This is an edited version of an interview with John Darnall that was published as part of the “Journeys to Orthodoxy” podcast and appeared on the Orthodox Christian Network. You view the original post here.

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John: We came to Hawaii in the late 80′s. My background is advertising, graphic design, and marketing. I had been been coming to Kona for a number of years to teach at the College of Communication at the University of the Nations, which is part of Youth with a Mission. Then, in 1989, the timing seemed right and God seemed pleased to direct us at the time to join the University of Nations as part of the teaching staff here in Kona. One of our kids was already in college, and the two others who were younger come with us. It was a big change. We moved out of a professional environment into raising our own support. So, that’s what brought us here.

My parents were career missionaries with Foursquare, a charismatic Pentecostal denomination which originated in the 1920′s. Both my paternal and maternal grandparents came from unchurched backgrounds. My mom and dad both became Christians when they were children, and went to Bible college and the became career missionaries. They were primarily church planters. I grew up in Panama traveling with my parents, and also spent many years in Australia. My background was unusual in terms of being a missionary kid, having mutiple cultures — in a way I didn’t really have a culture.

For many years, we were involved in ministry as lay ministers as a part of Church on the Way in Southern California. I count that as a real blessing to our lives, both for my wife and I. It was a very rich experience. We were part of the elders council in that church. We’re privileged to be at a level of leadership where we interacted with Habs, Jack and Hayford. We were beneficiary of his investment in our lives spiritually in addition to strong pastoral leadership in other places we have been as well as my mom and dad’s input in our lives.

When we came to Kona, we wanted to be part of a local church community. It’s very easy for the staff at Youth With A Mission to be very insulated, and we wanted to avoid this. So we prayed and asked the Lord for direction. We found a local congregation here that had a lot of local Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, a great worship team, good Bible teaching, and a strong youth ministry. For many years we were part of that fellowship-—it was a great experience, and we enjoyed our time there.

Jacob: And you’re now an Orthodox Christian is that correct?

John: Cameron Thorp who was a friend of mine who had been a former student in the college had graduated and was one of the number of top design communications students together with a group of hotshots. He’d gone on to good things. He said “John, I need to share with you something significant that’s happening with my life.” He began telling me about how his mom started learning iconography, and how he’d become interested in Orthodoxy, and that he and Julie, his wife, they were converting to Orthodoxy. I said “What are you talking about?” You talking about gold robes and icons and bells and Virgin Mary and all that stuff? This should seem not you. Yup that’s it. Then I go, What the heck are you doing man? I quickly went on to my safe esteemed mode and he’s just like read some things first. Before you go down that trail let me suggest you a couple of books and he knew for a fact that I would do that. And I did. Of course the first one he recommended was one that so many people that come to the Orthodox Church were handed. It was Peter Gillquist’s book, Becoming Orthodox. At the end of that book I thought “Hmm… not a lot here I disagree with.” And I was startled and a little troubled. That began my journey into deeper study of Orthodoxy.

Jacob: So John. My understanding is that as you’re looking around trying to figure out this Orthodox faith you discovered that there is no Orthodox Church around you guys. So how exactly did you find the Orthodox Church? And there’s also a story about you guys getting a mission started because of your search for the Orthodox faith so let’s talk about that.

John: Like a lot of people, I was very ignorant of Orthodox Christianity. Some the things I was reading were quite startling to me, and spoke to me about some things I was struggling with but hadn’t been able to articulate. It was like I knew there was a question but I couldn’t figure out what the question was.

It had to do with the casualness the churches have been involved with. There’s a kind of a casualness towards water baptism, a casualness towards the community and the body of Christ, a casualness to how we worship together, there was a girth of anything ritual or aposthetic in terms of worship. And then added to that, probably as important as any of those, the idea that people were making things up of what they thought was true and teaching it. I was a part of that. I would spend the week working and studying for a teaching on Sunday morning or class or whatever. All that stuff and people’s lives were blessed and peoples lives were changed and good stuff and I still get reports of that to this day. But still no one touched on the authenticity in terms of the authority of those things other than my own experience.

