Full Transcript for Why This Ex‑Protestant Pastor Came Home to the Catholic Church...and Brought 17 People With Him!

months later, maybe it's a year later, and he sat down with me and he said, I need to I need to show you my chart. 00:04:18.800 --> 00:04:22.079 Pulls the chart out, he throws it down, and he's got it all sorted by the date. 00:04:22.160 --> 00:04:34.160 And he's like, Here's all the stuff, and he goes, But then I read this book and I had a talk with this priest, so then you know we moved these over to that category and we went through this thing, and then this day, we went through this for like two or three minutes, and then finally he pulled it off the table and he says, And now here's where I am today. 00:04:34.240 --> 00:04:36.160 And he threw a blank piece of paper down. 00:04:36.480 --> 00:04:38.639 He says, These are my objections. 00:04:39.279 --> 00:04:40.480 He's become Catholic. 00:04:40.639 --> 00:04:42.800 Wow, and I've seen what he's had to go through for this. 00:04:42.959 --> 00:04:44.560 One other quick story on this, it just happened. 00:04:44.639 --> 00:04:45.600 It's another one of my friends. 00:04:46.639 --> 00:04:48.240 All right, well, I guess we don't need Aaron on. 00:04:48.319 --> 00:04:49.839 Keith just told the whole conversion story. 00:04:50.000 --> 00:04:50.800 Yeah, I guess we're done. 00:04:51.680 --> 00:04:52.560 Give it my guys. 00:04:52.720 --> 00:04:53.920 I'll bring them on. 00:04:54.319 --> 00:04:58.319 You do it because all right, Aaron Gorn, how are you, brother? 00:04:58.560 --> 00:04:59.120 Good, good. 00:04:59.199 --> 00:05:00.079 Thank you for having me. 00:05:00.240 --> 00:05:01.279 Good night, everyone. 00:05:01.439 --> 00:05:03.199 Um, that's the story. 00:05:03.600 --> 00:05:04.800 That's it right there. 00:05:05.040 --> 00:05:09.759 Right before the show started, I was I'm trying to think, I'm like, when was my first interaction with Keith? 00:05:10.000 --> 00:05:18.399 And I so I had seen Keith on YouTube, and I think I prayed the rosary on one of his like what like one of his rosary things. 00:05:18.480 --> 00:05:29.279 I I just sat and prayed the rosary with him in his stream one night, and then we had like a brief interaction on Twitter, and I think he was kind of shocked that I liked him. 00:05:29.519 --> 00:05:31.920 Like, like I think people have oh no, no, no. 00:05:32.000 --> 00:05:34.240 We're all shocked that he liked you. 00:05:34.480 --> 00:05:38.879 That yes, but I think he assumed like I was like a hardcore trad. 00:05:39.120 --> 00:05:42.079 And that and I'm like, nah, well, I'm not really like that, Keith. 00:05:42.160 --> 00:05:47.040 So we had a quick interaction on Twitter, and then we got Keith on the show and we've hit it off. 00:05:47.120 --> 00:05:52.240 And then I talked to Keith weekly, like I at least once a week we're on the phone talking with each other and stuff. 00:05:52.399 --> 00:05:54.399 But how do you know Keith? 00:05:55.439 --> 00:05:58.480 Oh boy, um it goes back. 00:05:58.720 --> 00:06:01.839 So technically, my wife knew Keith long before I did. 00:06:01.920 --> 00:06:09.040 They went to church camp together, and I don't know, they might have been in well, my wife might have been in junior high, I don't know, maybe elementary. 00:06:09.279 --> 00:06:11.920 There's this picture there's this picture Keith has of them. 00:06:12.000 --> 00:06:18.639 There's this big bell on a big frame at this church camp, and Keith's climbed way up to the top, and my wife is down at the bottom. 00:06:18.720 --> 00:06:20.959 They both look like they're about six years old. 00:06:21.279 --> 00:06:33.680 And that, but at one point when I had dropped out of college for a time and came home, a mutual friend got a hold of Keith to come and try to put a band together, and uh, so that got going. 00:06:33.759 --> 00:06:45.920 And because I knew this mutual friend, all of this stuff, you know, Keith was the drummer, I kind of was just the tag-along guy, and so Keith Keith can correct anything if he's in the chat there, but that's as I ran. 00:06:46.240 --> 00:06:49.199 So that goes back to either '92 or '93. 00:06:49.600 --> 00:06:49.839 Okay. 00:06:50.079 --> 00:06:55.920 And so um he he stood up in my he was a groomsman in my wedding, and so I don't know. 00:06:56.399 --> 00:06:57.120 So you guys, all right. 00:06:57.199 --> 00:06:59.519 So now I'll 33 years or something like that. 00:07:00.000 --> 00:07:05.680 You're like Jimmy Buffett, and he's like 80s hair metal. 00:07:05.759 --> 00:07:08.160 How does that no? 00:07:08.240 --> 00:07:09.680 So that's that's I don't know. 00:07:09.759 --> 00:07:10.079 It's not. 00:07:10.160 --> 00:07:22.240 I said, Well, this is interesting, it's probably not, but you know, just yesterday, Ace Fraley passed away, you know, and my first concert was Kiss when I was nine years, eight years old, 1979. 00:07:22.800 --> 00:07:29.040 So that's my musical pedigree is kind of rock, metal, classic rock, and stuff like that. 00:07:29.120 --> 00:07:30.720 We were both Metallica fans. 00:07:30.959 --> 00:07:34.319 Keith liked a lot more hardcore stuff than I did. 00:07:34.639 --> 00:07:38.480 Um, he introduced me to well, I don't think I've ever introduced Keith to anything. 00:07:38.560 --> 00:07:46.160 He knows so much more about bands than than I do, but um, I don't like everything he likes, and he certainly doesn't like everything I like. 00:07:46.240 --> 00:07:49.600 But we do have a uh the Venn diagram has a good crossover. 00:07:50.319 --> 00:07:52.959 And you both got into ministry as well. 00:07:53.519 --> 00:07:56.079 Yes, um, it was kind of my plan. 00:07:56.160 --> 00:08:00.079 I think back back then, going that far back, it really wasn't his plan. 00:08:00.160 --> 00:08:04.959 If you ever heard his story about how he became a pastor, he wasn't looking for it, it found him. 00:08:06.079 --> 00:08:12.399 Keith, he even when he came on our show the first time he was on with us, he's just got preaching in his DNA. 00:08:12.560 --> 00:08:15.759 Like when even when he tells his

conversion story, it just amps you up. 00:08:15.839 --> 00:08:21.199 You just like you you end up on fire for Christ every time you don't tell him I said this. 00:08:21.360 --> 00:08:22.879 Do not tell him I said this. 00:08:23.040 --> 00:08:25.360 But he is far better at that than I am. 00:08:25.519 --> 00:08:29.920 Um I was a manuscript and note preacher, you know. 00:08:30.000 --> 00:08:34.159 That's how I gave sermons, it's how I was trained, but it's also how I was comfortable. 00:08:34.399 --> 00:08:42.240 It's like he looks at his, he might, you know, whatever notes he puts together, he looks at him for about 15 minutes and then he can go out and give an hour-long sermon without even looking at him again. 00:08:42.559 --> 00:08:43.279 That's not me. 00:08:43.440 --> 00:08:44.639 Yeah, yeah. 00:08:44.799 --> 00:08:47.120 All right, so enough of the glazing of Keith Nestor. 00:08:47.200 --> 00:08:47.679 We all like him. 00:08:47.759 --> 00:08:48.000 Great. 00:08:48.159 --> 00:08:49.200 That's what we're here for. 00:08:49.360 --> 00:08:50.080 Yeah, all right. 00:08:50.159 --> 00:08:52.720 You you got all your you got all your shout-outs tonight, Keith. 00:08:52.799 --> 00:08:54.399 We're not gonna talk about you anymore. 00:08:56.639 --> 00:09:14.799 Um, okay, so what don't you why don't you take us back to um uh what what like give us like a generic upbringing you had and what led to your original conversion to Jesus Christ in the beginning, and then when the when the dominoes started to get a little troublesome for you where you where you had to you know figure something out with the church, yeah. 00:09:14.960 --> 00:09:18.240 So my early life as a Christian up to just last year. 00:09:18.480 --> 00:09:19.440 Um okay. 00:09:19.600 --> 00:09:21.360 Uh I I grew up in the church. 00:09:21.440 --> 00:09:23.120 I grew up in the Lutheran church. 00:09:23.279 --> 00:09:27.440 So um, if you don't know what that is, just brief description. 00:09:27.600 --> 00:09:32.960 I grew up with what would be in in mainline Protestantism, kind of a high liturgy. 00:09:33.200 --> 00:09:34.639 So it was like Missouri Synod. 00:09:34.960 --> 00:09:42.240 I it was not, it was um, it is today the ELCA, which you know, but it wasn't called that then. 00:09:42.320 --> 00:09:43.759 I just don't remember what it was called. 00:09:43.840 --> 00:09:46.320 Um, but it was that that denomination. 00:09:46.720 --> 00:09:57.120 But high liturgy, you know, the readings, the the you know, the uh the the lectionary, you know, so it but it would have been the revised standard lectionary. 00:09:57.200 --> 00:09:59.840 Uh but they followed the Catholic lectionary, right? 00:10:00.159 --> 00:10:02.080 Yes, except the revised part of it. 00:10:02.159 --> 00:10:06.720 So, you know, they wouldn't have Judith in it or Tobit or Wisdom, you know. 00:10:06.879 --> 00:10:15.919 So it was most, you know, across Protestantism, for those who use the lectionary, they pretty much all use what's

called the revised common lectionary. 00:10:16.000 --> 00:10:18.559 And I think it's revised from the Catholic lectionary. 00:10:18.639 --> 00:10:23.840 But yes, the the origin the origin of it is the three-year cycle of the Catholic. 00:10:24.480 --> 00:10:29.120 That's what my my wife was Lutheran, and it looked very much like a novus ordo. 00:10:29.440 --> 00:10:33.840 Yes, like her liturgy looked very much like a typical novus ordo you would go to on a Sunday. 00:10:34.080 --> 00:10:35.360 There are a lot of common elements. 00:10:35.519 --> 00:10:46.159 When I when I first um attended a mass, which was just a daily mass with Keith, when I wasn't, I I was just it was just it was academic to me at that point. 00:10:46.240 --> 00:10:49.039 I was like, wow, a lot of this stuff is really familiar to me. 00:10:49.279 --> 00:10:54.879 But anyway, so I grew up in the Lutheran church, but it never nothing really took root, it didn't matter to me. 00:10:55.039 --> 00:10:58.480 And I probably only went till I was about 15 or 16. 00:10:59.120 --> 00:11:03.440 And then and then I just didn't, and I was kind of nothing at that point. 00:11:03.600 --> 00:11:20.559 I had a generic belief in God, a generic belief in the Christian God, but it wasn't until um, so I graduated high school in '89, it was in '92 that I would say I had a pretty dramatic conversion experience and gave my life to Jesus. 00:11:20.799 --> 00:11:26.879 And I ended up dropping out of college because I had been pretty directionless anyway at that point. 00:11:27.120 --> 00:11:37.039 And I knew I needed to get my life straightened out, not just in terms of my faith and um and giving my life to Jesus, but what in the world am I even doing? 00:11:37.200 --> 00:11:45.039 I've wasted, I basically wasted my life up to that point, and I needed to get reoriented, you know, to to the true north of Christ. 00:11:45.519 --> 00:11:54.159 So I dropped out of college, I moved home and um kind of got involved with this mutual friend I was just talking about. 00:11:54.480 --> 00:11:58.559 Um and man, things went really fast as I remember it then. 00:11:58.720 --> 00:12:03.039 He he wanted to do a music project, he he did that and got that going. 00:12:03.120 --> 00:12:04.960 That's how Keith got into the mix. 00:12:05.200 --> 00:12:10.879 I met my wife at the church that I started going to with them. 00:12:11.440 --> 00:12:28.320 She was she was actually a senior about to graduate, and uh we met and uh yeah, we started dating with the permission of her parents and you know, church leadership because it was a little bit odd because she was still in high school and I was I'm four years older than she is. 00:12:28.559 --> 00:12:43.200 At any rate, a lot of things happened right there in that nexus, you know, of that that nexus of time and space where certain people and certain events just really brought me into the church of my own volition now and very enthusiastically. 00:12:43.440 --> 00:12:44.080 Yeah.

