Posted on 05/19/2014 11:52:50 AM PDT by NYer
The conversion of Alex Jones is a powerful story and a book from Ignatius Press! I came across the video and was reminded of the story. You can read more below.
The following comes from the Deacons Bench Blog:
One of the more celebrated Catholic converts -- and a recently ordained deacon, by the way -- is former evangelical Alex Jones. He now spends much of his time traveling the country, talking about his journey back to the Church. And a paper in Fort Wayne, Indiana profiles him this weekend:
Ten years ago, Alex Jones was the charismatic preacher of a thriving black independent Pentecostal congregation, Maranatha Christian Church in Detroit.
Today, he still preaches, but it’s as an ordained Roman Catholic deacon.
Jones doesn’t like to use the word “convert” when it comes to his experience, but his story makes him one of the Catholic church’s rarer flowers – a black evangelical Protestant who has wholeheartedly embraced the faith.
“There is spiritual conversion and ecclesial conversion. I was the latter. I was a Christian before I became Catholic,” says Jones, who will speak at St. Henry and Sacred Heart Catholic churches Friday and Saturday.
“It was never about going to heaven or knowing the Lord. Those things were accomplished while I was in the Pentecostal church. It was simply coming into the fullness of the Christian faith.”
Indeed, Jones says he’s still often asked why he would want to be Catholic.
“No one wants to be Catholic where I come from. Not even Catholics,” he says with a laugh. “It was almost like you were leaving Christianity.”
Jones says his journey is one from which the church – which has 130 million Catholics in Africa but only 24,000 blacks among his Detroit diocese’s 1.3 million members – can learn.
His conversion began, he says, when he began looking at early Christian worship with a congregational study group. That led to a reading of the early church fathers, including St. Ignatius of Antioch, a friend of the apostle John, and St. Clement of Rome, the third successor to St. Peter as head of the church.
“I wasn’t looking for truth,” he says. “But I saw the continuity from the apostles to the church today, and that necessitated a further look.”
As he continued to pursue his questions, he instituted a Liturgy of the Word and a Liturgy of the Eucharist on Easter Sunday. He took the Bible from front and center on the Communion table as it morphed into an altar.
He began to see that as a pastor, he was missing apostolic succession and a hierarchy that ensured continuity of teachings. It took a two-year journey during which he sought help from other Catholic converts, but after he saw what he needed to do, “it was clear as a bell,” he says.
Jones joined the church in 2000. His wife, family members and 54 of his church’s members followed. Some of those people have “returned to their Pentecostal roots,” he says, but many have remained.
He now is a deacon for St. Suzanne/Our Lady Gate of Heaven Catholic community, two congregations that share one priest.
He also has written a book and produced a documentary about his experiences and speaks at Catholic events nationwide.
Jones says the reasons more American blacks are not Catholic are partly historical and partly cultural.
American blacks “tended as slaves to take on the faith of their slaveholders,” he says, noting that only in Louisiana and Maryland were they Catholic.
And within the church even today, he sometimes finds an “us-and-them” mentality about those from other races or denominations.
“If (they) blacks knew more about Catholicism, if they saw their face reflected in the liturgy and the church leadership, they’d be more inclined to investigate further,” he says.
Catholic parish schools, another traditional influence on blacks, are on the wane in many city neighborhoods where black families live because they are expensive for dioceses to maintain, Jones says.
“The Catholic Church is going to have to learn how to inculturate,” he adds.
The Rev. Daniel Durkin, who serves both St. Henry and Sacred Heart, says Jones’ visit represents an evangelistic outreach to people in the churches’ southeast Fort Wayne neighborhoods, which he says are 90 percent black.
“A lot of ministers are saying we need to be doing more (evangelization) on the south side. A lot of us feel we’re losing a lot of people on the south side.”
Durkin, who is white, says Benoit Academy at St. Henry is another example of the Catholic outreach. About 65 percent of students are black; only 35 percent are Catholic.
In Jones, “We’re hoping to bring someone to the church that can identify with them (black neighborhood residents), and they can identify with as well,” Durkin says.
Jones, 66, who was director of evangelization in the Detroit diocese until his recent retirement, says he has asked his bishop twice about becoming a priest.
“Both times the answer was no, so that’s that,” he says. “If they offered it to me, I’d take it in a heartbeat, but it’s not likely in this diocese. They don’t allow married priests.”
He points out that 80 dioceses do allow priests who are married when they come to Catholicism from other denominations.
Deacon Jones also has his own self-titled website, with a great gallery of pictures, information, and details about how to book him for a speaking engagement or mission.
I'm hoping and praying for him -- and praying that one day he may be welcomed into the priesthood.
Whatever ministry he practices, he's a real gift to the people of God.
Ping!
Wow, for a second I thought of that other person out there on the interwebs with the same name....
Seems to me....
Most Protestants.. worship the bible..
Most catholics..... worship the church...
He just changed Gods.. no big deal..
My question is: Did he do it for the clothing?..
I don't know this deacon's credentials, but dioceses which admit married priests have educational standards which must be met. For instance, an Episcopalian priest could most likely cross right over, whereas a non-denominational preacher with limited credentials would have to take a lot of courses to catch up.
Not the Protestants or Catholics I have known.
I was thinking of the LA Rams great, myself.... :)
“Most Protestants.. worship the bible (sic)..
Most catholics (sic)..... worship the church (sic)...”
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Opinion sans research (not to mention basic knowledge)?
“He just changed Gods (sic).”
