Hear the stories of Catholic Converts from a Methodist background and learn what led them to embrace the Catholic Church.
“In high school, I also began reading some early Church Fathers and medieval theologians… No one told me to be careful about what these authors wrote. No one warned me that Methodists didn’t believe everything that Augustine or Aquinas believed. I simply read these great thinkers, and found that what they had to say made a lot of sense.”
— Dr. Benjamin Lewis
A FEW GREAT VIDEOS
TL Putnam 55:55
TL Putnam came from a long line of Methodist preachers, all the way back to the era of the circuit riders! As such, he always had the internal sense that he’d somehow be involved in ministry himself. After getting his formation at Asbury Seminary and working in Methodist churches as a worship leader, he began to investigate the Catholic Church more fully, especially through the mentorship of a relative who was a Catholic priest, who helped him understand the purpose of liturgy. Watch TL’s story.
Mother Petra 56:33
Mother Petra was raised in a family full of Wesleyan ministers, missionaries and church planters, and went on to study at Indiana Wesleyan. She became increasingly frustrated by divisions in Christianity over everything from Bible interpretation to worship practices, and at one point even stopped going to church. When one of her sisters became Catholic, it opened up to her the possibility that there really was an authoritative way to understand the reality of what it meant to be a Christian. Watch Mother Petra’s story.
Matt Gerald 55:31
Matt Gerald was raised in a faithful family of Methodist Protestants, a small denomination in Mississippi of which many of his extended family were ministers. When he left the area for school and tried to find a church home, it got him pondering the widespread divisions in Christianity. He married a Catholic, but for many years hoped that she’d end up joining his denomination. However, over the course of several years, Matt began to see more and more of the beauty and truth of the Catholic faith. Watch Matt’s story.
A FEW GREAT WRITTEN STORIES
Truth and True Food Leads to Peace
Kelli Beaumont
“My husband, James, was born and raised Catholic, but I had the good fortune of getting to evangelize him right out of the Catholic Church and turn him into a good Methodist, where we eventually served together as Methodist youth ministers… You can imagine how dismayed we were when very dear friends of ours announced to us that they were walking away from Methodist ministry to join the Catholic Church! We immediately planned an overnight trip to visit them and save them from this treacherous mistake.” Read Kelli’s story.
Risking it All
Keith Nester
“Raised in the home of a United Methodist pastor in Iowa, I have loved Jesus for as long as I can remember. I gave my heart to Jesus at a church camp when I was 11 years old…. Throughout my 22 years in ministry, I have held many positions: senior pastor, teaching pastor, worship leader, missions coordinator, etc. The Christian Faith was my career, and the prospect of leaving it all behind to become Catholic was something that I would later wrestle with greatly.” Read Keith’s story.
A Methodist Pastor’s Journey to Joy
Dr. Allan J. Cease
“By the time I was in fifth or sixth grade, I had a steadily increasing sense of God’s call to ordained ministry in the Methodist Church. I also had a consistently Methodist education in prep school, college, seminary, and, after entering full-time ministry, in another United Methodist seminary where I completed a Doctor of Ministry program… Over the course of the next 26 years, I would pastor several United Methodist congregations in Northeastern Pennsylvania and the Binghamton, New York area.” Read Allan’s story.
More Inspiration for the Journey
Explore the full archive of conversion stories from former Methodists who have embraced the Catholic Church.
Explore Full Archive
RECOMMENDED BOOKS & OTHER RESOURCES FOR METHODISTS
Confessions of a Megachurch Pastor
by Allen Hunt
Tens of thousands of American adults join the Catholic Church every year. Why? What is it that attracts them to Catholicism? Here, Allen Hunt unveils the treasures of Catholicism that many life-long Catholics are simply unaware of and tells the story of his own conversion from Evangelical Protestantism.
Journeys Home
edited by Marcus Grodi
Journeys Home contains the stories of men and women who, having surrendered their lives to Jesus Christ, heard a call to follow Him more completely. Many of them were pastors or missionaries. Others were lay men and women who, though working in secular jobs, took their calling to serve Christ in the world very seriously. In each case, their desire to follow Christ faithfully, and to remain faithful to the truth He taught and the Church He established through His apostles, led them to embrace the Catholic Church.
Journeys Home II
edited by Marcus Grodi
Journeys Home 2 gathers together more conversion stories of men and women, clergy and laity, who found themselves drawn to the beauty and truth of the Catholic Church.