Then I began to see that to a great degree these worship teams particularly, songs were being written that were questionable in their theology, their doctrine. But they sounded good, they felt good. People seem to be singing and clapping and praising at. But there were some issues that were concerning me and I didn’t know who did you turn to say this is right this is wrong because everybody was saying they were doing what was right in their own eyes they were saying was the guidance of the Holy Spirit. That created really created big questions for me. Grace community was just a few miles from us. And here was John Macarthur and Jack Hayford, both of them got really big congregations. Shepherds of the Flock of Christ and yet there were huge discrepancies in their theological positions on integral parts on the doctrine of the church. And yet who did these guys go to do draw an authoritative word to say this is what the church has always taught and believed.

Those things were kind of low level questions and as I began to read Orthodox, things which were Orthodox, I realized there were ways to measure that there was ways to define who the church was and what the church is and who the body of Christ is. There was ways to accommodate these things in a way that actually answered to some of those questions that I asked. And yet I looked around and there’s nothing here in Kona. One day I got a call from Cameron and he said “By the way do you know a particular guy that I knew who had been a part of the Church on the Way pastor’s staff. He’s father Joseph now in Southern Californian. I was just troomy for a loop because my friend and I have been very close to his church on the way. I really held him in high regard both academically, spiritually, his understanding of the word and church and so on.” Now here is a guy who has been in a pastoral leadership for many years and not a slacky, happy go lucky feeling guy but a guy who really understood the word and understood the scriptures. He had made this radical change to become not only had he left his pastoral position but he had become a priest in the Orthodox Church. So quickly I called him and we had a dialogue and now I was confronted with the things that I was reading that were bringing me to a point of what are we gonna if this stuff intellectually. A close friend, other than a former student but a close friend, whose judgment I really value, and whose opinion I really value. I kept saying to him where do I find a priest? I got a bunch of different people out here that are interested, some are more interested than others. I began to make a nuisance of myself. The diocese of the west and the OCA, I didn’t know all the differences and all that Antiochians and the Greeks. I didn’t know. It was all just the Orthodox church to me. Gradually I got the ear of a couple of priests who are involved with leadership of the diocese for the OCA and the Orthodox Church of America. Next thing I know we were informed that they were going to send a priest down here to send to help at the mission. In the mean time prior to that we would have a kind of the Holy Spirit have got a steady flow. A couple of priest come, then another priest came, and then an abbot from the monastery came, the bishop came and we have a couple more priests, phone calls from the monastery. It was kind of like this lines of interest in Hawaii. Seven years ago I can’t remember exactly the date probably 5 or 6 years ago, the OCA sent Father Segius, a young seminarian grad. This is his first shot at it again, they sent him here with his young family. Father Sergius was a dear, dear man who walks into the church. He came regularly and met with my wife and I we were the first acumens on the Kona area. He brought us down the process of helping us. This guy has been involved with a lot of things in terms of church leadership and so on. He had a lot of information and a lot of experience. I had no information and no experience with Orthodoxy. We had a great time in dialogue and conversation and he led us to a point of baptism and confirmation. Shortly after that another couple came in that were familiar with Youth With a Mission in a teaching capacity. An artist friend of mine and his wife relocated here. Bit by bit we had this kind of small group and we find out there were other Orthodox in the island who were interested. They began to make themselves known and we began to dialogue with them and with a little bit of time we had a group and that group was not large enough to support Father Sergius and his family on a regular basis. The church asked them to leave and they went to another location. And in a couple of years we were kind of on our own with reader services. In fact this coming Sunday Pentecost coming, that would be the first official time for our priest to be official. He’s been here for six months. It’s gonna be an official sign update of his pastoring of his flock here or this mission. We got a saint’s name for our mission, Saint Juvenal who was the first martyr in Alaska and America. We’re off and running. It’s great.