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There is only one God.
If there’s one type of person I don’t trust or follow, it’s a spiritual adventurer. This man; Calvinists and their “I was a false convert” stories; Christians who “discover” Hebrew Roots and tell those who balk that all the Scriptures condemning Galatianism have been misunderstood; etc.
I’m not suggesting such people are unsaved, but...Stay AWAY from a leadership or teaching role until you’ve figured out what you believe, please.
First off, did the video interview answer your questions?
Before sloughing off this man, show some deference to a hard decision at the end of a long faith journey.
When Detroit-born Alex Jones became a Pentecostal minister in 1972, there was little question among those who knew him that he was answering God's call to preach.
Now, many of his friends and family have dismissed the 59-year-old pastor as an apostate for embracing the Catholic faith, closing the nondenominational church he organized in 1982, and taking part of his congregation with him.
At the April 14, 2001 Easter Vigil, Jones, his wife, Donna, and 62 other former members of Detroit's Maranatha Church, were received into the Catholic Church at St. Suzanne's Parish. For Jones, becoming a Catholic marked the end of a journey that began with the planting of a seed by Catholic apologist and Register columnist Karl Keating.
Jones first heard Keating, the founder of Catholic Answers, at a debate on whether the origins of the Christian church were Protestant or Catholic. At the close, Keating asked, "If something took place, who would you want to believe, those who saw it or those who came thousands of years later and told what happened?" Five years later, while he was reading about the church fathers, Keating's question resurfaced. Jones began a study of the Church's beginnings, sharing his newfound knowledge with his congregation.
To illustrate what he was talking about, in the spring of 1998 he re-enacted an early worship service, never intending to alter his congregation's worship style. "But once I discovered the foundational truths and saw that Christianity was not the same as I was preaching, some fine-tuning needed to take place."
Before sloughing off this man, show some deference to a hard decision at the end of a long faith journey.
Everyone is searching for God.. it’s built in to us..
And all find a god of some sort even atheists.. i.e. science
even New Agers.. some form of Spirituality..
even those that hate religion... the giverment becomes their god.. or their self.. or BOTH..
Everyone are preachers.. literally everyone...
You preach by what you do and do not do... loudly.. ask your children..
The dogma out of your mouth is background noise..
Is the Holy Spirit god’s doofus.. or a real entity..?
But if real... do you have an invisible friend?.. or even want one?..
Seems being human is about How much Bull Sperm you’re willing to be inseminated by?..
Cause there seems to be lots of it...
You either know the Holy Spirit personally -OR- you watch others saying they are...
And are probably lieing or deluded.. -or- are grifters.. charletans.. con-men..
It’s all very entertaining..
There is only one God.
Not at my last count... theres zillions of them..
heck Hindus think they ARE a god...
If you mean theres only one real God.. you might be on to something..
Totally unprovable.. but if it was provable.. faith would be a delusion..
What do you have faith in?...
Those that say they have no faith.. are deluded..
It takes faith to go from point A to point B.. and think you’ll actually get there..
Amazing how many lazy thinkers there are..
OR people that really don’t want to deal with reality..
It’s all about them.. and their “beliefs”.. dogmas.. desires.. preferences..
If God is not available to you.... WHO MOVED?..
Theres lots and lots of gods out there.. and special designer gods as well..
Call designer gods.. religion..
Actually what would a real God need with something as lame as a religion?..
Being...... you know......... GOD!..
sidebar: or gender?!..
He’s hilarious. I hope that someday he can become a priest. But in the meanwhile, what a great apostolate he has.
**Today, he still preaches, but it’s as an ordained Roman Catholic deacon.**
Bravo!
**Jones began a study of the Church’s beginnings, sharing his newfound knowledge with his congregation.
To illustrate what he was talking about, in the spring of 1998 he re-enacted an early worship service, never intending to alter his congregation’s worship style. “But once I discovered the foundational truths and saw that Christianity was not the same as I was preaching, some fine-tuning needed to take place.”**
That description of the Early Church and its home churches can be found under the authorship of St. Justin Martyr.
To the contrary, it is all quite illuminating. I have provided you with several links that provide the scriptural basis for this man's path to the Catholic Church. You have CHOSEN to ignore his story. Without an examination of his journey, everything you have posted is based on baseless personal judgement.
Another great gift. May God bless his ministry.
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You mean like the Apostle Paul, who was an active leading Pharisee who was converted to Christianity by Jesus Christ?
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But when Paul perceived that the one part were Sadducees, and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, "Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee: of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question." Acts 23:6
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Deacon Alex Jones gave up so much to join the Catholic Church, so you know he is sincere and convicted.
I have his book, and this thread makes me want to read it again.
Thanks!
(By the way, I think I may have found the gif that applies to your tagline message "You are a puff of smoke...", and that is what this guy is -- a blue puff of smoke.) :-)
You have CHOSEN to ignore his story.
Not at all... you’re scriptural regime is suspect to me..
What has scripture to do with a personal preference..
Roman Catholic church history and Real church history..
is not at all the same..
If you say they are, you know neither.. not that you did..
Then you have secular history.. all three are scewed..
Any that buy any of three as totally true, are brain washed..
Not that I have a dog in this fight, I do not..
Even the bible is translated from fragments of copies..
Church history is much much easier to manipulate.. than rogue codices...
Its a matter of preference and sometimes position and/or money..
The perk of vestments is just juvenile pecking order..
you know.. by retarded adults.. sometimes fairly well educated..
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