Catholic Beginnings
I grew up in the Catholic Church. I was baptized at St. Odilo Parish in Berwyn. I made Communion at 7 years old in the Parish of Our Lady of the Mount in Cicero. I even lied in a Catholic run group home at Maryville Academy. Then I mad the decision as an adult to be a confirmed Catholic. I was confirmed at Cathedral of the Holy Name in Chicago. I also attend DePaul University in Chicago
However, even after being Confirmed I fell away from the Church because of questioning basic tenets of the teachings and the priest sex abuse scandal.
The Missing Center
I went for 3 years without attending any church and studying the bible on my own. A year into this self-study I decided that something was missing. I began searching for a new religious com minty. I researched the Baptists and the Methodists. I did not decide until after the 2004 election which to join. I chose the Baptist denomination.
I have given credit for my decision to convert to Baptist to my role model Sen. Lindsey Graham. However, giving him full credit is overstating a fact. He did influence me to return to church, but it didn’t have to be the Baptist Church. I had been influenced by a simple statement that he made during the campaign in response to a question about a photo of then Sen. Edwards and VP Cheney at a prayer breakfast. His only response was that “It’s good to pray.” I thought, ‘yes it is.’ I decided to return to Church. I further had decided to attend a local Baptist Church.
I discussed this with a friend and she thought that the change was interesting. We talked about my conversion and she asked why the Baptist denomination. I really did not have an answer. She asked if maybe it had anything to do with Sen. Graham. Before then I had not really thought about that. She further explained that we sometimes feel more at ease with the beliefs of those we feel we can relate to and this may very well be the case.
Baptist Conversion
Shortly after the election I went into my local Baptist church for the first time. I have been attending Immanuel Baptist Church since November. I am not regularly enough because of school, but I resolve to change that.
I want to join the Church, however, I had originally decided that I was going to wait to join a church until a moved to South Carolina for graduate school. My pastor suggested that two year is too long to not be connected to a church and that it would be could for me to work toward membership, so that is what I will do.