Jacob: So how many people are now at your mission parish?

John: On any given Sunday we’ll average somewhere on a low day 10 or a dozen folks show up for liturgy. On a day when schedules get better we may have 20 to 25. We’re very spread out on the island. There’s people on the west side on the island and there’s people in the east side of the island and there’s people down at south. For those folks to get to Kona it’s a minimum of a 2 hour drive, for some of us its 2 and a half hour drive so they don’t always come every week from those outlying locations. It’s understandable. But in terms of people we consider with our parish, probably about 25 on the books in terms of people who consider this to be their parish and come on a regular basis. That’s pretty good.

Jacob: And how many converts are in the church?

John: In terms of converts we’ve got four, five, six, about half a dozen maybe a couple more missing. When Father Sergius was here it was pretty heavy. The first year we had baby baptism and we had Orthodox wedding, we had five chrismations and baptisms. It’s quite a lot of activity. We just had another baptism recently with the young lady here in the community. We have been seeing some people who have been Orthodox that kind of fell away or just were inactive if you put it that way. We have seen some people who wanted a church and it had never materialized, but it’s here now. Then we’re seeing people who have churched background who are looking for a more fuller expression of spirituality and are coming into the parish.

Fr. John and his wife Jenny are former YWAMers who actually went to Discipleship Training School and their outreaches were launched from the Honolulu base. It’s nice to have somebody who understands Youth With A Mission because of the size of the University here. Youth With A Mission has had a great presence in this community so having him as a priest who has that experience background was really an asset for us. Especially because the paradigm shift from Evangelical to Eastern Orthodox Christianity is huge. It requires a certain amount of translation. We’re thrilled that they’re here.

Jacob: Well great. What was it like being involved in YWAM and converting to Orthodoxy. How did that whole process go?

John: Well my wife and I were not actively involved with the mission here. At the time we made the change to the conversion process took place to Orthodoxy. We were still connected with a lot of friends and told them that we’re Orthodox. The interesting thing, I think, a point to be recognized is that for those of us who have been involved with missions work with Youth With A Mission or Operation Mobilization or any of the other groups that are para-church missions groups. Most of the people who have made that commitment, they’re well beyond the Sunday go to meeting kind of commitment to spirituality. They have, for all possible purposes, they are a Protestant Christian order in the same way that we have the Franciscans or whatever. It’s a lifestyle. A community. You have a common set of principles that you live and work by and so on. Those people have already made the decision to follow Christ and His church totally. They’re not playing any games about I get to be a Christian when I want and I don’t want that kind of thing. Those people they have a heart commitment and a lifestyle commitment to missions and international ministry and so on. It’s a unique position that they have. So there’s not a lot of convincing them to follow Christ.

Presenting an option that other to them is not solely without some hazards because they have really set and have set predispositions regarding what the church is, how to run its hierarchy, its music, its art, its principles etc. Those predispositions are well entrenched and it’s a little disconcerting what a lot this can change. It’s troubling to the spirit to find out that what you thought and what you believed, what you committed yourself to, what you actually left mother and father and brother and sister and family and homes and so, on to pursue for the kingdom of God is actually being confronted with something that says yes but have you considered and then presents to you as another paradigm. That’s startling at it’s core. For some it’s so troubling that they cannot deal with it. In God’s time. For whatever reasons. God is still at work. I’m not troubled by that because I know that their heart commitment to kingdom principles and the Kingdom of God.

But then I know that there are others such as Cameron that follow John and others such as myself and my wife who’ve come to a point with that and go “Okay it’s not a repudiation of such things as much as it is an opening up or an extension.” It’s possible now because of all this. My mom asked me “You made this changed to Orthodoxy, you make a radical departure from the Christianity that has been a part of our family now for two generations.” You don’t do that lightly. You don’t make that kind of a change too easily. Especially you know, I was baptized in water at 7 and made a commitment to Christ when I was 6. I grew up with it. I’ve seen behind the curtain. I’ve seen all the stuff that goes on and so this was not anything that I was running away from but I knew what my love for the Lord was.

