriptures as faithfully as possible. Their ongoing study of the Old Testament story led his family toward the Hebrew Roots Movement, a form of Messianic Christianity. As he grew older, he began to discover that some of these elements of Jewish patrimony had been preserved in traditional Christian liturgies, and this led him to a brief time in the Anglican world. He continued to immerse himself in the study of Scripture at St. Andrew’s in Scotland, and it was there that he finally realized that all the threads of his life had been pointing toward the Catholic Church all along.

Rhonda Gruenewald fell in love with the Church through her husband, and went on to found Vocation Ministry, which equips diocese to promote and nurture religious vocations.

After working on ecumenism initiatives as a Lutheran, Dr. Michael Root’s convictions led him to Catholicism in 2010 where he continues to be an important voice of Christian unity.

Matthew Levering found himself developing something resembling a Christian worldview through reading Dostoevsky and Walker Percy. This foundation led him to the Catholic Church.

While studying for ministry as a pastor, Keith Kiser and his wife met Scott Hahn in a Bible study. Shortly after they became Catholic and now lead youth ministry and family camps.

Fr. Brad Elliott was raised Lutheran, and pursued formation in music, finding success as a jazz drummer. Feeling compelled by beauty and truth to enter the Catholic Church in 2002, he continued to play drums professionally for a number of years, before feeling a call to pursue a religious vocation. In his discernment process, he felt God calling him specifically to the Dominican Order, where he was eventually ordained to the priesthood.

Rae-Mi LeRoy was baptized Catholic, but never went to church. She had no experience with any particular faith until college, when she studied world religions and became interested in Buddhism. From there, she became fascinated with Yoga and went on to work as an instructor, but still felt something was missing spiritually, and so she left a career in Hollywood to move to the Arizona desert to continue her search for meaning. While on a Buddhist retreat, she had a dream about Jesus, and for the first time she began to seriously consider the Catholic Faith she’d been introduced to as a young child.

Eddie Trask was raised Catholic, but by college, had fallen away from his faith. When he came back to Christianity, it was through Evangelical and non-denominational congregations, and it was through meeting his wife and going through some significant family struggles together that things really began to turn around. As they began to grow together in faith, they realized they needed a firmer foundation than what they were standing on, and that search for truth and stability led them and their family home to the Catholic Church.

Christopher O’Keefe's faith journey led him to give his life to God in service, working in prison ministry, and eventually becoming an ordained pastor in the Mennonite tradition. However, his desire to find a solid and stable apostolic authority, as well as a doctrine that would not change to accommodate cultural norms, led him to find a home in the Catholic Church. He entered into full communion at the Easter Vigil in 2022.

Justine Callis was raised in a Christian home, and became a successful gymnast. Her athletic pursuits led her to Arizona, where she plugged into an Evangelical megachurch and her faith began to grow. She also worked in Evangelical campus ministry at Arizona State, where she was coaching. When she met Catholics who were on fire for their faith, it shocked her; she’d thought Catholicism was a “dead religion.” She began to explore Catholicism, especially the doctrine of the Eucharist and the concept of a Magisterium, and over the course of two years of prayer and study, discerned that God was calling her to become Catholic.

Mike Iversen came from an Evangelical background, and after getting degrees in English and Earth Science, he felt called to bring his skills to youth ministry, going on to get an M.A. in Theology from Fuller Seminary. During his studies, he also spent many years working with Young Life. His study of apologetics, Church history, and more helped him realize the need for a solid authority in a world plagued by relativism. He was also drawn by the reality of Christ’s power in the sacraments, and knew he had to come home to the Catholic Church.

Fr. Andrew Crabtree grew up Baptist, but got involved in more nondenominational congregations as a young man. He began touring as a Christian musician, having radio success with his band "Calling Glory." His experience of playing concerts in different denominations got him thinking about the divisions in Christianity, and he began to long for Christian unity. While studying at a Wesleyan university, his concept of sola Scriptura began to crumble, and he felt deeply drawn to the Catholic Faith. He entered the Church in 2015, and shortly thereafter began formation for the priesthood.

Fr. Scott Woods’ family wasn’t Catholic, but because they sent him to Catholic school, he developed some strong associations with Catholicism, and especially the priesthood. He began telling everyone that he wanted to be a priest, even though he wasn’t yet a Catholic. He began attending daily Mass in high school, and his parents, seeing that he was so serious, allowed him to enter the Catholic Church. He continued to pursue that vocation, and eventually was ordained for the Archdiocese of Washington.

