Journey Home

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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