When confronted with Orthodox Christianity I had to make a decision, would I embrace this or not? When my wife and I came to that decision then it was ok, we knew we had basis, now what? It meant taking a real hard look at some of the predispositions that we had. The role of saints. The Virgin Mary, being the mother of God. The role of icons. The blood and body of Christ in terms of the Eucharist. These issues took priority. We were confronted with things that we had to say “whoops” to ourselves. We don’t get to choose what it is that’s right or wrong. We get to choose whether we will follow what the Church has believed and taught for 2000 years or not.

And if you’ve been involved with YWAM, to a large degree there is a para-church mentality where you decide what you want to believe. Orthodoxy doesn’t allow you to do that, Orthodoxy says to you in essence – we don’t care whether you believe or not, it is true. If you want to embrace it, fine. But you don’t get to make up the rules whether you will or will not accept this as being true. It is true. For me it’s in a very personal level. I question, I investigate and so on, until I totally believe and understand it, then I’ll embrace it. But Orthodoxy doesn’t allow me to do that. It actually tells me the fact of the matter is the Virgin Mary is the Blessed Virgin and mother of God. The church don’t really care about whoever kept falling or whether I would get in or get out. 30:34 So for me personally the paradigm shift was so radical. I said I will purposefully embrace without questioning in a major level everything that comes my way for a year and a half or two. It was like going cold turkey. Because there was so many things that the church was saying that were shaking my predispositions of church thought. That was how I was to step back from and say ok I don’t get to choose whether this is right or not, I get to make a decision whether I want to embrace it as true. And then say now Holy Spirit how does that shape and impact my life on a spiritual level.

Jacob: I think you make a great point there John. Because the Orthodox faith is so broad there’s no way you could know everything before you embrace the faith. You could spend a lifetime and still not know it all.

John: It is a faith that requires understanding but you don’t have to understand to accept faith. You can say “I don’t understand a lot of these things.” But as we begin to embrace them and participate in the spirituality, we gain understanding. It’s like you’ve got to get out of the boat first, and then you realize, “Oh, I can walk on water as long as I keep my eyes on the Lord.”

Jacob: How did people react to your conversion? Was it positive, were people curious?

John: There’s always curiosity. Most of my friend and associates here in the Kona area who know about my conversion to eastern Orthodoxy, they might say “Why”? or they might say “Gee, that’s interesting.” But nothing really has been contrary or negative, it’s more curiosity than anything else.

To some level they may not understand it but, praise God, they still love God and they worship him. They believe that Jesus is the Son of God and God bless you. It’s the acceptance of it without being negative.

I was a little concerned about my mom because of the high profile she has within her denomination. I’ve come to find out that she had been in places there in the island and had friend that were Greeks that were Orthodox. She had been very much a part of Michael Harper’s life in UK during the charismatic renewal when he decided to leave his leadership position to become an Orthodox priest. My mom and dad were a part of that whole process with them. So even during that time it was a tough life for me as well. So my mom was actually very open to it. She questions it a lot to make she that I wasn’t just getting caught up in something and we continued to have lots of good conversations about Orthodoxy and she’s been very, very supportive of it. I know that’s not the case with many folks and we’re blessed with that.

Generally I think difficulties are because of the lack of clear communication. There’s a sense of “You’re doing this doesn’t mean that I’m wrong.” That’s a delicate road to walk. I’ve got a business friend here whom I’ve entered into some conversations on Orthodoxy. He and his wife had been involved with some folks who became Orthodox years ago. Unfortunately they must have been not careful with how they communicated to my friend and made my friend feel somehow he had missed the boat. Now they had 36:42 “Too bad for you.” That was tough because my relationship with him was strained because we’d become Orthodox. I got to come up and do something with that relationship. But by in large it has been a positive experience with my friends and associates. My son is very open to the church, our youngest daughter is very open, and my oldest daughter has been very gracious of her acceptance even though they are still actively a part of an evangelical church. Our kids 37:21 “Well, Mom and Dad get to 37:24. We don’t totally understand it but we trust God in them.” And I appreciate my kids’ position on that regard. Most of it has been raised eyebrows but nothing really negative on our part. And it’s because I think it’s because I have ran with the crowd, with the people here, the Hawaiian people that are pretty just sold out for God anyway and are open to new experiences and take things aback about things that are out of the ordinary.