Rhonda Ortiz had roots in Evangelical experience, including some in Pentecostalism, but a search for a Christian home during her college years led her to begin exploring the Catholic Faith. Her love for and study of the “Great Books” of history helped further point her toward Catholic ideas, and meeting her husband, who was going through the same kind of awakening of faith, was a crucial step in her decision to enter the Catholic Church. She now uses her gifts as a writer and editor of novels and other forms of literature.

Ashley Stinnett attended numerous Evangelical congregations growing up, and even explored RCIA in the early 2000’s before dropping out due to family medical reasons. His wife was the daughter of a Protestant minister, and when COVID hit, it caused them both to completely re-evaluate questions about authority and Christian unity, and the purpose of worship. They began to see the Eucharist as the center of Christian life, and took the steps necessary to complete Christian initiation and come home to the Catholic Church.

Lucas Koach came to faith as a teenager through Young Life, and pursued a call to ministry, entering Denver Seminary. That trajectory eventually led him to the Anglican Church of North America, where he served as an ordained priest for several years. Drawn by Catholic Social Teaching, a desire for Christian unity, and the thought of St. John Henry Newman, Lucas eventually became convicted of the truth and beauty of the Catholic Faith and made the journey home.

Tsh Oxenreider was raised Evangelical, and even felt called to do missionary work, but her desire to grow deeper in her faith began to lead her toward liturgy and the sacraments, which she began exploring through the Anglican tradition. However, she still felt as though God was calling her to deeper roots, and the more she prayed and discerned her way through her questions, the more she felt that the Holy Spirit was leading her to become Catholic.

Phillip Seeberg grew up in a Reformed Jewish household, but stopped attending synagogue after his Bar Mitzvah. In college, he met some Christians who were handing out New Testaments, and he began to read the story of Jesus. Powerfully moved by what he read, he became a Christian, and joined InterVarsity Fellowship, but the divisions between denominations led him to seek the historical roots of the Christian faith, and to find his true spiritual home in the Catholic Church.

Debbie Capen came from a Catholic family, but was not well-formed in her faith. An unplanned pregnancy in college, followed by an abortion, led to a dark turn in her life. Searching for answers, she began to pray the Our Father, the only prayer she remembered from her Catholic childhood. That opened a door for her to make a slow and steady return to the sacraments, beginning with Confession. Debbie now works full time in pro-life ministry, supplying college students in unplanned pregnancies with the resources they need to help them choose life.

Justus Hunter’s dad was a Methodist pastor, and he himself decided to pursue academic study in theology, attending Asbury College and Seminary, where he encountered Church history in a way that made him want to learn more about the world of the early Christians. After getting a doctorate from Southern Methodist University, he went on to teach theology at the seminary level, and it was during this time that all the threads he’d been following regarding history, liturgy, and the sacramental life came together, and he and his family felt led to enter the Catholic Church.

Sr. John Dominic Rasmussen, O.P., grew up in Nashville, and her dad worked in the country music industry. Though not always serious about questions of faith, it was while she was in high school that she felt called to enter the Catholic Church, and began to discern a vocation to religious life. She would go on to help found the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, a teaching order that has also found major success with their recordings of sacred music.

Dr. Brian Duncan graduated high school early and went straight into Baptist ministry training. On fire for Jesus, he was constantly seeking deeper resources to help him teach the faith, which led him to discover the Church Fathers. Teaching from them caused problems in his independent Baptist congregation, so he spent a little time in a Reformed Baptist church, which also didn’t work out. Disillusioned, he sought a house church environment, at which point he realized it was time for him to stop trying to reinvent and reclaim the Christianity of the early Church; and what he'd been trying to rebuild on his own initiative was present in its fulness right in front of him in the Catholic Faith. He has since gone on to found Catholic Fightwear, and work as a martial arts instructor.

Amanda Martin came from a strong Christian background, and her husband became an Episcopalian priest. Not coming from a liturgical or sacramental Christian experience, she experienced significant opposition from family who thought she was making a huge mistake and overcomplicating Christianity with rituals and external piety. She shares some of the ways she prayed and discerned through that process, and how she and her husband eventually moved together toward full communion with the Catholic Church.

Fr. Doug Martin grew up in a Godly United Methodist family, but didn’t start taking a call to ministry seriously until college, where exposure to various Christian traditions led him to research Church history. At that time, he became Episcopalian, and eventually was ordained an Episcopal priest. After realizing the need for a stronger way of understanding of Christian authority, he gravitated toward the Catholic Church, entering itin 2001 as a layman. Several years later, he revisited the idea of his call to ministry, and was ordained a Catholic priest in 2019.