00:12:44.960 --> 00:12:53.600 And so, as to what I found was when I when I really kind of gave my life to Christ, I would have said nothing ever stuck from my time as a Lutheran. 00:12:53.759 --> 00:13:07.840 But as soon as I started reading the scriptures, it was like I was reading, I was going back over old ground that I've covered before, and I couldn't, it was astonishing how much just came flooding in that was there, but I had just it never took root. 00:13:07.919 --> 00:13:29.039 So you know, that's that's an interesting thing you're saying because for like uh I because I complain about like my lack of catechesis growing up, but it was once I started getting into it, it was like, Oh, yeah, yeah, that's what that oh, like all of the ritual you do in the liturgy does have meaning, and then when you start learning about this stuff, it kind of clicks for you, and you're like, Oh, that's what that was, that's what that was. 00:13:29.200 --> 00:13:35.120 Yeah, it wasn't at all like I had to start from square one, it was all there, it just needed to be kind of ignited, you know. 00:13:35.200 --> 00:13:46.320 I suppose ignited by the Holy Spirit, and it was so, of course, all the you know, people see that, and I'm retaining a lot of scripture, I'm I'm you know, digesting, I'm devouring scripture. 00:13:46.639 --> 00:13:49.759 And of course, the comments of well, you should be a pastor. 00:13:50.000 --> 00:13:51.360 This feedback starts coming in. 00:13:51.519 --> 00:13:55.120 Because if you're very much into the scripture, then obviously you need to be a pastor. 00:13:55.200 --> 00:14:02.799 And I don't say that to denigrate that, you know, that advice, but it seems like that's just the one path. 00:14:02.879 --> 00:14:05.440 It's like if you're gonna know scripture, then you have to be a pastor. 00:14:05.519 --> 00:14:15.679 And I've come to the point where I don't think that's necessarily wise, but in my case, it's what I wanted to do, and um, but that was a long haul to get to that point. 00:14:16.159 --> 00:14:33.279 Um, probably not terribly relevant um for this, but suffice to say, the path from me determining or deciding that that really is what I would like to do to the point where I actually became a pastor was very convoluted. 00:14:33.519 --> 00:14:44.960 This church, that church, we both Cammy had to go to college, I had to finish college, and it was just kind of roundabout, and it took time before it got to that point. 00:14:45.200 --> 00:14:50.960 So, about how old are you when you actually get into a place of leadership in a church? 00:14:52.159 --> 00:14:57.360 Uh well, a place of leadership in the church. 00:14:57.440 --> 00:15:03.200 The I I first served as a deacon, so that would be an officer, you know, low local officers, elders and deacons. 00:15:03.279 --> 00:15:08.240 And I was a deacon probably 2005, something like that. 00:15:08.720 --> 00:15:10.000 And this is in the ELCA? 00:15:10.080 --> 00:15:11.200 You would no, no, no, no. 00:15:11.360 --> 00:15:12.879 By now, I by now I'm reformed. 00:15:13.039 --> 00:15:20.960 By by that point, I've encountered uh a few different people who have moved me from where I was to now being reformed. 00:15:22.240 --> 00:15:22.960 Who are those people? 00:15:23.039 --> 00:15:24.240 Who did you come across? 00:15:24.399 --> 00:15:26.799 Well, if you would just let him continue the story, he wouldn't. 00:15:26.879 --> 00:15:27.919 I gotta pick up things. 00:15:28.000 --> 00:15:28.960 I can't those things. 00:15:29.039 --> 00:15:30.639 I want to know exactly who something was. 00:15:30.879 --> 00:15:32.080 It's it's a okay. 00:15:32.240 --> 00:15:33.120 It's a okay. 00:15:33.279 --> 00:15:35.600 This isn't even live, Rob, it's just us talking. 00:15:35.840 --> 00:15:36.879 Yeah, yeah. 00:15:38.399 --> 00:15:40.399 But okay, so I had bounced around. 00:15:40.480 --> 00:16:00.799 I'd been, you know, I'd gone to a Baptist church, I'd gone to a quasi-Mennonite church, um, probably something else, if I remember, you know, I was kind of maybe stereotypical Protestant, but I was finding my way a little bit too because I was learning so much, and you know, different different people were having an influence in my life. 00:16:01.120 --> 00:16:19.759 But it was when I was in college at um, yeah, yeah, it was when I was back in college, probably about 19, let me think, '93, um, a reformed Baptist pastor and I struck up a relationship, and he's the one who introduced me to reformed theology. 00:16:19.919 --> 00:16:21.840 And through him, it was R. 00:16:22.000 --> 00:16:22.080 C. 00:16:22.240 --> 00:16:25.360 Sproul who who became my guy. 00:16:26.240 --> 00:16:40.879 The reason I asked that is because my and I know this is your conversion story, and I've told this on air, but like my original conversion or reversion had to do with me listening to Protestant preaching on the radio and listening to them. 00:16:41.039 --> 00:16:48.000 I bought an RC Sproul book on the Book of Romans, and it like sent my mind for a loop. 00:16:48.159 --> 00:16:50.799 I was like, like it was just kind of kind of wild. 00:16:51.039 --> 00:16:54.240 It eventually led to me being Catholic, but uh I'm sorry. 00:16:54.799 --> 00:16:56.559 He'd be pleased to know that. 00:16:56.799 --> 00:17:00.720 Um, yeah, so I I actually met him once in St. 00:17:00.879 --> 00:17:03.120 Louis, but that's beside the point. 00:17:03.279 --> 00:17:10.799 Um, so that started a trajectory theologically for me, where now it's no longer just am I going to be a pastor? 00:17:10.960 --> 00:17:13.920 It's I know that I want to be a reformed pastor. 00:17:14.160 --> 00:17:28.319 And eventually through kind of a roundabout, again, my no paths for me were straight, but um, I ended up being asked to serve as an interim pastor in a Dutch Reformed denomination. 00:17:28.480 --> 00:17:31.680 It's the same denomination that John Bergsma used to be in. 00:17:32.319 --> 00:17:36.400 And um, so I went

there, I was supposed to serve a year as an interim pastor. 00:17:36.559 --> 00:17:38.319 Theirs had just stepped down. 00:17:38.480 --> 00:17:42.799 They didn't want to go an extended time with without some sort of stability there. 00:17:42.960 --> 00:17:53.519 So I had been serving in leadership at another church anyway, and that same mutual friend that I mentioned before was there, and he kind of introduced me to people. 00:17:53.680 --> 00:17:57.519 They offered me the job for an uh for a year, interim pastor. 00:17:57.839 --> 00:18:05.920 But three months into that year, the search committee came to the leaders and said, if Aaron's interested, we think he's our guy. 00:18:06.160 --> 00:18:07.519 And I was interested. 00:18:07.759 --> 00:18:17.599 And so that started a conversation, which also led to um you know, a more permanent calling or a more official calling. 00:18:17.839 --> 00:18:22.400 It also led to me um taking seminary classes at the same time. 00:18:22.559 --> 00:18:32.880 So I was in seminary while I was a pastor, kind of doing both things, and eventually graduated from a reformed seminary with an So this is what 2005? 00:18:33.519 --> 00:18:49.920 I started in 2009 at the church that and I was at the same church as a pastor the whole time, 15 years at one church, and uh um and that started late in 2009, and it ended at the my last day was the last day of two of 2024. 00:18:50.240 --> 00:18:51.759 Wow, that's crazy. 00:18:51.920 --> 00:19:00.079 Okay, so so now you're you're there as a pastor, um, and you do what uh so I did nothing. 00:19:00.319 --> 00:19:03.119 No, you you did like six 16 years there, right? 00:19:03.279 --> 00:19:05.680 Like 15, like you just said, yeah. 00:19:06.160 --> 00:19:07.920 Oh, from oh nine to 24, yeah, yeah. 00:19:08.079 --> 00:19:11.519 So 15 years 15 plus a couple of months, yes. 00:19:11.839 --> 00:19:21.279 When when does the is was Keith's conversion the thing that triggers you looking into the Catholic Church, or were there other things in in the along the way that started doing that? 00:19:21.519 --> 00:19:24.960 Keith's conversion was the thing that triggered me wanting to wring his neck. 00:19:25.440 --> 00:19:29.920 Um so well, actually, it goes back before that. 00:19:30.079 --> 00:19:41.839 Um again, he was looking at the Catholic Church a while before he converted, and so I as I remember it, I hate to tell this knowing that he's in the chat because we remember this differently. 00:19:42.160 --> 00:19:53.920 But I remember that we were at some event where we were playing, so we we ended up playing like praise band stuff too at different churches and different Christian events around the area. 00:19:54.160 --> 00:20:02.720 And I as I remember it, we were at a school and they were having some several churches had put something on together, and we were almost ready to go on. 00:20:02.880 --> 00:20:16.319 Like the band was about ready to go on and do the opening praise songs and stuff, and

he mentioned to me that he'd been talking to a friend that he'd met, um, and that he was considering becoming Catholic. 00:20:16.400 --> 00:20:21.279 And I am I am deep in my cage stage of reformed theology right now. 00:20:21.359 --> 00:20:22.319 And I should explain that. 00:20:22.400 --> 00:20:42.799 The cage stage is this when you go from anything else to being reformed, you become rabid, you become and it becomes something that you club people over the head with to try to get them to believe what you believe, you know, and you maybe just figured it out, but you but you can't believe, you know, it took me 10 years, but you can't believe that they're not believing it right now. 00:20:42.960 --> 00:20:45.599 It's like the set of economicism of the Protestant world. 00:20:46.240 --> 00:20:51.519 You become really dangerous and really destructive, and you need to be locked in a cage for at least a year. 00:20:51.599 --> 00:20:53.039 That's the cage stage. 00:20:53.279 --> 00:21:02.480 So, but I was I was well into that, and and boy, I laid into him about that, and you know, uh justification by faith alone. 00:21:02.559 --> 00:21:06.880 And I I don't even remember all the stuff I said to him, but I'm sure it was quite a tirade. 00:21:07.119 --> 00:21:23.279 But um, at any rate, uh, and the the singer in our group kind of had to get us to shut up and you know, and kind of bring us hey, we got we got songs to go, we have worship to go lead, and you guys are sitting here arguing in the you know in the background, having a theological debate when you have to sing. 00:21:23.680 --> 00:21:24.799 Yes, yes. 00:21:25.039 --> 00:21:32.720 So I as I recall, that was my first uh that was his first salvo about telling me that he was looking at the Catholic Church. 00:21:33.039 --> 00:21:40.640 But you know, our timelines diverged because he went out to Philly and um, you know, eventually came back to Iowa. 00:21:41.119 --> 00:21:46.240 And you know, so I think I think he's 2017 is when he converted. 00:21:46.640 --> 00:21:50.960 And uh it was nowhere on my radar at all at that time. 00:21:51.279 --> 00:21:56.799 But he and I, you know, we both had we both had young families. 00:21:57.039 --> 00:22:04.000 We lived just far enough away from each other that's really outside of the zone of where it's convenient when you've got a bunch of young kids. 00:22:04.240 --> 00:22:09.680 And so I think that the I think the hostility that I felt subsided. 00:22:09.839 --> 00:22:17.119 Um, it really wasn't there anymore, but just circumstances kept us from really being a part of each other's lives for a lot of years. 00:22:17.359 --> 00:22:30.640 So um, I don't know when that first encounter was at that school that I was talking about, but by the time he converted, I don't remember that he and I were in much contact with each other, other than Facebook and you know, stuff like that. 00:22:31.119 --> 00:22:35.119 So so what starts the dominoes falling for you then? 00:22:35.200 --> 00:22:39.759 Like what are the first things that sought to trigger you where you're looking at things a little differently? 00:22:40.240 --> 00:22:53.279 Well, it started because we did we kind of got back in touch with each other, and uh I I think it probably I'd seen him on Facebook doing his Rosary Crew stuff, which just I was like, what in the world? 00:22:53.440 --> 00:22:57.519 You know, what has happened to Keith, you know? 00:22:57.680 --> 00:23:02.880 Um and so, but I also kind of thought I kind of miss him, you know. 00:23:03.039 --> 00:23:04.720 Again, don't tell him I said that. 00:23:04.960 --> 00:23:08.480 But so I started, I kind of trolled him a little bit. 00:23:08.640 --> 00:23:14.079 And uh you troll troll someone, no, never anthony. 00:23:14.160 --> 00:23:16.240 Let me explain to you what trolling means. 00:23:19.920 --> 00:23:27.680 Um, so I got I watched a few of his videos, and you know, like one of them, this is think so to me, Anthony. 00:23:28.000 --> 00:23:38.640 I remember you kind of going on a tire about how Catholic converts can throw out a video on why solar scriptura is a bunch of, you know, and and they get a you know, a billion hits. 00:23:39.680 --> 00:23:41.680 And Keith, I think, was the one you were talking about. 00:23:42.319 --> 00:23:49.440 That's how that was our first interaction because Keith put out a video about Sola Scriptura, and I came on the show like the next day, and I was like, I don't get it. 00:23:49.599 --> 00:23:59.759 These converts come on and they do a video on this, it gets 80,000 views, and me and Rob are over here slogging it out two hours a night, two not two times a week, and we can't get over three thousand views. 00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:01.440 And keep keep saw it. 00:24:01.920 --> 00:24:09.759 Yeah, so I saw that, which which was a little bit later, obviously, but um, so this is uh this is 2023. 00:24:10.400 --> 00:24:16.319 And after uh, you know, I'd commented on some videos of his, and that's when he was on your channel. 00:24:16.400 --> 00:24:20.720 I found this out later because he's well, actually, it was much later than that. 00:24:20.799 --> 00:24:25.359 Sorry, I'm getting out of the timeline, but um we connect, okay. 00:24:25.440 --> 00:24:31.440 We we talk back and forth and thought, well, let's let's meet halfway for lunch and just kind of catch up. 00:24:31.599 --> 00:24:37.519 And so we did that, and which meant about a 45-minute drive for each of us, and it was great. 00:24:37.680 --> 00:24:39.599 Uh, it was a good time catching up. 00:24:39.759 --> 00:24:44.960 I still was like, I don't understand half the stuff you're talking about and why you would even want to do this. 00:24:45.279 --> 00:24:58.559 But on my way home, I thought to myself, you know, if if if we're gonna reconnect in this way, which is what I wanted to do, I need to at least understand his world from his point. 00:24:58.640 --> 00:25:03.119 I need to do the work of being a friend

and understanding his world from his perspective. 00:25:03.359 --> 00:25:19.440 And he had in one of his videos had um said something like, you know, if you want to know what the Catholic Church believes, and he held one of these up and said, You should read the Catholic Catechism, because that's what's you know, as opposed to what this person or that person says or whatever, like that. 00:25:19.599 --> 00:25:28.240 And I know a lot of people in the Protestant world, a lot of them that you probably interact with on X, Anthony, is uh, and and probably you too, Rob. 00:25:28.720 --> 00:25:34.000 You know, they're coming from modern evangelicalism or non-denominate non-denominationalism. 00:25:34.079 --> 00:25:38.240 So you talk to them about a catechism, and they're just like, hey, I got the Bible. 00:25:38.400 --> 00:25:40.640 Yeah, but that's not my world. 00:25:40.880 --> 00:25:44.880 Almost everywhere I was ever a part of a church, there was a catechism. 00:25:45.279 --> 00:25:53.119 And as a pastor, I was bound by confessions, you know, by and we had the creeds, it might interest you. 00:25:53.200 --> 00:25:58.000 Uh, we we had the apostles, the Nicene, and the Athanasian, the same ones, you know. 00:25:58.400 --> 00:26:03.680 But we had the Reformed uh one holy Christian apostolic church, yeah. 00:26:04.400 --> 00:26:14.160 Yeah, yeah, but we had our reformed doctrines as well, you know, the confessions that were specifically reformed, but I've always been bound by other confessions and stuff. 00:26:14.240 --> 00:26:16.799 So to read a catechism, it's nothing, you know. 00:26:16.880 --> 00:26:22.160 To me, that wasn't some act of bravery on my part to pick up a catechism, it was just second nature. 00:26:22.319 --> 00:26:27.920 So I started reading it, and that's what he's talking about in that clip from Pints. 00:26:28.559 --> 00:26:33.759 And I just started um a few of the details are wrong, but I don't, yeah, there's no way you're gonna see that. 00:26:34.000 --> 00:26:38.400 I I was circling, you know, for every article, there's an article number. 00:26:38.480 --> 00:26:45.519 Yeah, and so I just to keep track of where are things going with this and how am I processing this, I just started. 00:26:45.599 --> 00:26:50.000 If I agreed with a particular article, I would circle it, the number. 00:26:50.160 --> 00:26:59.200 If I wasn't sure, needed didn't quite understand it, or wasn't sure I would need to understand terms better, then I would put a box around the number, a rectangle. 00:26:59.279 --> 00:27:04.079 And if I flat out was like, yeah, no way, I put a triangle around the number. 00:27:04.319 --> 00:27:06.880 So that's how I did it, and it was all academic. 00:27:06.960 --> 00:27:09.839 It was all right, challenge accepted. 00:27:09.920 --> 00:27:13.599 I'll read the Catholic Catechism and try to understand your world a little bit better. 00:27:13.839 --> 00:27:23.839 So that started um probably in May or June of 2023, because we had