Jacob: Well that’s great. Now John coming from a Foursquare background which you described as Pentecostal and maybe for some of the folks who don’t understand the difference between Pentecostal and Charismatic, could you give us a quick maybe rundown if possible?

John: I remember asking my friend from New Jersey, “Is the Orthodox church charismatic”? He said “How could it be anything other.” It’s an expression of the body of Christ. Therefore, you do have the full of expression of the spiritual gifts. Now for those of us who have had this experience of spiritual birth and so on in a charismatic or Pentecostal background, both of those are particularly marked by speaking in tongues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, healing and the gifts of the Holy Spirit in terms of speaking in tongues and prophecy and so on. There’s a very superficial to a degree, when you begin to look deeper you’ll find dramatic life changes that happen in peoples lives that are fully immersed in those experiences is not to be denied. Within Orthodoxy it’s yes to it all. It’s yes to the Theocacy whether of God and it’s yes to the work of the Holy Spirit for healing of these other gifts of discernment of spirits and casting out of spirits and all of these things. It’s yes to all of the things pertaining to church experience.

What I found when I began to do my own search, it was deeper and fuller, different models, different words to describe these things. That’s what I talked earlier about, the fact that there’s a paradigm shift. It’s not even just a shift. It’s like a different paradigm. Here we’ve got this evangelical-charismatic paradigm, we understand how it works, we understand the words, the typologies, the models, the worship structure etc. Now here is another paradigm that also calls itself Christian and take a look at this one – when you enter into that second paradigm called Orthodox Christianity it has many of the same words or structures and it quickly becomes apparent that there’s very different understanding of those things.

I remember one priest saying to me that Father Joseph saying to me that he finished reading several 44:48 before he became a priest he came to a church council, he sat down, capped his books and he said “I just finished reading these guys and these were all men who lived in the early centuries of the church that called themselves Christians. And if these men were Christians, I don’t know what I am.” That’s a remarkable statement for a guy whose been in full time ministry for many years as a Christian pastor. That is how radically different the paradigm is. From eastern Orthodox Christianity to western evangelical charismatic Christianity. Very very different paradigms and that is making that switch is – it’s a radical thing that happens to me.

Some days I get up in the morning, as I begin my daily prayers and I got my daily prayers and I light incense I bow and venerate an icon and I’m thinking “my goodness. What has my life come to?” This is everything that I thought was wrong. And you add into this everything that is right about my life as a spiritual man, it actually engulfs me in a way that I have never experienced spirituality before. It was a growing experience. It resonates.

My mom once told me about her first time going into an Orthodox cathedral. At that time, she had been in full time public ministry, established churches, and built Bible Colleges. I said, “What happened when you walked in”? She said “I was overwhelmed by the presence of the Holy Spirit.” I said “What did you do”? She did “I began to weep.” I said “Why?” She said “I could not leave because of God’s presence was so great.” I said “You’re standing in the middle of a cathedral that had the Virgin Mary up in the front and there was a big icon of Christ. And there are icons just about everywhere else and that’s what you were staring at.” She said “Yeah, and the Holy Spirit was ministering to me.” That’s just hard when you’ve been worshipping on a regular basis with a worship band. And somebody here who studied last night is to teach you this morning in your bible study their sermon. It is a remarkable change of perspective. That’s a classical Orthodox response to people who are questioning, who have questions. There will be an encounter as you’ve not ever experienced before. It will generally resonate as to being of God. That kind of thing.

