Tim was raised a Southern Baptist. Although he fell away from the faith of his childhood, he came back to faith in Christ during his late teen years through the witness of Christian televangelists. While in the Marine Corps, he became involved in ministry with various Assemblies of God communities. During his final year in the Marines, however, Tim met a Marine who really knew his faith and challenged Tim to study Catholicism from Catholic and historical sources. Tim was determined to prove Catholicism wrong, but he ended up studying his way to the last place he thought he would ever end up: the Catholic Church, into which he was received in 1988.