lunch together on May 4th, 2023. 00:27:23.920 --> 00:27:27.599 And the only reason I remember that is because that's Star Wars Day, you know, May the 4th. 00:27:27.759 --> 00:27:29.440 So May the 4th. 00:27:29.680 --> 00:27:30.799 So that's why I remember that. 00:27:30.880 --> 00:27:31.759 Because I'm a nerd. 00:27:31.920 --> 00:27:35.200 If you can't tell from my background, I'm a nerd. 00:27:35.440 --> 00:27:41.519 So um, so okay, so that's yeah, so let me let me that's 2023. 00:27:41.680 --> 00:27:43.599 Um, when did you come across us? 00:27:43.680 --> 00:27:51.680 Because we've been interacting with you like way before you converted, like you were still Protestant when you started watching our show and interacting with us and stuff. 00:27:51.920 --> 00:27:57.599 Yeah, I feel like he was maybe in the live chat of our first show with Keith. 00:27:58.160 --> 00:27:59.359 Oh, that's possible. 00:27:59.599 --> 00:28:02.960 No, I I I can actually this part I do kind of remember well. 00:28:03.119 --> 00:28:12.640 Whenever that was, um, so by the time Keith was on your show, I had gone to one daily mass with him. 00:28:12.720 --> 00:28:16.559 I'd come over to Cedar Rapids and I just wanted to see what a mass looked like. 00:28:16.640 --> 00:28:19.519 I I don't even remember if I'd finished the catechism at that point. 00:28:19.599 --> 00:28:23.039 I probably hadn't, but still, I'm just kind of this this learning. 00:28:23.119 --> 00:28:29.759 It's like I was I was giving myself my own college course or whatever on the Catholic Church. 00:28:30.559 --> 00:28:46.480 And uh so I came over to I came over to his uh to his church and we went to mass, went to a daily mass, and he introduced me to his priest afterwards, and I can't remember if I went back to his house or whatever, but it was good time just connecting. 00:28:46.799 --> 00:29:03.680 And then down the road, this other friend of mine who was was and is a pastor, he and I started talking about different things, and it got around to talking about mass and talking about some of the debates, Protestant Catholic debates and stuff like that. 00:29:03.759 --> 00:29:07.200 And he was talking about how he'd never been to a Latin Mass. 00:29:07.440 --> 00:29:13.359 And I said, Well, I've got a friend who goes to one, and uh, in fact, I thought about I have thought about going just to see one. 00:29:13.440 --> 00:29:16.160 I saw a daily mass, I'd kind of like to see a Latin Mass. 00:29:16.319 --> 00:29:23.680 So he and I ended up going to a Latin Mass at the Feast of the Assumption, and that's when Keith was on your show. 00:29:23.759 --> 00:29:32.400 He was telling you about how we were I was coming over and he was talking to you about how he thought I was trolling him when I first made contact with him. 00:29:32.480 --> 00:29:41.920 Like I wanted to try to argue with him again or something, which was a reasonable conclusion on his part given some of our previous yeah, he was on our show August 10th of

23. 00:29:42.480 --> 00:29:46.480 Yeah, so in August 15 was right, as in August 15th. 00:29:46.640 --> 00:29:47.519 Yeah, yeah, the assumption. 00:29:47.759 --> 00:29:53.119 So, yeah, it was right before that, but I think I found that because I was looking for another video. 00:29:53.920 --> 00:29:55.359 Uh, there's so many threads here. 00:29:55.440 --> 00:29:59.599 I think I was looking for a video for a Trent Horn video that I had seen, and I couldn't find it. 00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:04.559 And I think you had been talking about Trent Horn, or maybe it was in the title or something like that. 00:30:04.799 --> 00:30:06.079 That's how I saw your channel. 00:30:06.160 --> 00:30:10.079 And then I do those videos, by the way, because we're hoping against some of his audience. 00:30:10.160 --> 00:30:11.279 So we'll do it, we'll do something. 00:30:11.359 --> 00:30:19.440 Just try to so on August 15th of 2023 on the Feast of the Assumption, we did a show with Trent Horn. 00:30:19.839 --> 00:30:20.400 Oh, you did? 00:30:20.559 --> 00:30:22.400 So you probably searched for Trent Horn. 00:30:22.720 --> 00:30:23.119 That's it. 00:30:23.200 --> 00:30:23.359 Okay. 00:30:24.720 --> 00:30:25.200 I saw that. 00:30:25.359 --> 00:30:30.480 So that video pops up, but over on the side are the suggested videos, and I see Keith there. 00:30:30.640 --> 00:30:32.319 I was like, what the heck? 00:30:32.880 --> 00:30:46.400 So then I watched that and I saw him talking, and it was like right early on, and you guys started talking about it, and he was talking about this friend of his who was coming over for a Latin mass with another pastor friend. 00:30:46.480 --> 00:30:47.279 Well, that was me. 00:30:47.440 --> 00:30:49.119 That was what was going on there. 00:30:49.359 --> 00:30:56.880 So yeah, that's so that's August 2023, and I'm still just kind of I'm studying, you know, this and I'm enjoying that kind of a thing. 00:30:57.039 --> 00:31:17.039 Um, but no interest, absolutely zero interest in the Catholic Church, but but kind of um kind of delighting in the fact that there's so much more in common between what I where I was and where Keith was than I ever thought uh imaginable, honestly. 00:31:17.279 --> 00:31:30.079 Because of the caricatures, you know, because of you know, you learn about Catholicism from reformed people who don't really like Catholicism, it tends to skew your view a little bit, and you your knowledge is very limited and selective anyway. 00:31:30.400 --> 00:31:34.000 But um, you know, uh G.K. 00:31:34.160 --> 00:31:45.519 Chesterton in his book uh The Catholic Church and Conversion, he talks about the three stages of conversion that Catholic that people who convert to the Catholic Church go through. 00:31:45.599 --> 00:31:49.680 And the first one is deciding to play fair with the Catholic Church. 00:31:49.920 --> 00:31:56.799 You just decide to, you know, to take the Catholic Church at its own from its own perspective, you know. 00:31:57.839 --> 00:32:10.240 And uh and the second step is you become uh you you find you're surprised by the amount of truth that you find present in the Catholic Church, and you're actually a little bit happy about it, you know. 00:32:10.319 --> 00:32:14.640 It it kind of you're no, these people are Christian, yeah, exactly. 00:32:14.799 --> 00:32:23.119 So yeah, because because you're you're trained to think that we are a pagan entity masquerading as Christian. 00:32:23.519 --> 00:32:28.720 So when you start to find out, oh wait, they actually are Christian, it probably softens your heart, and you're like, oh great. 00:32:29.039 --> 00:32:30.559 Yeah, yeah, for sure. 00:32:30.720 --> 00:32:38.960 And and just to know those points of contact are so much there because especially for you know, in my case, where I've already grown, I've grown up with the creeds anyway. 00:32:39.359 --> 00:32:45.599 And just to have all that common ground, I mean, how much of the catechism is an exposition on the creeds? 00:32:45.839 --> 00:32:46.079 Right. 00:32:46.559 --> 00:33:04.799 There's so much that's there that's that's the same, you know, or at least it's it's close enough, it's it's very much common ground, and so that's that's you know, looking back on it, that's probably where I was at the time, but I was not aware of that, you know, in terms of Chester stuff, Chesterton's three stages. 00:33:05.039 --> 00:33:11.200 His third stage is where the convert is desperately trying not to convert to become Catholic. 00:33:12.160 --> 00:33:16.240 Yeah, and I don't know, I don't know if I really kind of went through that one that way or not. 00:33:16.400 --> 00:33:34.799 You know, another part of my story that it would go on and on and on, but the my reality is that in spring of 2021, I was already ready to not be a pastor if God wanted to call me out of it. 00:33:34.960 --> 00:33:41.039 Um, the events of 2020 and the way I experienced it and everything like that, I was spent. 00:33:41.839 --> 00:33:44.079 It had taken everything out of me. 00:33:44.319 --> 00:33:50.960 And you know, so I I I kind of had that prayer, kind of had it out with God a little bit in prayer. 00:33:51.359 --> 00:33:58.799 And you know, it's like I'm on an interstate driving at night, and it's foggy, and visibility is about 50 feet. 00:33:59.119 --> 00:34:04.799 And if there's an exit ramp up there somewhere that God wants to show me, I'll take it. 00:34:05.039 --> 00:34:14.960 And that was in 2021, and then things kind of escalated in different ways, some of it family deaths in the family, and a lot of other situations that came on my plate. 00:34:15.039 --> 00:34:23.280 That a lot of stuff just happened that you know, there's a lot of things, it it takes emotional energy to be able to give yourself to certain things. 00:34:23.519 --> 00:34:34.960 And I don't know if I I should say especially as a pastor, but there are many things you do as a pastor that if you have an empty tank, it just starts to

ruin you if you have to do certain things, you know, certain tasks. 00:34:35.280 --> 00:34:38.159 You you see the value in a celibate priesthood, I'm sure. 00:34:38.400 --> 00:34:39.440 I I do actually. 00:34:39.519 --> 00:34:50.559 I've asked that I've been asked that question a lot, and you know, about you know, with the assumption being, yeah, that's crazy to have a celibate priesthood, but I see it in a whole different light now. 00:34:50.800 --> 00:34:53.599 I see, I see the wisdom in it because I was torn. 00:34:53.840 --> 00:35:18.960 And and there there was a period in there after after my wife's probably after uh her dad died in late 2021, that kicked a lot of things into gear, set a lot of things in motion that necessarily involved me getting highly involved in talking to this entity, talking to that entity, and and she became the guardian, legal guardian of an older sister overnight who has a mental disability. 00:35:19.119 --> 00:35:27.440 And so you're dealing with the state, you're trying to find information for them that you don't even know exists, you know, and so it just took a lot out of me, you know. 00:35:27.519 --> 00:35:29.199 Not not to make it a big sob story. 00:35:29.360 --> 00:35:31.280 Everybody has lots of problems in life. 00:35:31.360 --> 00:35:42.960 It life can be very hard, but it's to be doing that, dealing with all that, and have to shepherd an entire church and and be responsible for the souls of an entire church. 00:35:43.039 --> 00:35:49.119 That that's a very tall order when you're not when you're when your heart's not in the right place. 00:35:49.360 --> 00:35:50.719 Yeah, and mine wasn't. 00:35:50.800 --> 00:36:00.960 I I hadn't I was I was running on empty to quote an old song, and um, and it there were times where I felt like I really had just one parishioner, and it was my wife. 00:36:01.360 --> 00:36:13.920 And and everything that was going on with you know, with concerning her family and the things going on there, it took everything I had just to do that, just to tend to the things that I needed to tend to there. 00:36:14.159 --> 00:36:25.119 And you know, in retrospect, maybe I should have um recognized that better than I did, and maybe I should have had a conversation about resigning long before I did. 00:36:25.360 --> 00:36:28.320 But you know, you're you're near a man, you just want to tough it out. 00:36:28.400 --> 00:36:30.000 I can do this, you just get through it. 00:36:30.079 --> 00:36:47.440 And and there are certain aspects of being a pastor that, like any job, can get a little like you could almost do it in your sleep, some of the things, but but it's certainly not everything, it's probably not it's not most things, and um yeah, so it just it got really hard. 00:36:47.599 --> 00:36:53.679 I got to the point where every Sunday when I'd wake up, you know, you're in that fog and you wake up and you're not quite sure what day it is yet. 00:36:53.840 --> 00:36:57.360 But when I would realize it was Sunday, I would instantly be sick to my stomach. 00:36:57.519 --> 00:37:04.880 Oh that all of that, so again, dating that to I mean, it started in 2020. 00:37:05.119 --> 00:37:17.280 By spring of 2021, I've had that prayer um with God, I've had that little wrestling match with God about, you know, I'm ready if you want to show me the exit ramp. 00:37:17.519 --> 00:37:20.159 But I didn't act on that for a long time. 00:37:20.480 --> 00:37:27.440 And so, you know, reconnect with Keith two years later in 2023, start reading the catechism. 00:37:27.599 --> 00:37:51.920 And yeah, he said in that in that clip, in the uh maybe about a year, I don't, it's hard for me to remember the timeline, but um the thing is there are layers to this because all this time, while I'm more and more wanting to find that exit ramp, wanting God to show me that exit ramp, my wife doesn't want anything to do with that. 00:37:52.079 --> 00:37:59.280 She doesn't, and understandably, we're my my my church that I was at, that's our hometown. 00:37:59.440 --> 00:38:04.639 Yeah, we're both from there, and so we know a lot of people there. 00:38:04.800 --> 00:38:09.599 A lot of the people at that church were our friends before I was the pastor there. 00:38:09.760 --> 00:38:11.280 Um, so it's tough, you know. 00:38:11.360 --> 00:38:18.880 There's a lot of connections, there's a lot of dependence in a good way, you know, mutual the people betrayed. 00:38:19.199 --> 00:38:21.519 It's Midwest small town, I mean, right? 00:38:21.840 --> 00:38:23.119 So yeah, yeah. 00:38:23.199 --> 00:38:32.960 And so there's no easy way to think about doing that, especially when it's your it's your job, you know, this is what I trained to do, it's all I ever wanted to do. 00:38:33.199 --> 00:38:45.679 You know, I I was either gonna die as the pastor of that church or retire at whatever age, or if at some point they decided they didn't want me anymore, they could tell me it was time to move on. 00:38:45.840 --> 00:38:51.199 But resigning was never ever part of the plan, except that it kind of became my plan. 00:38:51.360 --> 00:39:01.280 If I could see a way out, if I could, I was confident that if I tried to resign just because I was tired and couldn't do it anymore, I would screw things up royally. 00:39:01.599 --> 00:39:07.920 And so I just kept trying to wait on God to show me when and where, you know, that exit ramp was. 00:39:08.079 --> 00:39:10.159 And yeah, it was a long time. 00:39:10.400 --> 00:39:14.159 And again, I I don't think I did everything as well as I could have, you know. 00:39:14.400 --> 00:39:15.760 So, so how is okay? 00:39:15.840 --> 00:39:20.639 So, now how is your wife handling you looking into the Catholic Church? 00:39:20.719 --> 00:39:24.880 Is she like she is there a lot of tension in the home during this period? 00:39:25.199 --> 00:39:28.480 Not at first, not at first, because this is what I do. 00:39:28.639 --> 00:39:42.320 I, you know, I get I get something that