Jacob: What would be your recommendation to someone looking into the Orthodox church?

John: Well, I guess a lot of it has to do with where the person is in their own spiritual journey. As I’ve discussed, I have been a Christian from childhood. There are others, people in a postmodern world or a post-Christian society that may not have tis kind of foundation — so a lot of it depends on where the person is.

For those of us that are, like myself and my wife, who had come from a strong fundamentalist charismatic church background, we had good, strong foundations have been laid into our lives, for us there is a need to be willing to set aside many of our predispositions on what true worship was, what the role of prayer and worship and those kind of things that really have been glued into our lives. The 50:02 were just there. The digital imprint was pretty deep. For Olivia and I it was making a conscious decision to say “This is resonating with our spirit, we are affirming that we are moving in the right direction and for 2,000 years the church has said this is the way to go, walk it. Let’s trust that wisdom of the church and set aside some of our predispositions and give ourselves time for Orthodox Christianity to take root in our hearts and our mind and our being.”

I was talking to some folks the other day that had come from a similar background that my wife and I had come from. They, too, affirm that they too had to recognize that this wasn’t a different brand. It wasn’t a Ford over Chevy but both of them were trucks. It was a very different paradigm in terms of Christianity. They had to really set aside some of the previous ways of understanding their Christian walk, their Christian journey. It’s a very difficult thing for those of us who have grown up in those traditions.

But I think for others who have come to Orthodoxy, but maybe coming from a non-church background, maybe they don’t have a lot of religious benchmarks in terms of how they would measure Christianity other than things that they would see in television or the stereo, typical kind of impressions that they have. In that regard, these folks, I think, actually have a cleaner slate if you would. They come in with not so much thinking ingrained. For those people it like saying “Take time. Show up. Just come and see and let the wisdom of the church, the Holy Spirit begin to speak to your heart, in you life to the areas that are important to you where God knows you need to be touched. Let that happen, give place to that rather than trying to get a perfect answer to every question like why do we venerate, why do we bow, why do we cross, why do we light candles, why do we venerate the icons, why do we say ‘Lord have mercy’. Rather than having specific hard concrete answers, there is a place for the answers but there’s also a place for a quietness of spirit and mind to let the Holy Spirit begin to minister within you and reveal the truth that the Church is offering.”

Especially in American society where we want everything quick, we want everything immediate. We want our answers yesterday and google it and get some answers. Orthodoxy tends to say “why don’t you just wait on God for a little bit.” And there is some real value to that. so I think for those coming to Orthodoxy, 54:21 you have to recognize that there’s going to be a season of just letting God, through His Spirit and through the liturgical services, speak to you as you bend to His will.

For those of us who have come from evangelical charismatic backgrounds, we tend to measure everything and find out whether it’s exactly right and then I’ll believe it. The Orthodox church generally says to us “It is right, you need to believe it.” And it will cause you to be saved and it will cause you to be healed and strengthened in your spiritual being and draw you closer to God. For many of us, that kind of putting aside myself, is the measure of all things, how I interpret the Scripture, how I interpret Christianity to be the measure. Putting that aside and saying “No, I will respond to what the church says.” That’s a big hurdle. So part of it is dying to self, in my own opinion. I know that for me personally, not so much for my wife. But for me I set, I made a conscious effort, I said “For the next 18 to 24 months I’m not gonna question anything.” If the church says cross yourself three times and venerate this particular icon, I’m going to do it. If the church says that we give a particular honor to the Virgin Mary, I’m going to do that. That was what it will require for me. I think for those coming with strong opinions it may require something like that to you.