Deacon Lee Ashton was raised Episcopalian, but when he joined the military, he felt a disconnection from that faith tradition, and began to search for a new Christian community. For 27 years, he got involved in Evangelical congregations, having some great experiences with them along the way. However, he began to realize that different churches were preaching differently on different passages, and that caused him to yearn for a deeper and more authoritative interpretation of Scripture. He began to research the Reformation, and what he found in his study of Church history began to surprise him. When Pope Benedict XVI issued Anglicanorum Coetibus, allowing a new pathway for those with Anglican backgrounds to become Catholic, he knew this was his opportunity to come home to the Catholic Church.

Dr. John Bruchalski of Divine Mercy Care and Kerstin Pakka of Project Rachel in the Diocese of Toledo share the stories of how they came from believing in a right to abortion, to having a radical encounter with the forgiveness of Christ that has since empowered each of them to work to build a culture of life and promote access to the kind of care that leads others like themselves to heal from the wounds of abortion.

Deacon Lester Loh came from a Presbyterian family, but by early childhood was already completely tuned out of anything related to faith. Over the years, a couple of his siblings became Catholic, which caught his attention, but he didn’t take it too seriously. He ended up dating ad eventually marrying a Catholic, observing her faith from afar until eventually he began to feel convicted to take the extra step to see what God would do if he opened the door to his heart. He ended up going through RCIA together with his wife’s mom, who also had been on the fringes of Catholicism for years. He joyfully entered the Church, and a few years later, discerned a vocation to the diaconate.

Reza Akhtar was raised Muslim in Canada, but was not particularly observant. At a private elementary school, he became exposed to basic Protestant Christianity, but it was in college that he began to explore it more deeply. He married a Catholic, but wasn’t quite ready to make the full leap into the Church, so he spent a few years in an Anglican congregation, before he felt God calling him home to a full sacramental life as a Catholic.

Taylor Kemp was baptized Catholic, but early in his life, soccer effectively became his religion, taking up not only all his time on Sundays, as well as all his attention and affection. The more success he found, the more inadequate he felt, realizing that he had made himself and his soccer skills the measure of everything. By the time he had become a professional player in the MLS with DC United, he had developed a spiritual hunger that eventually began to be fulfilled when he met his future wife, a Catholic who encouraged him to take a look at the Church he’d left as a kid. Taylor went through RCIA and was confirmed, and is now on fire for his faith, working to to develop faith formation programs with the Augustine Institute.

As the son of a pastor, Luke Nelson grew up surrounded by people of deep faith. Following his own call to ministry, he attended Bible college and served for 25 years in the Wesleyan Church. There were several issues that began to trouble him, but among them was the question of the Lord’s Supper. In his Wesleyan/Methodist tradition, it was considered important, but he couldn’t articulate all the aspects of why that should be the case. Digging deeper into the history and tradition of Holy Communion compelled him to take seriously the case that the Catholic Church made for the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.

Dino Remedios grew up nominally Catholic, absorbing much of what he knew about the faith from the Filipino culture he came from. In his teenage years, he began to drift more into relativistic lines of thought, becoming a practical agnostic. Over time, however, he found that the answers offered by materialism were dissatisfying, and through a discovery process that involved philosophy, beauty, and even a Marian conversion, Dino found his way back to the Catholic Church.

Joe Ward was adopted from foster care in New York, and attended a number of different churches growing up, including Presbyterian, Methodist and Mennonite congregations. In his college years, he became extremely interested in Calvinist theology, and explored it deeply while also doing work with InterVarsity Fellowship. After graduating, Joe went on to teach music, and became part of the worship team at an Evangelical Free church. When the leadership team there encouraged him to take membership classes, it got him thinking about differences between denominations and what it meant to fully declare membership in one. His study of that question led him to begin exploring Catholicism, but when that became public, he was asked to stop being on the worship team. That forced Joe to reckon more seriously with the question of Christian authority, eventually leading him to the conviction that he needed to become Catholic.

Seth and Julianne met each other in small town Ohio, and even though Seth was raised Catholic, that took a bit of a back seat as he focused all his attention on using his skills as a kicker to try and break into the NFL. They eventually ended up in a Presbyterian congregation together, but they began to struggle with the question of how they should approach receiving communion in the various churches they visited. At one point, there was conflict in the Presbyterian church they were part of on major moral questions, and it got them back to the core question of authority. After years of wrestling and discerning together, they became convicted that they both needed to come home to the Catholic Church.