I'm interested in, and then all of a sudden Amazon boxes start showing up at our house, and I just read, you know, and it's what I do, and so in in one sense, it was no different than anything she'd ever seen. 00:39:42.559 --> 00:39:48.639 She did start to get nervous the more I was hanging around with Keith. 00:39:49.119 --> 00:39:53.039 Um, but she likes Keith. 00:39:53.119 --> 00:39:53.840 She likes Keith. 00:39:54.000 --> 00:39:57.599 So, but you know, she's she's been through this before, she's been through it. 00:39:57.679 --> 00:40:05.599 The kind of a joke in our family is if if I say we need to talk about something, she's just like, no, not again. 00:40:06.079 --> 00:40:06.960 Not again. 00:40:07.840 --> 00:40:12.800 We went from Methodist to Baptist to this to that to reformed and said, not again. 00:40:12.880 --> 00:40:16.159 This is it, and but that really wasn't what was going on. 00:40:16.239 --> 00:40:20.239 But as she sees me reading more, she gets she starts to fear the worst. 00:40:20.480 --> 00:40:23.440 She feared it before it actually became a thing. 00:40:23.760 --> 00:40:36.800 But here's where the here's kind of where the it's hard for me to get back in my mind of that time because I was my world was just going off the rails because of all this other stuff that I talked about. 00:40:36.960 --> 00:40:40.000 I wasn't thinking clearly about anything at that point. 00:40:40.559 --> 00:40:57.920 Um, but she's very nervous about what's going on, and and I probably don't even really know for sure what's going on, other than yeah, one by one, any the objections that I see about the Catholic Church are dropping. 00:40:58.239 --> 00:41:08.159 But in my mind, I already know that the time is coming when I'm gonna be trying to figure out where we're gonna go to church anyway, because I know my time as a pastor is coming to an end. 00:41:08.480 --> 00:41:15.039 And so I'm thinking about possibilities, and I know that it's I know that it's got to be something with uh, you know, a liturgy. 00:41:15.199 --> 00:41:18.719 I'm not gonna go, you know, I'm not gonna go to a lot of churches. 00:41:18.800 --> 00:41:21.760 There's a lot of churches that weren't possible for us to go to. 00:41:22.000 --> 00:41:27.119 And I'm I'm looking at this from a view of not just what I want, but what we want. 00:41:27.360 --> 00:41:31.440 And I can see that the Catholic Church is a non-starter for her. 00:41:31.599 --> 00:41:45.920 So, regardless of what I was thinking, there's the there's the what I was learning theologically and what I might have been inclined toward, as compared to what's actually gonna, where can we go where we can be at peace, you know? 00:41:46.159 --> 00:41:49.039 Because I just couldn't envision anything where we're at different churches. 00:41:49.119 --> 00:41:51.360 That to me, that wasn't a possibility. 00:41:51.760 --> 00:41:58.159 I suppose if God had said something and it was very clear, but I did not have that indication and it

wasn't my plan. 00:41:58.480 --> 00:42:21.119 So, you know, 2024 at some point is where you know the the the last dominoes probably fell, but it was much it was earlier in 2024 when I really saw, and I think the leaders really for the first time saw just how um just how uh frazzled I was. 00:42:21.599 --> 00:42:30.800 Um how little I you were you were in our live chat for almost every one of our shows back then, and we were always making jokes about yeah, yeah, sure, sure, Aaron, you're Protestant, all right. 00:42:30.960 --> 00:42:39.280 We all knew, like we knew as soon as you start looking into it, it's kind of like you're you're kind of just going, you know. 00:42:39.360 --> 00:42:44.559 It's uh it's anybody who actually does put the time in to study it and look into it, they end up there. 00:42:44.880 --> 00:42:51.280 So we all kind of knew a year before you had even gone through any of this that you were eventually going to become Catholic. 00:42:51.440 --> 00:42:52.159 So, yeah. 00:42:52.320 --> 00:43:01.599 Well, you know, as a credit to your show, you you know, you've said a lot that you want your show to be a place where people like to come and hang out, and I found that to be true. 00:43:02.079 --> 00:43:02.719 Oh, that's great. 00:43:02.960 --> 00:43:19.199 It was fun to come and hang out, and yeah, I mean, yeah, I wasn't I wasn't in full agreement with you guys, but again, I was kind of in that phase where it was it was nice to see that there's actually a fellowship that I can have with Catholics because I'd been trained for so long that I can't, you know. 00:43:19.440 --> 00:43:20.800 It's so weird, you know. 00:43:21.039 --> 00:43:27.519 Now on X, it's so weird to see the comments that get put out of the out there how Catholics don't know their Bible at all. 00:43:27.599 --> 00:43:32.079 And I read that as like I see it, and then all of a sudden I realize, oh, wait a minute, that's me. 00:43:32.320 --> 00:43:38.400 I can work with Hebrew and Greek, and I was a pastor for 15 years, and that but I don't know my Bible, huh? 00:43:38.559 --> 00:43:43.280 Yeah, well, so at what point do you get introduced to Scott Han? 00:43:43.519 --> 00:43:51.760 Because every convert has their Scott Han moment where they go and they discover the the Protestant pastor who explains his conversion through scripture, right? 00:43:51.840 --> 00:43:54.079 So I you had to come across him at some point. 00:43:54.400 --> 00:43:57.280 Well, I first came across him in a book, you know. 00:43:57.519 --> 00:44:02.800 That that was my first introduction, and um, you know, it's funny. 00:44:02.960 --> 00:44:10.639 I think Keith gave me his uh Han's conversion video many, many, many years ago, and it did nothing for me. 00:44:10.719 --> 00:44:19.679 I I watched it and I was like, you know, I think he gets to a point at the end where he's talking about when he sees the host elevated in mass and just what it did to him. 00:44:19.840 --> 00:44:23.599 And I'm sitting there watching that going, What is wrong with you? 00:44:25.199 --> 00:44:31.679 And that, but it was different reading, you know, this the the book that he and Kimberly wrote together. 00:44:31.760 --> 00:44:37.760 Um really striking to read that, and so yeah, that hit me very differently at that point. 00:44:37.840 --> 00:44:40.880 It that would have been it for me, um, reading that book. 00:44:41.119 --> 00:44:48.880 I did at one point, I drove this was late, late, late in 2024. 00:44:49.199 --> 00:44:53.840 I might, I think I probably maybe had already announced my resignation by this point. 00:44:54.079 --> 00:44:56.960 I announced my resignation to the leaders in early September. 00:44:57.119 --> 00:44:59.199 I announced the reason you gave them. 00:44:59.440 --> 00:45:00.960 Oh, they all knew it was exhaustion. 00:45:01.199 --> 00:45:01.599 Oh, okay. 00:45:02.079 --> 00:45:08.000 I was everybody could see it, and and frankly, there were things where I had dropped the ball on some things too. 00:45:08.159 --> 00:45:12.159 I just, you know, it was I was trying to spin too many plates, and some of them were dropping. 00:45:12.320 --> 00:45:16.320 And um, and they saw it, you know, but they they didn't ask me to. 00:45:16.480 --> 00:45:20.480 They, you know, we were we had some talks. 00:45:20.639 --> 00:45:22.719 I tried to explain what was going on. 00:45:23.119 --> 00:45:30.960 Um, and nobody again, nobody, it wasn't just me who really didn't have any space for the possibility that I would resign. 00:45:31.039 --> 00:45:34.320 It just wasn't the plan, you know, yeah, for anyone. 00:45:34.719 --> 00:45:46.400 But I I don't think anybody realized how just how strung out I was, you know, how you know Bilbo tells Gandalf that he feels like butter scraped over too much bread. 00:45:46.639 --> 00:45:48.880 I gotta throw in some Tolkien references, guys. 00:45:49.280 --> 00:45:51.760 People are answering the comments and talking about Lord of the Rings. 00:45:51.840 --> 00:45:52.639 Yeah, so okay, okay. 00:45:52.719 --> 00:45:57.280 So now so that that's how I felt, and they saw that and they knew that, but but so I told them. 00:45:57.440 --> 00:46:06.239 But what happened was it was so Cammy and I were about ready to leave for Florida for a vacation at the end of August. 00:46:06.400 --> 00:46:18.400 And there was there was something that that we became aware of and talked about it, and it was something that was definitely going to I was going to have to face when we got back from vacation. 00:46:18.880 --> 00:46:21.679 And it wasn't on the surface anything problematic. 00:46:21.760 --> 00:46:39.519 If you were looking from the outside, you wouldn't have thought anything about it, but it was something we were aware of, and it was something that struck us in a way where for the very first time, this is this was it, this was the moment, she said to me, Maybe this is the exit ramp. 00:46:39.760 --> 00:46:42.480 And I was like, You gotta be kidding

me. 00:46:42.639 --> 00:46:52.960 You see that now too, and and so we we decided this vacation, we're gonna spend a lot of time talking and praying and really discerning the will of the Lord. 00:46:53.199 --> 00:46:54.639 And is he calling us? 00:46:54.719 --> 00:46:55.280 Is this it? 00:46:55.440 --> 00:46:57.280 Is he calling me to resign? 00:46:57.599 --> 00:47:12.239 And we went down to Florida to the Gulf and um spent a nice week down there, but we spent a lot of time talking about this too, and we ended up um we ended up deciding, and when we came back, I resigned. 00:47:12.320 --> 00:47:15.360 So that was early September, early October. 00:47:15.519 --> 00:47:23.199 We announced it to the congregation, and and then I on their request, because it was it was amicable. 00:47:23.280 --> 00:47:28.239 Um, they asked if I would be willing to finish out the year, and I was because I didn't have anything lined up anyway. 00:47:28.480 --> 00:47:31.199 Throw any throw any Catholicism in your sermons? 00:47:31.920 --> 00:47:34.639 You know, I I did, but not really intentionally. 00:47:34.719 --> 00:47:35.440 I mean, no, I didn't. 00:47:35.519 --> 00:47:35.840 You know what? 00:47:35.920 --> 00:47:41.760 I'm gonna say I didn't, and here's why because going back to 2023, this is a tangent. 00:47:41.840 --> 00:47:43.039 You want me to go down this road or not? 00:47:43.199 --> 00:47:44.800 Yes, okay. 00:47:45.360 --> 00:47:50.800 In 2023, yeah, Advent of 2023. 00:47:51.599 --> 00:48:02.719 For Advent, uh I'm doing a sermon series just through Luke One, and um so I'm reading on you know, these passions I've preached these before. 00:48:03.519 --> 00:48:09.599 You know, I don't have my reading glasses on, so it's probably good that I can't see you definitely preached a sermon about Mary. 00:48:09.920 --> 00:48:11.199 Okay, who that was Keith? 00:48:11.360 --> 00:48:12.480 Keith, yeah, yeah. 00:48:12.559 --> 00:48:17.119 Okay, so what happened was I'm supposed to just spend my whole time reading the comments, right? 00:48:17.360 --> 00:48:17.840 Yes, yes. 00:48:18.000 --> 00:48:19.199 Bull Joshua Charles, please. 00:48:19.440 --> 00:48:21.519 Take your glasses off, we'd rather you not see them. 00:48:21.760 --> 00:48:22.400 Yeah. 00:48:23.360 --> 00:48:33.840 Um, it was it was advent, and of course, I've gone through Luke 1 a thousand times, and I'm just like, I, you know, what can I do that maybe brings this to life in a way that I haven't before? 00:48:34.000 --> 00:48:52.239 And so, you know, of course, I've read by that time different things about from the Catholic Catechism, but I'm looking at, excuse me, I'm looking at different reformers and what they said, and I'm just dumbfounded about how they can believe that Mary remained a virgin, you know. 00:48:52.800 --> 00:48:54.239 I said, How can you think that? 00:48:54.320 --> 00:49:04.400 And it wasn't that long before that that a guy had asked me at church, it was funny, he just out of nowhere, he said, he said, you know, just it literally out of nowhere. 00:49:04.480 --> 00:49:10.400 It was just this, you know, the Catholics believe that Mary was a virgin the rest of her life after she gave birth to Jesus. 00:49:10.559 --> 00:49:11.440 I said, Yep. 00:49:11.920 --> 00:49:13.119 He said, But we don't think that. 00:49:13.199 --> 00:49:14.079 I said, Nope. 00:49:14.400 --> 00:49:15.039 Why not? 00:49:15.199 --> 00:49:19.039 I said, Well, because the New Testament talks about his brothers, you know. 00:49:19.119 --> 00:49:21.119 I gave the thing, you know, I gave that answer. 00:49:21.280 --> 00:49:22.639 That was just what I thought. 00:49:22.800 --> 00:49:30.960 And so when I see that these reformers don't think that way, that that she did remain a virgin, I was like, How in the world can they think that? 00:49:31.119 --> 00:49:40.480 So I started looking into that and discovered their reasons why, which you know is just the ancient doctrine of why, you know. 00:49:40.800 --> 00:49:44.079 And I was like, wow, that's really interesting. 00:49:44.239 --> 00:49:47.280 And but you know, I'm I'm ecumenical enough. 00:49:47.440 --> 00:49:49.920 I'm not interested in fighting with every denomination. 00:49:50.079 --> 00:50:01.440 I'm interested, you know, we can all look around the world and understand that Christians on whatever level we can need to stand together with with what's going on, and that's where I'm at right now. 00:50:01.519 --> 00:50:06.239 And I'm just like, you know, I don't like seeing the baby thrown out with the bathwater when there are differences. 00:50:06.320 --> 00:50:12.800 You don't have to jettison everything, you know, just because it might smell a little Catholic or something like that. 00:50:13.039 --> 00:50:31.599 And so I just kind of dropped a phrase into this Advent sermon about how it seems that the best explanation for why Mary was surprised at what Gabriel said to her was that she had taken a vow of celibacy, you know, and and just and it was really it was really not fair, to be honest. 00:50:31.760 --> 00:50:35.760 Because I said that and then I just kind of moved on because that wasn't my main point. 00:50:35.920 --> 00:50:38.239 But boy, I got questions about that afterwards. 00:50:38.480 --> 00:50:42.079 And but honestly, some of them are really good. 00:50:42.239 --> 00:50:43.840 Uh they were really open, you know. 00:50:43.920 --> 00:50:47.360 Some of the people in the church they were asking me, you know, what about this? 00:50:47.519 --> 00:50:50.159 And I said, Yeah, well, here's the thing, and oh, that makes sense. 00:50:50.239 --> 00:50:51.760 And we just had good conversations. 00:50:51.920 --> 00:50:58.159 I had a couple that, you know, I don't think really wanted to listen, but that didn't surprise me, and we just moved on. 00:50:58.400 --> 00:51:13.280 But what I would often do in the summertime as people are coming and going and vacations and stuff like that, I would do a series through part of

