Michael was raised in the Southern Baptist faith. He later became an Assembly of God preacher. He started a search for the truth. He wanted to know, with all the confusion of different Protestant teachings, what was the Truth. For a time he pastored in the Charismatic Episcopal church, which was a group of Charismatics and Pentecostals who were seeking the faith and worship of the early years of the Church. After discovering the early Church Fathers, he was shocked to discover that God was calling him into the Catholic Church.