Megan Thomas grew up heavily involved in her Baptist world, steeped in Scripture, prayer, mission trips, and more. However, she still felt like something was missing in the way she understood Christianity. As she grew older and she began to take greater ownership of her faith, Megan realized that a lot of the arguments she was using to defend her faith had their greatest roots in the Catholic intellectual tradition. That revolutionized her Christian worldview, and helped her complete the incomplete picture of Christianity she’d been struggling with for years.

Dr. Kent Hill has had a front-row seat to some of the most important ecumenical moments in American Christianity over the last several decades. Along with his roles in international development, Kent also served as president of Eastern Nazarene College, and was an original signer of the 1994 document "Evangelicals and Catholics Together." He shares the story of the relationships, prayer, and reflections that eventually led him home to the Catholic Faith.

In Eduardo Faria’s experience as a Presbyterian pastor in Brazil, he was deeply in love with his faith and passionate about teaching it. But when some significant questions about the nature of the early Church and Christian authority led him to explore Catholicism, it also raised many questions about what this might mean for his ministry, his family, and where God might be calling him now after years of Protestant ministry.

Fr. Jerry Byrd was raised Baptist, and had a strong interest in music. When a high school friend announced they were becoming Catholic, he decided to go to Mass to see what it was all about. Having played music in his Baptist church, he was drawn immediately to the beauty of the liturgy, and the truth of the Eucharist. He decided to enter the Church, and ended up discerning a vocation to the priesthood.

Everett Franklin was a US Army chaplain for twenty years, serving on behalf of the Church of God (Cleveland, TN). His family had been in that particular Pentecostal denomination for four generations, so it was surprising to him that over time, his desire to grow deeper in his Christian faith kept leading him more and more toward discovering the Real Presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, and a home in the Catholic Church.

A strong Christian who served as a pastor in the Church of the Nazarene and nondenominational settings, Chuck Gaidica was also a successful TV anchor who began to understand the truth and beauty of Catholicism, and eventually, through questions about the nature of ministry, and the influence of fellow Catholic journalists, felt called home to the Catholic Church.

Elvis Gutierrez was raised Catholic, but as a young man, was living a reckless lifestyle. When the 9/11 attacks happened, he was serving as an EMT in New York City, and those events marked a major turning point in his life. He began over time to connect with strong spiritual mentors, who helped him heal from some of the hidden wounds he'd been carrying, and find peace in Jesus Christ and His Church.

Jeremy Rivera was raised Catholic, but left the faith at 18. In college, he was at a low point when he was invited to an Evangelical church; he ended up plugging into a Bible study, and began to experience a major turnaround in his life. Jeremy went on to attend seminary, and eventually pastored in Hawaii, California, and Denver. However, he began to be troubled at all the different expressions of Christianity he saw around him, and knew there had to be a true, authoritative version of Christianity. His desire to seek that out led him back to the Catholic Church.

Becca Dickerson always knew she'd be using her gifts to serve God in some way, but as an Evangelical Christian, she had difficulty discerning what shape that might take. Some of her friendships and experiences in ministry, especially during her time at Asbury College, began to open her up to the idea of the Catholic Faith, to the point where she could no longer sit on the fence about it; she knew she had to enter the Church.

Trapped in an abusive marriage, Pam Mings questioned her Baptist teachings. A friend turned her on to Catholicism, where she discovered St. Maria Goretti, patron of abused people.

Ellen went to Presbyterian, Baptist and nondenominational churches, while Gregory was an unenthusiastic Catholic. Their marriage resulted in his vocation and led her to the Church.

Fr. Ken Geraci grew up Catholic, but left the faith as a young man. He chased after fortune in the business world, eventually founding a highly successful software company. Unable to find happiness in all the ways he though would bring fulfillment, he revisited the idea of faith, coming back first to belief in God, then in Christianity, and eventually back to the Catholic Church. As part of that journey back, he recognized a call to the priesthood with the Fathers of Mercy.

Lee and Valiree Sondeno share how the COVID shutdowns caused them to reconsider the life of Pentecostal music ministry they'd devoted themselves to and begin to consider the claims of the Catholic Church.

Monica Anyango grew up Catholic in Uganda, but drifted from her faith. When she found herself a single mom in the United States, her desire to create some kind of structure in her life led her to revisit the disciplines and teachings of the Catholic Church she’d walked away from. The role of Mary was especially important in helping Monica establish a new spiritual compass and a new perspective on motherhood.

Matt and Rachel Sheils were Salvation Army officers who began to ask questions about the foundations of authority, morality, and the nature of what it meant to be part of a worshipping community. They took some time off to reflect on these questions and dive more deeply into Scripture, and in doing so, found themselves surprisingly drawn to the truth and beauty of the Catholic Church.