the summer where I would just take theological questions that people had or whatever, and I would build a sermon based on that. 00:51:13.360 --> 00:51:16.719 I would just answer those questions through the medium of a sermon. 00:51:17.039 --> 00:51:20.719 And so, guess you know, guess what the number one question I got was? 00:51:21.519 --> 00:51:24.719 You know, and I and I had I had been getting that question too. 00:51:24.800 --> 00:51:25.840 It wasn't just then. 00:51:26.000 --> 00:51:33.840 So, so I decided to give a sermon um in answer to these questions on the perpetual virginity of Mary. 00:51:34.000 --> 00:51:37.360 So that would be the one sermon that I gave, I think. 00:51:37.519 --> 00:51:43.440 I mean, I don't know how much of it was in, you know, how much of it crept into other sermons, I'm not sure. 00:51:43.599 --> 00:51:51.599 Yeah, again, I'm bound confessionally, you know, it's not like I was trying to be a rebel, but I think I gave that one and and it it kind of that's the one that Keith posted. 00:51:51.679 --> 00:51:54.320 That's why I think he's saying that because he posted it on X. 00:51:54.559 --> 00:51:56.159 That one's actually on my YouTube channel. 00:51:56.320 --> 00:51:58.239 There's not much there, but that that's there. 00:51:58.320 --> 00:52:03.440 So even Catholics, I think, don't grasp what we're saying when we say she's a perpetual virgin. 00:52:03.599 --> 00:52:07.440 That means her hymen remained intact after giving birth. 00:52:07.760 --> 00:52:14.079 Like that it's it's you're saying her her virginity remained intact even through the birth. 00:52:14.159 --> 00:52:17.519 Like it is very miraculous what Catholics believe. 00:52:17.599 --> 00:52:22.000 It's not just uh she didn't have sex, you know, it's a it's a very deep doctrine. 00:52:22.159 --> 00:52:26.400 So it is, and and I came across, I really didn't get that, you know. 00:52:26.719 --> 00:52:34.800 Even once we're in 2025 and and we know that this is the direction we're going, I was still like, I don't know, that one just doesn't make sense to me. 00:52:34.880 --> 00:52:37.679 And it seems like people don't necessarily agree fully on that. 00:52:37.760 --> 00:52:39.199 So I don't know, do we have to? 00:52:39.360 --> 00:52:46.159 But then I read um Brant Petrie on on that, and I was like, oh, okay, well, that does it make really, really good sense then. 00:52:46.320 --> 00:53:02.159 So well, you can like for me, some of the things that I've come to even think deeper about, especially if you're doing this show, is like, look at look at the um the versions of Christianity that don't believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary versus the ones that do. 00:53:02.239 --> 00:53:09.840 So like if you have the Orthodox and the Catholics, look at the monastic life that gets born from the belief in the perpetual virginity. 00:53:09.920 --> 00:53:12.880 Like you see virginity as something holy and sacred. 00:53:13.039 --> 00:53:20.639 So people take these vows

of celibacy and to emulate our lady, and these monastic communities are born from it. 00:53:20.719 --> 00:53:38.079 And that's how we have the Bible written down through the ages because these monks then transcribe the scriptures, they also transcribe all of the Greek myths and all of ancient literature is transcribed in these monasteries because they believed in the perpetual virginity of Mary. 00:53:38.239 --> 00:53:46.800 If it was just Protestantism that got born from, you know, if it was just the Bible, like we wouldn't have a Bible if it was just left to Protestants. 00:53:47.440 --> 00:54:00.480 The institution of the church itself is so miraculous because it gives birth to an entire civilization and it's based in these monasteries that are that are writing down these books and get passing these things down to the next generation. 00:54:00.559 --> 00:54:02.000 It's really amazing. 00:54:02.639 --> 00:54:03.280 Yeah. 00:54:04.320 --> 00:54:04.960 Yeah. 00:54:05.440 --> 00:54:10.800 So, you know, it was uh to your question about the sermons, too. 00:54:10.880 --> 00:54:11.920 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. 00:54:12.000 --> 00:54:29.920 It is just one of those things where I to me, it's like, okay, here's something that we could embrace as Protestants, that the first Protestants did embrace, and yet some it really, you know, along the line, at some point it gets jettisoned and people don't believe that anymore. 00:54:30.079 --> 00:54:32.320 And you see that on X and everywhere else online. 00:54:32.559 --> 00:54:37.360 It doesn't matter whether they reformers believe that or not, you know, they're wrong. 00:54:37.440 --> 00:54:39.679 And yeah, but there's good reasons for it. 00:54:39.840 --> 00:54:42.559 And so that's you know, that was a sermon. 00:54:42.719 --> 00:54:54.079 Others, again, there might have been other things in there, but on on the timeline of things, in late August, early September, all we really decided was it's time to resign. 00:54:54.719 --> 00:55:09.280 After it was announced to the congregation in early October, we really started talking earnestly then about what's next, because that had been a live question for me for a while because I saw a what's next on the horizon. 00:55:09.519 --> 00:55:13.519 And but it needed to be together, it needed to be an us decision. 00:55:13.679 --> 00:55:28.400 I didn't want it to become a I didn't want to, I didn't want our marriage to to be strained when really all of this, all of this trauma, all of this stuff that we were going through that I was going through, it really brought the two of us closer. 00:55:28.559 --> 00:55:34.800 Yeah, um, one of the good things that happened through that is that our marriage really, really grew. 00:55:35.039 --> 00:55:39.039 Um, it was through the crucible of that we grew much closer. 00:55:39.199 --> 00:55:46.960 And I didn't want to jeopardize that by you know trying to love is love is for in suffering, right? 00:55:47.039 --> 00:55:55.679 Like so your

wife sees that you're going through this internal torment and she's I mean, man, you you really see the value of the sacrament of marriage. 00:55:55.760 --> 00:56:00.159 It's it's like you two really do build each other up and you and you lead each other towards heaven. 00:56:00.320 --> 00:56:05.199 So so now this is October you announced to to the congregation. 00:56:05.440 --> 00:56:13.199 Do you guys go through OCIA or do you like how how do you go about making the decision to become Catholic? 00:56:14.800 --> 00:56:29.199 We well, we're both uh voracious readers, and I had already been reading a lot, and she decided to um to kind of she decided to look into some of these things for herself. 00:56:29.360 --> 00:56:36.000 Um, and I think that one of the things, one of the reasons why I will give two reasons why she was willing to do that. 00:56:37.039 --> 00:56:55.440 The lesser reason is because she um she saw changes in me, and she couldn't give any other account for it other than the way that what I was reading and studying the spirituality that I was looking into was changing me. 00:56:55.679 --> 00:57:04.400 And so I think I think my life and how it changed me was the strongest apologetic that could have been offered to her, you know. 00:57:05.119 --> 00:57:06.719 Same thing for me and my and my wife. 00:57:07.119 --> 00:57:11.039 I imagine, especially after a difficult time like you were going through. 00:57:11.360 --> 00:57:12.400 Yeah, yeah. 00:57:12.559 --> 00:57:20.159 Well, yeah, with with the COVID thing, it's like one day in the spring of 2020 I got angry about stuff at church and I stayed angry for a year. 00:57:20.239 --> 00:57:21.199 It was exhausting. 00:57:21.519 --> 00:57:28.480 You know, there was always something, there was always a fight, there was always a conflict, and so that that was kind of how that went. 00:57:28.639 --> 00:57:29.760 And it was just, yeah. 00:57:29.840 --> 00:57:32.719 So yeah, that's what I the kind of thing I would do. 00:57:33.039 --> 00:57:43.119 But you know, a lot of the a lot of the sharp edges kind of got chiseled off during during that time and and smoothed out, and just in our relationship, too. 00:57:43.360 --> 00:57:44.800 And so that was one thing. 00:57:44.960 --> 00:57:51.199 I think that was one thing that made her willing to look into something that she didn't want to be interested in at all. 00:57:51.519 --> 00:58:05.360 You know, the other thing was by the time by the time her mother is in hospice care, I'm far enough in my thinking where you know, I'm becoming comfortable with different things. 00:58:05.599 --> 00:58:31.360 I've become convinced largely by Hebrews 12 and the comparison there of, you know, you've not come to a mountain flaming with fire, you know, Sinai, but you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, to the Father, to the angels, to the this, to the that, to the to the spirits of uh the righteous made perfect. 00:58:31.679 --> 00:58:46.000 And it's like, okay, so he's saying that by virtue of being in Christ and worship, we are in the presence of the Father and the Son, and the angels and the Old Testament saints and the New Testament saints, the spirits of the of the righteous made perfect. 00:58:46.320 --> 00:58:51.280 Yeah, he he writes that in in the present, but you are now you are now in it. 00:58:51.360 --> 00:58:54.800 He's not talking about some future event, he's writing it that you're in the present. 00:58:55.039 --> 00:59:02.239 Yeah, and really all of this stuff, you know, it it really was the case that I was going to have to be convinced by scripture. 00:59:02.320 --> 00:59:03.679 It's just how I was wired. 00:59:04.159 --> 00:59:11.599 And I just I began to get convinced of certain things, and I could become convinced of one thing and say, Well, I can be convinced of this. 00:59:12.159 --> 00:59:16.719 There's no way I'm gonna be Catholic, you know, but I'm convinced of at least this. 00:59:16.960 --> 00:59:20.639 And those things, you know, those dominoes gradually fell. 00:59:20.719 --> 00:59:30.800 And by the time her mother was in hospice care, um, and she didn't go into life, uh, end of life care right away. 00:59:31.199 --> 00:59:34.719 But I'm at this point, I'm seeing what it's doing to her. 00:59:34.800 --> 00:59:38.960 She's very faithful daughter, visiting her mom all the time, you know. 00:59:39.199 --> 00:59:44.960 And, you know, with dementia, you lose your your parent twice, kind of a thing. 00:59:45.119 --> 00:59:46.320 She's going through that. 00:59:46.559 --> 00:59:50.320 Yeah, you know, it's it's tearing me up to see her going through that. 00:59:50.480 --> 00:59:57.360 And I just started praying, Mary, please be a mother to my wife while she's losing her earthly mother. 01:00:00.079 --> 01:00:01.519 And I think she got involved. 01:00:02.719 --> 01:00:03.440 Beautiful prayer. 01:00:03.599 --> 01:00:03.840 Yeah. 01:00:03.920 --> 01:00:17.280 And and I think that um, yeah, and I'm starting to get broken up a little bit, but I think that was a big part of why she became willing to look at what I had been looking at. 01:00:17.679 --> 01:00:24.320 And it wasn't until, you know, again, after the announcement, because I really didn't understand where she was, she didn't tell me. 01:00:24.559 --> 01:00:26.239 I found out one time down the road. 01:00:26.320 --> 01:00:30.000 I said, We're talking, it's like, how are we even having this conversation? 01:00:30.079 --> 01:00:35.280 And she's like, Well, it's possible that I have my own stash of books that you just don't know about, you know. 01:00:35.599 --> 01:00:37.280 So she's reading stuff. 01:00:37.440 --> 01:00:40.159 I don't know what's even going on in real life. 01:00:40.480 --> 01:00:53.360 Um, but you know, when we really, really, really can finally talk openly about this after we know I have resigned, I've announced it anyway, and we start to have the question of what's next. 01:00:53.679 --> 01:01:00.079

It was kind of one of my great delights to find out that this was a a live possibility for her. 01:01:00.239 --> 01:01:01.840 Yeah, so we started talking about it. 01:01:01.920 --> 01:01:04.960 And I'm not gonna tell you that it was like boom, we're in. 01:01:05.280 --> 01:01:15.039 There were all kinds of, you know, honestly, even up to the weekend of Easter Vigil, we we had these check-in moments, you know, are we really doing this? 01:01:15.199 --> 01:01:19.840 Yeah, you know, and it's not not out of doubt, but it's just such a radical thing, you know. 01:01:20.159 --> 01:01:31.119 Um did did the um did the church scandals come into play at all for you, or are you just um yes and no? 01:01:31.519 --> 01:01:34.159 Um well, scandals. 01:01:34.320 --> 01:01:35.679 There's a lot I wasn't aware of. 01:01:35.840 --> 01:01:39.440 I just mean like all the because it's very contentious in the Catholic Church right now. 01:01:39.519 --> 01:01:44.719 You have Catholics criticizing the Pope, and you know, there's a lot of confusion coming out. 01:01:44.800 --> 01:01:52.639 So, like, did that did that have a factor in you like any of the resistance, or did you kind of just say, all right, well, all families are messy? 01:01:53.039 --> 01:02:09.840 Yeah, I mean it kind of like that, but you know, again, because when you study your way into the Catholic Church, some of that culture stuff that's going on, it's like I it's not that it doesn't matter, but it's not part of what's driving you to make a decision or come to a conclusion. 01:02:09.920 --> 01:02:24.559 So if you come to if you so here's me on the Pope, Isaiah 22, the steward, okay, Shevna, Eliakim, keys of the house of David, and all of that, the typology and the prefigurement of Jesus. 01:02:25.039 --> 01:02:25.760 Matthew 16. 01:02:26.079 --> 01:02:33.519 Yes, as soon as I see that and see those connections, because I've been into typology for years, long before I ever even looked at the Catholic. 01:02:33.760 --> 01:02:34.239 Oh, really? 01:02:34.400 --> 01:02:35.440 It's my jam, you know. 01:02:36.000 --> 01:02:37.280 Oh, I didn't know that. 01:02:37.360 --> 01:02:41.599 So that oh man, you you must have been in your wheelhouse once you started seeing all the connections. 01:02:41.840 --> 01:02:42.960 Oh, yeah, yeah, 100%. 01:02:43.360 --> 01:02:50.320 And it's like it's kind of like, you know, I've said before, because scripture was so central, it almost had to be that way. 01:02:50.400 --> 01:03:02.960 And it was when it all started going, and looking back on it, to me, it's kind of like, and this would be you know, Bergsma has a book called Stunned by Scripture, How the Bible Made Me Catholic. 01:03:03.280 --> 01:03:06.960 I totally get what he means by that title and subtitle. 01:03:07.280 --> 01:03:12.079 Now, I wasn't aware it was doing that to me for a long time, you know. 01:03:12.239 --> 01:03:19.760 Um, but seeing those things, seeing those connections and the richness of it, I was primed for that because that's the kind of thing I liked to do. 01:03:20.000 --> 01:03:26.000 My favorite things to do in sermons were to tie in old and new and show patterns and fulfillment. 01:03:26.079 --> 01:03:28.159 That's what I almost always tried to do. 01:03:28.320 --> 01:03:30.159 So I was just ready to see that. 01:03:30.400 --> 01:03:37.599 But but once you see that, and once you say, Okay, this is what Jesus is doing with Peter, that's an office being established. 01:03:37.760 --> 01:03:44.960 At that point, it doesn't matter whether there's problems with a particular Pope or not, it's just Jesus established the office. 01:03:45.840 --> 01:03:58.960 So many modern evangelicals are missing out on it's like they're missing out on so many prophecies that are fulfilled just by the pattern being fulfilled. 01:03:59.119 --> 01:04:02.079 Like the pattern is laid out in the old and then fulfilled in the new. 01:04:02.159 --> 01:04:04.639 They're missing out on the whole point of scripture. 01:04:04.800 --> 01:04:29.039 It's like it's really it's sad when they when you see I'm I'm definitely like talking very specifically about American evangelicalism, where they take five or six verses out of the epistles and form an entire theology on them and kind of like write off everything else and just kind of you know it's it's like it's like the things that are hard to understand, they'll go, Well, that's just difficult to understand. 01:04:29.119 --> 01:04:40.639 The things that are easy to understand are the things that you just know, and uh it's just they're missing out on on so much by not seeing the whole way God fills fulfills it throughout the entire story. 01:04:40.800 --> 01:04:44.559 So yeah, um, yeah, and and it's viewed as a stretch. 01:04:44.719 --> 01:04:50.719 If you see those patterns sometimes, it's like that's not a stretch, it's obvious, you know, that that's what's going on there. 01:04:50.960 --> 01:05:05.840 I had I would kind of half joke, half not joke that my hermeneutic for approaching scriptures and preaching was when Jesus says you search the scriptures because you think in them you have eternal life, but these are the scriptures that speak of me, and though. 01:05:05.920 --> 01:05:10.239 So to me, if you're in the old if Jesus is calling the Hebrew scriptures the scriptures there. 01:05:10.320 --> 01:05:17.599 So if you're in the old testament and you're not looking for how they point ahead to Jesus and the church and the new covenant, you're not doing it right. 01:05:17.840 --> 01:05:27.679 Can you imagine the conversation on the road to Emmaus of Christ talking to the apostles and just showing them all of the fulfillments from the old testament? 01:05:27.760 --> 01:05:30.400 Like their hearts must have been like ready to explode. 01:05:30.639 --> 01:05:46.639 It's one reason why I love the the Dewey Reams so much is that in the Old Testament, anytime they would use anointed or anointed one, Dewey Reams translates it as