For people who are looking into Orthodoxy, having accepted that this isn’t some cultish, off-shoot, strange roman catholic thing but indeed it is Orthodox worship, it is true worship, it is the church that Christ has given to us and it is birthed upon the Apostles means I’m ok. I trust God that He’s going to work in my life and I trust that God has put these services, these regiments, these men and women through time in place to aid in my salvation and I give praise to that. I guess it’s kind of a giving up of self and giving it to God in that regard. And trusting that what He’s given to us is true. My wife and I have have had occasions where we were involved with other people of denominations that we were familiar with in the past. We needed to for various reasons try to make commitments and what not. Be involved in their services, go to their kids presentations and so on. It’s very interesting because the content presented is true and certainly cannot be in any way argued with in terms of being error. The form, we both 58:58. Just like Peter when he was asked “Would you leave?” He said “where will we go? We’ve been with you.” That’s kind of where we are now. Where will we go having experienced the Orthodox faith and what Orthodox has brought in terms of fullness to our spiritual journey. There’s no turning back.

So for those who are looking into Orthodoxy and thinks that there’s not gonna be lots of quick answers. But for a person who is honestly searching, whether they are from a churched background or non-churched background at some point they will be confronted with the truth and once recognizing and giving assent to this as true. This is holy, this is what God has for me. Then at that point there will be that process of saying “I will give into that truth. And let that truth work in me.” The rest of that you and I both know Jacob that then becomes the first of many steps of working out our own salvation and the process that the church requires of us. An openness of heart.

Jacob: So, what you’re saying to people who are inquiring into the Orthodox Church is that it is going to be different from what you’ve experienced. You identified two hurdles, one is the position of the church in their life. And two is the physical nature of Orthodox Christianity in regards to crossing and venerating etc. So how did you? I guess you explained it, I guess you just submitted yourself. That’s how you overcome it. That’s how you overcame those natural objections you would have coming from a protestant Christian background to A. the church being something special and B. that there’s a physical side to Christianity.

John: There’s a number of things that probably set us in a very good place to respond to the physicality of the Church. The things that we do, the bowing, the lighting candles, the kneeling, those things that we do, crossing etc. That probably goes back a lot to our church in the early days. I came in to Pastor Hayford, he would encourage people to raise their hands and worship. Explaining that there are times why won’t you do that when it is something clearly outlined in scripture as being a biblical physical expression of worship. Most of that came back to just pride. We don’t want to do it, there’s something in there that prideful. For both my wife and I, we have kind of crossed that bridge. Some physical things that we do that are first uncomfortable but they are meaningful to bring ourselves into a proper alignment if you would of physical worship. Personally I just applied the same principle. Why won’t I cross myself. Well it’s too catholic. Is there a reason why not to do it? But when I got down to it there really were no valid reasons that prohibited me from either bowing or crossing myself or kissing an icon, lighting candles, all of these kind of physical things that we do. My resistance was more based in me and my pride of not wanting to submit to something that the church was calling me forward to. And when I did do them, it’s kind of like when somebody says “If you wan to swim well, you need to put yourself in the water in this particular attitude. If you want to do the breast-stroke you need to be in this position in the water. Standing in the water is not gonna work for you. But if you put yourself floating in the water and do these strokes you will move forward.” It’s the same thing with these physical things. If you want to, you can stand and do nothing. Nobody’s gonna be particularly bothered by that but you will actually move forward in your spiritual growth and worship if you do these things. For us that was part of it. As I’ve mentioned earlier, in terms of the atmosphere that we moved into a holy space, if you would, to worship. That was very important to us rather than just being not that you can’t worship God in a place that has four walls and white paint on the walls and so on, but having a place that is actually sacred. Where there is art and things of beauty that speak to our life in Christ. A few little tricks that were part of broken wall, they consecrated the chapel. We were there for that service, another long liturgical service but it was wonderful to see the length at which the church goes to do things to identify them as a place that is set aside for worship and for spiritual activity. And their songs were just a blessing to me. So when we walked into that space, I saw relics in that table where the Eucharist is being prepared. Relics of three men who were martyred in the early centuries of the church. They were there, they connect me. I don’t know the words to use to describe the magnitude of the impression that that made on me. When I understood that these were men that were actually in the coliseum who we’re seeing as martyrs and we have relics from their bodies in our table where every Sunday the body and blood of Christ is prepared for me to receive. That’s physical beyond… I don’t even know the words to describe that. Every time I walk into that chapel I’m reminded. That helps me not be so bothered by crossing and bowing and venerating. There’s that connectedness that’s important to me.