Christ, so that you see the word Christ over and over and over in the Old Testament. 01:05:46.960 --> 01:05:48.400 That's pretty much yeah, I didn't know that. 01:05:48.480 --> 01:05:54.079 I've not read that version, so I'm I'm pretty much completely unfamiliar with that with that translation. 01:05:54.400 --> 01:06:04.400 Um, so now we saw the story um the other day that there were 17 Protestants that got got brought into the church just recently. 01:06:04.559 --> 01:06:06.880 Now, what role did you play in in their conversions? 01:06:06.960 --> 01:06:10.320 How did that how did that were these people that went to your congregation? 01:06:10.639 --> 01:06:13.840 Yeah, these were these are some of my closest friends. 01:06:14.079 --> 01:06:16.559 So our closest friends. 01:06:16.800 --> 01:06:21.119 Um, and they all had been at my previous church, yes. 01:06:21.440 --> 01:06:30.239 They so when we when I resigned, it was official the announcement anyway, and and we started having these conversations. 01:06:30.480 --> 01:06:34.880 We knew it didn't matter, it didn't matter where we decided to go. 01:06:35.039 --> 01:06:45.039 Um, I knew number one, I knew at least to start, we were not going to go anywhere in my hometown because we're both too, it's not like everybody knows us, but people know us here. 01:06:45.199 --> 01:06:53.039 Yeah, and I don't want to, I don't want to be a distraction, and I want to be able to just walk into a church and worship. 01:06:53.280 --> 01:06:56.880 And I also, I mean, I love the people at my former church. 01:06:57.119 --> 01:06:57.920 Well, I got news for you. 01:06:58.000 --> 01:07:02.480 You just came on the biggest Catholic show in the world, so you're gonna be recognized at church now. 01:07:02.559 --> 01:07:03.199 I got news for you. 01:07:03.360 --> 01:07:05.039 Oh, I didn't come on Keith's channel yet. 01:07:06.079 --> 01:07:07.280 I'll tell you right now. 01:07:09.599 --> 01:07:15.119 I very rarely get recognized at Mass, except for now the people that like I know because we're in the same parish together. 01:07:15.360 --> 01:07:16.320 You don't have to worry about that. 01:07:16.480 --> 01:07:17.599 You guys have taken off, really. 01:07:17.679 --> 01:07:20.320 It's it's it's been really fun to watch you guys grow the way you have. 01:07:20.400 --> 01:07:22.719 I think you had like 5,000 followers when I first found you. 01:07:22.800 --> 01:07:23.519 Maybe not easy. 01:07:24.079 --> 01:07:33.199 It is interesting to watch kind of how um like we're getting asked to go speak at things now, and I think people are starting to pay attention a little bit. 01:07:33.280 --> 01:07:36.400 It's like it there's yeah, I don't know. 01:07:36.480 --> 01:07:40.159 It's like the the it the the burden of that is also kind of weighing on me now. 01:07:40.239 --> 01:07:41.760 So I've been talking to Rob a little bit about it. 01:07:41.840 --> 01:07:45.599 It's like, yeah, when you're when you got 5,000 followers, you can kind of shoot off the mouth. 01:07:45.920 --> 01:07:47.119 You can say whatever you want. 01:07:47.440 --> 01:07:48.719 Now we're getting a little bit bigger. 01:07:48.800 --> 01:07:54.000 It's like I have to probably weigh what I'm saying a little bit, and yeah, you're totally restrained now. 01:07:54.159 --> 01:07:58.320 That's so um, okay. 01:07:58.400 --> 01:08:00.000 So now I forget what I was saying. 01:08:00.079 --> 01:08:00.880 What was I just talking about? 01:08:01.039 --> 01:08:03.599 Well, the 17 people you brought in everyone church. 01:08:03.840 --> 01:08:05.039 How does that okay? 01:08:05.199 --> 01:08:08.639 Well, are they do they see your conversion and then start asking you questions? 01:08:08.719 --> 01:08:10.159 How did how's that interaction? 01:08:10.480 --> 01:08:27.840 Yeah, so we my wife and I knew we one, even if we had determined for sure where are we going to go to church, we knew it would be out of town, and we we knew that it was not gonna be in the denomination that I had been a part of. 01:08:28.000 --> 01:08:31.119 Because if I show up there, everybody knows me too, and they're gonna want me to preach. 01:08:31.520 --> 01:08:32.399 And I don't want to. 01:08:32.479 --> 01:08:36.880 I want to be able to wake up on Sunday and just go to church and have no responsibilities. 01:08:37.119 --> 01:08:39.119 That's what I needed at that point. 01:08:39.359 --> 01:08:41.920 So we know we're gonna go out of town somewhere. 01:08:42.800 --> 01:08:43.840 Where are we gonna go? 01:08:44.000 --> 01:08:47.840 We're still are we on the same page, and so we just wouldn't talk about it. 01:08:48.000 --> 01:08:48.880 Excuse me. 01:08:49.119 --> 01:08:54.960 We got a few questions between October and the end of the year, and we didn't have a solid answer for sure. 01:08:55.039 --> 01:09:23.520 We had inclinations, but I don't think we had a solid answer, and so we would just say, We know it won't be in town, we don't want to cause a disturbance, and we really want to give our former church a cushion of time before they have to start dealing with hey, they're going to this church down the road or that church down the road because this is our former pastor who looked out for our souls for 10 years and how they're and it wasn't easy for any of us, it wasn't easy for any of us, and it was a really nice send-off. 01:09:23.600 --> 01:09:34.399 And I wanted to really kind of nurture those relationships and not cause undue strife or sorrow or hardship because it's not easy to look for a new pastor, no one wants to be in that situation. 01:09:34.560 --> 01:09:36.560 I mean, if you liked your pastor, I guess. 01:09:37.119 --> 01:09:42.079 But um, so I just wanted to kind of honor them in that way too. 01:09:42.239 --> 01:09:44.880 And so that that was kind of our mindset. 01:09:44.960 --> 01:09:51.600 But after the new year, by the time the new year comes around, and now it's we got to make a decision, what are we going to do? 01:09:51.680

--> 01:09:55.359 Because it's not like we're not going to go to church somewhere, yeah. 01:09:55.600 --> 01:09:58.159 And so we stuck with the out-of-town plan. 01:09:58.319 --> 01:10:08.560 We were driving about an hour and 20 minutes to go over to Cedar Rapids, um, the priest that I'd been introduced to years before. 01:10:08.880 --> 01:10:18.800 And we ended up splitting our time a little bit with another city, Des Moines, which was a little closer to us, um, and going different places there. 01:10:18.880 --> 01:10:23.920 But we did come to a point where we were really praying and talking and checking in with each other. 01:10:24.079 --> 01:10:30.720 Do we feel like we are free to even say what we're doing right now with when people ask us? 01:10:30.880 --> 01:10:47.279 Because and none of it is out of you know embarrassment or anything like that, but it's out of really wanting to continue to honor them and not cause, you know, divisions just not cause division and confusion and strife, and yeah, and just we didn't want to hurt anybody, you know, right? 01:10:47.680 --> 01:10:50.720 And um, but we felt like okay, you know, here's the thing. 01:10:50.880 --> 01:10:52.399 I guess our fleece was this. 01:10:52.640 --> 01:11:06.479 If someone asks us, because now we'd gone through a time where nobody was asking us for a while, and I don't know exactly why, but it was fine, it was actually good for us um to have that that time of not having to answer that question. 01:11:06.720 --> 01:11:17.600 But after the new year, shortly after the new year, I think we decided, okay, we feel like we feel like God is telling us it's okay now, but we weren't gonna be out all, hey everybody, guess what? 01:11:17.840 --> 01:11:20.079 Because that's gonna cause trouble. 01:11:20.319 --> 01:11:23.920 And so uh when you're such a Midwesterner, it's so funny. 01:11:24.159 --> 01:11:26.800 I know 100%, 100%. 01:11:27.199 --> 01:11:30.880 I guess you know, it's yeah, it's so weird. 01:11:31.039 --> 01:11:32.479 Um, I mean, I think it's good. 01:11:32.560 --> 01:11:34.000 I I know what our intentions were. 01:11:34.079 --> 01:11:38.720 You know, I've said, is there is are there things that we could have done better? 01:11:38.880 --> 01:11:43.920 The answer is yes, it has to be yes, but is there anything I would have done differently? 01:11:44.239 --> 01:11:47.119 I'm not sure there was because I know what my motives were. 01:11:47.359 --> 01:11:52.479 My motives were to not hurt people that I had been caring for for 15 years. 01:11:53.039 --> 01:11:58.000 But when questions started coming, we decided we would go ahead and answer. 01:11:58.159 --> 01:12:06.319 And you weren't a gaslight, so so you won't lie if somebody asks you, but you're not gonna go out of your way to cause any garbage by doing it on your own. 01:12:06.560 --> 01:12:08.479 Yeah, we didn't want to make a big thing out of it. 01:12:08.560 --> 01:12:17.119 We wanted to just quietly go the route we wanted to go and not cause a bunch of trouble for people, and certainly not for our the my former church. 01:12:17.359 --> 01:12:24.880 So when friends would ask, we would tell them, and you know, objections, questions, what about, what about, what about? 01:12:24.960 --> 01:12:27.600 And some of the conversations were not pleasant. 01:12:27.760 --> 01:12:32.399 Um, there were some, I'm not sure I had many that were that way. 01:12:33.039 --> 01:12:34.319 I know she did. 01:12:34.800 --> 01:12:48.399 Um I don't know, maybe I've blocked that or something, but but you know, there were questions, there were objections, but we gave our reasons, and you know, people would process it in different ways. 01:12:48.880 --> 01:12:56.319 And in every case, well, as as they started to look through it, with I'm talking about these 17 now. 01:12:56.479 --> 01:13:02.640 Um, which in the 17, by the way, it's really four couples and a bunch of kids, is who that is. 01:13:03.039 --> 01:13:15.760 So um they would process our answers, they'd look at different stuff, they might come back with more objections and that, but over time we just kind of said, Look, this is this is the thing. 01:13:15.920 --> 01:13:18.399 We'll talk to you guys about anything you want to know. 01:13:18.720 --> 01:13:23.920 We weren't actively trying to, you know, hey, you got to evangelize them and bring them into the church. 01:13:24.159 --> 01:13:28.560 No, because I didn't Midwestern, I didn't want to hurt the church. 01:13:28.640 --> 01:13:30.479 That's not what I wanted to do. 01:13:30.800 --> 01:13:53.520 But the thing is, the Holy Spirit moved, you know, and um and and honestly, lest it seem as though you know it's it's all about how persuasive we were, I think in every case there was already there were already things going on, just as there were in our story, there was already groundwork being laid in different ways for all of these different couples. 01:13:53.840 --> 01:14:10.000 We only learned that as we talked a little bit more, but in the end, um we kind of saw that there was an interest, at least there was a there was a softening of the view toward, and no one was really an anti-I don't think anybody was super anti-Catholic. 01:14:10.159 --> 01:14:14.079 In fact, I know they weren't, and I wasn't that kind of because that's not that's not always the case, right? 01:14:14.159 --> 01:14:20.880 So they didn't have they didn't have a ton of bias against Catholics to start off then, and I wasn't that kind of a pastor either. 01:14:21.119 --> 01:14:28.399 By the time I became a pastor, I was out of my cage stage, you know, and and I was out of my anti, I wasn't really an anti-Catholic. 01:14:28.720 --> 01:14:33.680 I I had them, but I wasn't anymore, so that's not what they got from me from the pulpit. 01:14:33.920 --> 01:14:42.399 So, you know, we we had our conversations, we kind of thought it was possible, but there were things going on in their lives that we didn't even really know

about. 01:14:42.479 --> 01:15:08.319 Uh and individually, this couple had this thing going on, this couple had that thing going on, and it was it was around Easter this year that all of a sudden dominoes just started falling, and um yeah, so they not all at the same time, but they all made the same decision, um, independently of of one another, but all kind of right around the same time, too. 01:15:08.560 --> 01:15:15.279 Um, with yeah, one one couple maybe a little bit later, but they all started OCIA at the same time. 01:15:15.359 --> 01:15:21.199 They all ended up uh leaving my old church, coming to the Catholic church in my hometown. 01:15:21.279 --> 01:15:25.520 And when that happened, when that went down, that's when we decided we would start then. 01:15:25.600 --> 01:15:27.520 You felt comfortable going to one of your hometown. 01:15:28.319 --> 01:15:29.600 Cats out of the bag, yeah. 01:15:30.239 --> 01:15:31.840 What now at this point it doesn't matter? 01:15:32.079 --> 01:15:32.479 Not just that. 01:15:32.560 --> 01:15:41.119 Have have you guys struck up a spiritual kinship with these with these other families now that you guys have because look, you guys are in the midwest, not that many Catholics everywhere, right? 01:15:41.199 --> 01:15:44.479 It's a small, small town, it's probably mainly Protestant. 01:15:45.199 --> 01:15:47.199 Oh, yeah, it's it's mainly Protestant. 01:15:47.359 --> 01:15:50.479 Um, I mean, we were already really, really, really good friends anyway. 01:15:50.640 --> 01:15:54.159 This has only added you know a layer to that. 01:15:54.239 --> 01:16:02.159 It it's a great layer, but yeah, we've got we have we just have another thing in common right now, which is it's a phenomenal thing to have in common. 01:16:02.720 --> 01:16:16.079 But so they went through OCIA together, and so we sponsored um I sponsored two of the men and two children, so four total. 01:16:16.319 --> 01:16:24.800 She sponsored two of the women and and one child, and then others like so 17 people. 01:16:25.119 --> 01:16:31.680 That number is there was one child who was a little too young to be confirmed, but he came into the church with his parents. 01:16:31.920 --> 01:16:33.600 So I'm counting he's number 17. 01:16:33.680 --> 01:16:44.159 But two of the men who were standing behind, if you've seen that video that got posted on X, two of them that are standing behind as sponsors, they actually reverted in this process. 01:16:44.239 --> 01:16:47.520 Oh, they were clear Catholics and they and they reverted. 01:16:47.840 --> 01:16:48.880 So the number is actually 19. 01:16:49.119 --> 01:16:49.439 19. 01:16:49.760 --> 01:16:53.760 Um, yeah, so but they reverted and then they sponsored their wives, which is really cool. 01:16:54.000 --> 01:16:58.079 And you know, and there were a few other sponsors um mixed in their family members and stuff. 01:16:58.159 --> 01:17:02.319 But yeah, it is it is amazing when you when you see how God's grace works, man. 01:17:02.399 --> 01:17:08.560 Like it's like especially if you're caught up in the tedious politics of like what's happening in the church and stuff. 01:17:08.800 --> 01:17:21.279 But when it comes down to it, like you fall in love with the Catholic faith, God just captures your heart, and you just need the sacraments, and it he just draws people to him constantly, regardless of what we think is happening all around us. 01:17:21.439 --> 01:17:26.800 It's like God is God's spirit really is always moving and and pulling people towards his church. 01:17:27.119 --> 01:17:29.119 Yeah, yeah, that was our experience. 01:17:29.359 --> 01:17:37.600 We we we weren't looking for this, but uh troublemakers like you guys probably have um how how old are your children, Aaron? 01:17:38.399 --> 01:17:44.239 Uh I have six, and my oldest is almost 29, and my youngest is 17. 01:17:44.560 --> 01:17:49.359 Okay, so now they're all adults at this point, so they you can't like drag them in. 01:17:49.520 --> 01:17:51.279 So have you spoken to them about this? 01:17:51.600 --> 01:17:53.439 Because this is a pretty rapid thing that happened. 01:17:53.520 --> 01:17:58.479 I mean, yeah, you were a year and a half ago, you were a Protestant pastor, and now you and your wife come into the church. 01:17:58.800 --> 01:18:01.039 How have the conversations with your kids been going? 01:18:01.520 --> 01:18:04.000 You know, uh, for the most part, good. 01:18:04.319 --> 01:18:15.359 Um it hasn't been all smooth, but the by the time you know, in in all of this, three three of them aren't even at home anymore, they're off in their own careers. 01:18:15.760 --> 01:18:20.960 And the three that are home, um different circumstances, but they're all working. 01:18:21.119 --> 01:18:22.640 My youngest is in school. 01:18:22.800 --> 01:18:27.439 Still, even though he's technically a minor, we couldn't just say, here's the deal, this is what you're doing. 01:18:28.000 --> 01:18:29.840 But the youngest two came with us. 01:18:30.399 --> 01:18:32.960 Oh wow, we gave them the we talked about it. 01:18:33.199 --> 01:18:35.039 Here's what we're doing, and here's why. 01:18:35.119 --> 01:18:37.439 And yeah, it's weird when you're a Protestant doing this. 01:18:37.520 --> 01:18:41.840 It's even weirder when you're a Protestant pastor, or you were anyway, and you're doing this. 01:18:42.159 --> 01:18:47.199 But we just talked about it, and the youngest two came in with us at Easter at the Easter Vigil. 01:18:47.680 --> 01:18:51.840 Um, the other of the other four, you know, they're at different places. 01:18:52.560 --> 01:18:53.600 Yeah, they're just adults. 01:18:53.840 --> 01:18:55.039 Yeah, they're just different places. 01:18:55.119 --> 01:19:01.920 Although my oldest, I I I I actually talked to him and I got his, I asked him, I thought something like this might come up. 01:19:02.000 --> 01:19:04.800 If it does, and he said, Yeah, I don't care, it's fine. 01:19:04.880 --> 01:19:05.680 You can you

can say it. 01:19:05.760 --> 01:19:10.720 So my oldest is gonna start OCIA at Oh my goodness, that's amazing. 01:19:11.119 --> 01:19:18.000 Where he is, um, he lives in a different city, and he's he's going to a parish over there, and he's gonna start there. 01:19:18.239 --> 01:19:26.239 And I also have permission to say that Cammy's brother and his wife have just started OCI and she's reverting. 01:19:26.560 --> 01:19:32.239 And so there's there's a lot going on, and there's still other conversations I've had too. 01:19:32.399 --> 01:19:36.079 So Aaron, you uh you uh you are going to all right. 01:19:36.159 --> 01:19:47.439 So now the thing I would I do want to talk to you about is the that instinct to like kind of stay out of the spotlight um when you like when you first left that that that church and like kind of like go away. 01:19:47.680 --> 01:19:52.960 Like because basically you go from being a professional Christian, like a as a pastor, right? 01:19:53.039 --> 01:19:54.560 You're a professional Christian. 01:19:54.800 --> 01:20:02.399 So I think like most pastors that become Catholic have to then face the the the question, do I want to be a professional Catholic? 01:20:02.560 --> 01:20:11.920 That that could mean being an author or preaching or just teaching a Catholic because the the desire is there for every Protestant who converts, like their heart's on fire. 01:20:12.000 --> 01:20:16.239 You're like, you know, you could do the preaching thing, you know you're pretty good, you might be a good writer. 01:20:16.319 --> 01:20:19.680 So you do have to wrestle with do you want to become a professional Catholic? 01:20:19.840 --> 01:20:21.279 I mean, Keith Nestor did it. 01:20:21.359 --> 01:20:32.319 I I've heard like because I used to watch The Journey Home every week when Marcus Grode was doing it, and it's like you see all these Protestant pastors then come in and just choose to be a professional Catholic at that point. 01:20:32.399 --> 01:20:34.159 Like, have you wrestled with that idea at all? 01:20:34.319 --> 01:20:35.680 Like, what are you doing for work now? 01:20:35.760 --> 01:20:37.119 What you what's your plan? 01:20:38.640 --> 01:20:43.119 Yeah, um, I I did wrestle with it for work, nothing currently. 01:20:43.199 --> 01:20:54.720 We knew that I wanted to take we both wanted me to take three months and do nothing and just breathe again, you know, and and just kind of be a couple again and try to come out of the turmoil together. 01:20:55.039 --> 01:20:56.239 And that was good. 01:20:56.479 --> 01:21:01.199 Um, but three months became six months, and I started getting really antsy in there. 01:21:01.359 --> 01:21:03.359 And and I looked at different things. 01:21:03.439 --> 01:21:07.439 I'd done a couple of interviews, I really started getting like, I gotta get something. 01:21:07.520 --> 01:21:08.399 This is just not right. 01:21:08.479 --> 01:21:09.760 I need to, I need to do something. 01:21:09.920 --> 01:21:14.720 And we, you know, we're we're living on savings, there's only money going out right now. 01:21:14.960 --> 01:21:18.560 But again, Midwest cost of living isn't that high here. 01:21:19.039 --> 01:21:22.399 We you know, we're okay for a while, you know. 01:21:22.560 --> 01:21:31.039 This is a decision we made that we didn't plan on depleting savings, but it's a decision we made that we're willing to if waiting on the Lord means that's what we're gonna do. 01:21:31.199 --> 01:21:32.960 So that's what I've been doing. 01:21:33.119 --> 01:21:37.600 And early on, you know, because I know all the things you're saying, I'm aware of that. 01:21:37.680 --> 01:21:44.399 And to some degree, yeah, there's the draw of you know, who will want to talk to me? 01:21:44.560 --> 01:22:05.760 You know, I wanted to, but no, but but this this is early on, and I detected this in myself, and I was like, no, no, that is not why that is not at all the thing, and so I remember look that it is a lucrative thing to go from being a Protestant to a Catholic if then you get into Catholic media of some kind. 01:22:05.920 --> 01:22:08.319 So yeah, well, temptations there. 01:22:08.399 --> 01:22:10.399 Um I and I wouldn't blame you for doing it. 01:22:10.479 --> 01:22:16.399 I I most of most of the Catholic apologists you see are converts, yeah. 01:22:16.560 --> 01:22:26.239 And it's because they had that that deep love for Christ, they have a deep love for scripture, and then when the when the pieces connect, it's like they just have to tell everybody about it because they're on fire. 01:22:26.319 --> 01:22:28.720 It's I mean, it really is like a Pentecost that happens to them. 01:22:28.800 --> 01:22:37.520 So the dangerous thing about that is that if that's what you want before you're Catholic, then you run the risk of becoming Catholic for the wrong reasons. 01:22:37.600 --> 01:22:38.079 Yeah, yeah. 01:22:38.479 --> 01:22:42.479 I didn't I didn't become Catholic for a vocation, for for work, you know. 01:22:42.880 --> 01:22:46.000 Um, so that that's a thing to be aware of. 01:22:46.079 --> 01:22:51.600 And and I became I became aware that I was started, I my mind started going in that direction. 01:22:51.680 --> 01:22:54.399 I just stopped, and I I remember praying to the Lord. 01:22:54.560 --> 01:23:01.840 I was getting ready one day for whatever, getting ready for the day, and I remember just praying, God, I am ready to be nobody. 01:23:02.000 --> 01:23:09.439 Yeah, you know, you lead me in the way I need to go, but I'm fine being nobody, I'm fine not being important, you know. 01:23:09.600 --> 01:23:14.159 And because when you're a pastor, it's not like it's a prideful thing, but you're important in a lot of ways. 01:23:14.319 --> 01:23:16.239 But those ways were exhausting me. 01:23:16.720 --> 01:23:22.000 And and so I was fine not being that anymore, but I knew I wanted time, you know. 01:23:22.239 --> 01:23:30.880 Rob, you've posted things before, and you're right, you know, where

someone will say something and given their whole big diatribe, and you'll be like, You've been Catholic for six and a half minutes, you know. 01:23:30.960 --> 01:23:33.840 Maybe just take a back seat for a little bit. 01:23:34.000 --> 01:23:35.680 Yeah, I'll definitely so true though. 01:23:36.079 --> 01:23:42.720 Yeah, I'll definitely say, like, stay out of church politics, like stay out of liturgical debates when you first come into church, just be Catholic. 01:23:42.800 --> 01:24:03.199 Yeah, just like just soak in being Catholic, learn the culture, like because there's something so beautiful about being Catholic, and you and you need to experience it for a period of time before you because there's look there, you definitely have an in-depth understanding of scripture and typology that you can share with people. 01:24:03.359 --> 01:24:06.159 So there there is a value in that. 01:24:06.399 --> 01:24:09.840 But like you said, like I think I think it's good for a convert to come. 01:24:10.000 --> 01:24:16.239 I'm not telling you what to do, but I do think it's good for a convert to come in and just like be Catholic for a little bit and like experience it. 01:24:16.319 --> 01:24:18.640 And that that's why Keith wrote that book, right? 01:24:18.800 --> 01:24:22.960 He wrote the the the book on like like uh the like Catholic, what was the book he wrote? 01:24:23.119 --> 01:24:25.600 Um, like like once we become Catholic now, what? 01:24:25.680 --> 01:24:26.960 Yeah, convert God, right? 01:24:27.039 --> 01:24:30.560 Like because it is kind of weird when you come in, it's like bizarre. 01:24:30.640 --> 01:24:33.600 We got like you know, feast days and we got like devotionals. 01:24:34.079 --> 01:24:39.439 Well, have uh have you and your wife uh fallen in love with a particular saint yet, or have you haven't gotten that deep yet? 01:24:39.600 --> 01:24:42.479 Have you gotten into the Pokemon cards of Catholicism yet? 01:24:44.239 --> 01:24:46.560 I hate it that I know what you're talking about there. 01:24:47.119 --> 01:24:49.039 You are far you are online way too much. 01:24:49.279 --> 01:24:51.600 Well, except is he talking about Fuentes or Carlos? 01:24:52.159 --> 01:24:52.399 Yeah, yeah. 01:24:52.479 --> 01:24:55.600 Fuentes called devotionals, like a Pokemon card. 01:24:56.319 --> 01:24:59.199 Um, you know, it is it's it's a lot. 01:24:59.439 --> 01:25:03.520 My goodness, it's a lot, and it it's it can be overwhelming. 01:25:03.760 --> 01:25:16.000 Um, yes, there are saints that have been particularly their stories have been particularly meaningful, and um, you know, her my wife's confirmation saint was Saint Monica. 01:25:16.319 --> 01:25:24.239 Um, and you know, praying for her son, and you know, her heart for child, her heart for our children, her heart for other people's children. 01:25:24.479 --> 01:25:26.560 Saint Francis de Sales was mine. 01:25:26.720 --> 01:25:31.680 Um the the only saint that's absolutely necessary for a Catholic is Our