Jacob: How has your life changed since you’ve become Orthodox, what’s different?

John: I’m less schizophrenic in my spiritual life. I don’t have a secular life and a spiritual life as much as I did before. I have a life that’s spiritual. I think that goes with the fact that we have fasting and we have prayers that we’re doing. I much more have a sense of my connectedness to all things in terms of Christ being in all things.

The church calendar. We’re approaching lent now. Our priest has been discussing how we prepare for that. We talked about that last year too. How we prepared for lent and how we went through Lent. Struggled with those things in passion, sin and so on in my life.

I seemed to have much more of a heightened awareness of my spiritual life and my spiritual journey. I was mentioning this to somebody and we were talking about confession and the power of confession. Probably as great an issue as anything within Orthodoxy in terms of change is my reluctance to know what is sin. Because I know that if I’m going to be true to what God has called us to, I will return to confession and Father Ambrose will still be with me and witness my confession again the sins that I confessed last time. And so I find a governor within my life now because of this sacrament of confession. So that is one thing. Other things that my wife and I have been discussing, we seem to be a lot less judgmental to others and their failings than we were before. We find that we’re doing a lot more self evaluation and letting God work in other people. You can’t necessarily fix them. Our life is much more God oriented, God aware. Our God consciousness has been more heightened. It’s not that it wasn’t there before, it’s just we tend to be much more recognizing that we live on a life that’s much more governed by our spiritual activities than we were before. It’s not just that we go to church on Wednesday night and Sunday mornings. Now it is we are preparing for vespers. We look forward to those times. I dunno. My spiritual life is richer. It’s richer and I’m much more aware of the sinner I am in terms of my on going personal life. I wonder if those a even encouraging things to tell people about.

John: Become Orthodox and you’ll really recognize what a sinner you are. We have also developed some great, great friendships with the people around us. There’s a guy in our parish here who is from a Greek family and has never known anything other than Orthodox worship. We had some great conversations. I think I have been able to bring a new perspective to some things that he has taken for granted that are so ingrained im him, so much a part of the fabric of his life. I envy that, but he recognizes that it had become almost ordinary to him because he has lived with them for so long. It’s not just with Orthodoxy, but with anything that we become so overly familiar with, that it is easy to forget the richness and the value of what has been given.

Jacob: In closing, any last thoughts?

John: For those who come to the Church for whatever reasons, the Holy Spirit in His power and His grace is generally moving a lot of us towards a deeper relationship with God, with the Father through His Son. I think that for those who have a strong churched background but are feeling hungry and thirsty, trust that God will quench your thirst and satisfy your hunger because He has promised to do so. But it won’t be necessarily easy. It will require some submission of yourself to the things that the church requires. Those things that are being required are for our salvation and not to damage us and for our healing. For me it was recognizing that I needed to not try to get so caught up with understand everything. That it was not just this paradigm shift but this was a very very different paradigm as I ever understood it in terms of Christian worship and Christian life. But that it has been sustained by the power of the Holy Spirit and Godly men and women for almost 2000 years there must be some value to it and I needed to recognize that. And for those that come from un-churched background to recognize that the mystery and the beauty of Orthodox worship is not anything like what is portrayed in the popular culture. It is very different. It is the richness and the satisfying to the soul that passes all comprehension. I encourage people if you are on your way and if you are on your journey to the Orthodox church, it is all worth the effort. And I think I’ve said before like others have said to us “Come and see.” Just show up and let the Holy Spirit minister to you and find the Trinitarian worship of God is so broad and full that your life will literally, it sounds like a cliché, but it will never be the same again. You’ll be dramatically touched at levels in your spiritual life and physical life and mental and emotional life that are hard to understand but certainly worth the risk.