Lady, right? 01:25:31.840 --> 01:25:34.000 Like she is absolutely necessary. 01:25:34.159 --> 01:25:36.479 Like you you need to have a relationship with Our Lady. 01:25:36.560 --> 01:25:41.439 I'm not saying like I don't care if it's in doctrine or whatever, I'm not gonna argue with Jimmy Aiken's position. 01:25:41.520 --> 01:25:50.800 I'm telling you, if you are a Catholic, you need to have a deep relationship with Our Lady because she will save you at the most difficult periods of your life. 01:25:51.039 --> 01:25:54.000 Like she will be there to save you in those periods. 01:25:54.159 --> 01:26:06.079 So even if you don't go that deep into different saints and stuff, just I would, I would, I would say, especially as an early uh new Catholic, just develop that devotion to Our Lady and she'll lead you where where she's going to lead you. 01:26:06.239 --> 01:26:13.439 But like we did uh we did a show on um uh on the um uh what the heck did we do it the other day with Ryan Grant? 01:26:13.760 --> 01:26:15.600 Um Lopanto. 01:26:16.000 --> 01:26:17.840 Lopanto and I learned about St. 01:26:18.000 --> 01:26:18.560 Pius, St. 01:26:18.640 --> 01:26:21.199 Pope Pius V, and I never really read about St. 01:26:21.279 --> 01:26:28.800 Pope Pius V, but like I fell in love with him when I started like he was so courageous and brave, and that's kind of how you come across the saints. 01:26:28.880 --> 01:26:31.520 It's like you don't have to force them down your throat, like something will happen. 01:26:31.600 --> 01:26:42.399 Um it'll be like a saint's feast day, and you'll go, oh let me let me read into that scene a little bit, and you'll just develop a kinship with them and you'll you'll ask for their intercession here and there, you know, and then all of a sudden you fall in love with them. 01:26:42.479 --> 01:26:58.720 And that's I I think it's such an important part of being Catholic is that God wants us to love our older siblings, He wants us to really understand that we are the communion of saints, so He will grant you little favors when you when you fall in love with an older sibling to let you know that that connection is very real. 01:26:58.880 --> 01:27:06.000 Like my my mom has such a deep connection to um Saint Saint Teresa the uh the little flower Therese. 01:27:06.239 --> 01:27:08.399 Um, yeah, Saint Therese the Little Flower. 01:27:08.479 --> 01:27:14.399 And whenever my mom prays a novena to her, she gets roses at the end of the novena, like every time. 01:27:14.640 --> 01:27:17.680 So, I mean, I I know people that have done that and they don't get roses. 01:27:17.760 --> 01:27:22.479 My mom gets roses every time, so it's just something that'll kind of naturally happen, I think. 01:27:22.560 --> 01:27:25.680 But yeah, 1800 flowers must love your mom. 01:27:28.159 --> 01:27:36.159 Yeah, when you study your way in, you know, it's one that you can come in and know a lot of doctrines and know a lot of arguments and stuff like that. 01:27:36.399 --> 01:27:41.039 But boy, there's a culture that is just it's a different language, it's a different culture. 01:27:41.199 --> 01:27:46.880 It's like being uprooted in a different continent, in a you know, with different customs and different ways of doing things. 01:27:47.039 --> 01:27:49.920 So it takes time and it and it it's it's a process. 01:27:50.079 --> 01:27:51.680 You're absolutely right about that. 01:27:51.920 --> 01:27:55.680 There are some things, maybe in the hopper for me. 01:27:55.920 --> 01:28:02.079 Um some different through different conversations I had with different people. 01:28:02.319 --> 01:28:05.840 Um I started getting the idea for a book and I set it aside. 01:28:05.920 --> 01:28:09.199 I kept pushing it back because I feel like I need to stay in my lane. 01:28:09.359 --> 01:28:17.039 I'm not, you know, on some degree, I have some expertise in what I once what I was as a pastor. 01:28:17.439 --> 01:28:19.600 I don't have expertise in Catholic theology. 01:28:19.680 --> 01:28:20.319 I just don't. 01:28:20.479 --> 01:28:25.439 I read a lot of stuff, maybe I know a lot of stuff, but that doesn't make me an expert. 01:28:25.680 --> 01:28:39.760 And but the direction that it was going was people wanting to be able to have conversations with Protestant friends and family the way that I sometimes do, you know, and some of the what about these connections? 01:28:39.920 --> 01:28:40.399 Which ones? 01:28:40.479 --> 01:28:43.439 What's what is it again for Matthew 16? 01:28:43.600 --> 01:28:44.560 What's that? 01:28:44.880 --> 01:28:48.079 And so I thought, well, that I can do, I can think like a Protestant. 01:28:48.159 --> 01:28:54.560 I know how Protestants think, and I know what tends to be persuasive from the scriptures, not for everybody, it's not a silver bullet, right? 01:28:54.960 --> 01:28:57.520 The Holy Spirit has to be at work for sure. 01:28:57.840 --> 01:29:04.479 But so I started working on, I'll just call it a manuscript because it feels presumptuous to call it a book. 01:29:04.800 --> 01:29:06.079 But I have it almost done. 01:29:06.159 --> 01:29:09.439 I've had a bunch of people read it, it's been really good feedback. 01:29:09.600 --> 01:29:15.359 The last one I need to hear from is a priest who's my spiritual director, and um, I meet with him next week. 01:29:15.439 --> 01:29:20.800 And if he gives me the doctrinal green light, then I may, then I guess I have to make a decision. 01:29:21.439 --> 01:29:22.960 Do I want to try to self-publish? 01:29:23.279 --> 01:29:26.319 If you are going to put a book out, you let us know. 01:29:26.479 --> 01:29:29.600 You will come on, we will help promote that book, we will help you sell it. 01:29:29.760 --> 01:29:34.880 Like, especially because you're in this interim where you don't know what you're doing with your career and you're not working right now. 01:29:34.960 --> 01:29:37.760 Like, we we're going to be there to assist you. 01:29:37.920 --> 01:29:48.319 Like, all

your we're gonna we're gonna be a family to to our brother, and we will if you if you need us to set like we'll talk privately, but if you need me to set something up to help you guys get through until you figure things out, we'll we'll help you. 01:29:48.479 --> 01:29:51.439 Well, that didn't like I have the email for the president of Tan. 01:29:51.760 --> 01:29:58.319 If you that's the thing, you're you're in a very fortunate position where you do know like a lot of professional Catholics who know a lot of people. 01:29:58.720 --> 01:29:59.760 Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. 01:30:00.159 --> 01:30:01.600 Keith is the professional, not us. 01:30:01.840 --> 01:30:02.239 Yeah, yeah. 01:30:02.319 --> 01:30:04.000 I'm not I'm not talking about us. 01:30:04.239 --> 01:30:05.520 I'm talking about Keith. 01:30:06.239 --> 01:30:07.760 Like, I'm I like all right. 01:30:07.840 --> 01:30:09.520 We do have to get off because we have another show. 01:30:09.600 --> 01:30:10.479 We're go we're all right. 01:30:10.560 --> 01:30:14.960 So Rob and I are going to be on the rundown in about 15 minutes. 01:30:15.039 --> 01:30:22.640 Um, I told him we'd be there at 9:45, so we do have to wrap this up, but man, I can start jumping into like Catholicism now, right? 01:30:22.720 --> 01:30:26.079 Now so Aaron, maybe we'll get you back on post-conversion. 01:30:26.159 --> 01:30:28.880 We won't talk about your conversion, we'll just talk about Catholicism. 01:30:29.199 --> 01:30:30.720 And maybe we'll do maybe we'll get Keith on too. 01:30:30.800 --> 01:30:31.760 We'll talk the three of us, yeah. 01:30:32.079 --> 01:30:36.640 The four of us will get on, and we'll just have we'll have a conversation with the four of us and we'll just talk about Catholicism. 01:30:37.359 --> 01:30:38.720 Is there anything you have to promote? 01:30:38.800 --> 01:30:43.439 And if not, is there any prayer requests you'd like everyone to pray for? 01:30:44.159 --> 01:30:46.399 You know, um prayer. 01:30:46.800 --> 01:30:52.640 Let me start with a prayer request briefly, uh a big verse for you know, here's my Protestant thing. 01:30:52.720 --> 01:31:01.920 You know, you have a verse that's uh that's a big deal, and you kind of go back to Exodus 14, 14, the Lord will fight for you, you need only be still, you know, when Israel's at the Red Sea. 01:31:02.159 --> 01:31:05.840 Huge verse in our story, in the whole process of our story. 01:31:06.159 --> 01:31:19.199 When I was feeling antsy about work, uh I prayed, Lord, I need you to if if the silence in the waiting is the answer and I just need to go do something, then I'm dumb enough that you need to tell me that. 01:31:19.359 --> 01:31:23.199 I need to know if I'm just supposed to go do something or if I'm still supposed to wait. 01:31:23.920 --> 01:31:26.159 I don't look at the mass readings beforehand. 01:31:26.239 --> 01:31:32.159 We went to daily mass the next morning, and the reading is from the first reading is from Exodus 14. 01:31:32.720 --> 01:31:35.359 And I I look over at her does that, right? 01:31:35.600 --> 01:31:40.000 Yeah, and it's like, and yeah, it culminates, it goes one verse past that, but yeah, right up to that. 01:31:40.239 --> 01:31:42.640 The Lord will fight for you, you need only be still. 01:31:42.880 --> 01:31:49.439 So just the prayer is I we are 100% confident that that's what God is doing right now. 01:31:49.680 --> 01:31:54.880 He has us waiting, he gives us something to do, and he gives us just enough to say, here's the next thing. 01:31:55.199 --> 01:31:59.359 But we don't see a lot further than that, and that's part of the training that he's giving us, I think. 01:31:59.520 --> 01:32:08.079 And so just to just honestly just pray that we will continue to discern, you know, to discern his will and not try to run ahead of what he wants to do. 01:32:08.159 --> 01:32:11.760 Because that's my I'm very a-type, she's very a-type. 01:32:11.840 --> 01:32:16.960 We want to take control and take charge and do things, and that's just not what we're supposed to do right now. 01:32:17.039 --> 01:32:21.439 And uh yeah, trusting in God's providence is one of the hardest parts of being a Catholic. 01:32:21.680 --> 01:32:30.880 Like you just kind of have to accept his will and trust that he has your your your your your holy like your your sanctification in mind when when he's doing things. 01:32:31.039 --> 01:32:39.840 So um one the other thing to answer the part of your question, I did start a sub stack which gradually will tell some of this story in different ways. 01:32:39.920 --> 01:32:45.359 It's just my name or the the at is Aaron Gorn or my is it linked to your Twitter? 01:32:47.039 --> 01:32:48.159 You know, I don't know. 01:32:48.239 --> 01:32:48.720 I don't remember. 01:32:48.800 --> 01:32:49.119 I don't know. 01:32:50.159 --> 01:32:54.239 Put your sub stack in your Twitter handle and I'll I'll retweet that. 01:32:54.319 --> 01:32:55.600 And you have a link to it, bro. 01:32:55.840 --> 01:32:57.680 I have the link to no, that's right. 01:32:57.760 --> 01:32:58.800 I I did not do that. 01:32:58.880 --> 01:33:02.720 I know I know that I need to do that, but I come on, I gotta teach you guys how to do social media. 01:33:02.800 --> 01:33:05.600 You guys have got I don't know anything. 01:33:06.159 --> 01:33:11.920 We'll talk, we'll talk off air, but I will help you with anything that I can if you're gonna start doing anything like this. 01:33:12.079 --> 01:33:15.199 So, guys, go subscribe to Aaron's Substack. 01:33:15.439 --> 01:33:18.880 Um, uh we may we me and Rob will talk off air. 01:33:18.960 --> 01:33:25.439 We may put a little something together for Aaron to help him get through through this little interregnum period while while he's up in the air about where he's going. 01:33:25.520 --> 01:33:31.119 But Aaron, we we uh I've enjoyed my interactions with you for two years now. 01:33:31.279 --> 01:33:35.520 Like, genuinely, we you and I are friends, like we've changed mutual, it's very mutual. 01:33:35.760 --> 01:33:40.880 We exchanged numbers well, way before you became Catholic, and we've we've you sent me a DVD. 01:33:41.439 --> 01:33:42.079 Yes. 01:33:43.600 --> 01:33:45.439 Why did you play Catholic trivia? 01:33:45.600 --> 01:33:50.079 Well, I did and I sucked at it, but but you still said you still gave me the prize anyway. 01:33:50.159 --> 01:33:51.600 It was funny. 01:33:55.680 --> 01:33:56.399 Well, no, no, no, no. 01:33:56.479 --> 01:33:59.119 I don't think it was when you happened to bring one back, you know. 01:33:59.359 --> 01:34:01.119 Oh still a long time ago. 01:34:01.279 --> 01:34:07.760 It was still a long time ago, but you yeah, you said, Well, I want to send Aaron this DVD, so that that it goes back to at least that point. 01:34:08.079 --> 01:34:11.279 Um, Keith, if you're open to that, I would maybe we'll get the four of us together. 01:34:11.359 --> 01:34:14.560 And I said three because there's three people on screen and my tire, guys. 01:34:14.880 --> 01:34:15.760 No, he was excluding me. 01:34:16.159 --> 01:34:16.640 Wasn't excluding. 01:34:20.560 --> 01:34:30.079 We'll we'll we'll we'll now that we're past the conversion story, I'd like to get both of you on and we'll just talk about what what it's like to be Catholic, and you know, we'll we'll have a fun episode. 01:34:30.159 --> 01:34:32.159 So um, all right, guys, we're gonna fly. 01:34:32.239 --> 01:34:34.399 Go subscribe to Aaron Substack. 01:34:34.479 --> 01:34:40.399 Yep, and anybody that wants to continue the conversation with Rob and I, we're going over to live chat. 01:34:40.640 --> 01:34:41.520 Rob put the link up. 01:34:41.680 --> 01:34:42.640 Thank you so much, Aaron. 01:34:43.119 --> 01:34:45.439 Yeah, thank you so much for coming on with us tonight. 01:34:45.520 --> 01:34:49.439 I would I'm I'm sorry we left because I would have I I could have talked to you for another hour and a half. 01:34:49.680 --> 01:34:50.079 It's all right. 01:34:50.319 --> 01:34:50.880 It's all right. 01:34:51.039 --> 01:34:52.640 Um, yeah, we'll set up another show. 01:34:52.800 --> 01:34:53.920 Aaron, welcome home. 01:34:54.079 --> 01:35:01.439 I know that's the cliche thing to say, but you are now part of the most dysfunctional family in history, and we are glad to have you as a brother. 01:35:01.680 --> 01:35:03.199 Uh the feeling is mutual. 01:35:03.359 --> 01:35:03.760 Love you guys. 01:35:04.079 --> 01:35:04.720 Love you too, man. 01:35:04.960 --> 01:35:06.000 All right, take us out, Rob. 01:35:06.319 --> 01:35:06.800 See ya.