A Covenant Child from a Catholic Church

My siblings and I were raised Catholic, although Dad had been raised Lutheran. As he tells me, a college class at Penn State dismantled the doctrine of the Trinity for him. When he met Mom, he started reading to decide where they would go to church. Seeing the disagreements between Lutheranism and Catholicism, his decision was that Christianity itself was the problem. He stopped attending church. He was supportive however, of Mom taking all of us to Mass regularly and going through the typical routine of first communion, penance, and confirmation. Although certainly not religious, Dad had a strong sense of right and wrong and was consistent in his administration of it (at least that’s how my backside remembers it!).

In a strange sort of way, I identify myself as a covenant child. Strange because I was raised Roman Catholic, and “covenant” is not something identified with Catholicism. However, I was raised with the knowledge of God as Creator and Jesus His Son as Redeemer. The reality of my own sinfulness was never in doubt. If my understanding was not fully in line with biblical definitions, at least there was the sure knowledge that I did not do as I ought to have done, and was not what I ought to be. I also was exposed to the Bible—reading through the Missalette during the slow portions of the Mass, regular readings from the prophets, the gospels and the epistles.

I never believed in the particularly Catholic elements of the faith. Papal infallibility, prayer to Mary, and transubstantiation never made sense to me. Likewise the emphasis on morality. I remember going through catechism class, studying the ten commandments and wondering, “Is this it?” None of this seemed to help me be different than who and what I was. There was no teaching of transformative grace—at least none that got through my thick head.

By this time I was in high school, and things were beginning to get tense between Dad and me. I never doubted his love for me, but I wanted to get away, make my own decisions. After one particularly nasty argument the summer after graduation (1977), I left Pennsylvania with my dad’s hired hand, Kenny, and drove west. After a few days driving (never, never drive through Nevada in August in a 1974 Vega; no good can come of it), we arrived in Oregon. I asked around for the possibility of work, and stayed behind in a small town north of Eugene, Ore., named Harrisburg. Kenny continued on. I found a place to stay on Thursday, applied for a job on Friday, was hired on Saturday and went to church on Sunday.

It was a Catholic church—that’s all I really knew. I went for a few weeks, but it was the same thing I had left behind. Some older friends at work told me about a church with a pretty active youth group, so I tried that, my first Protestant church. Harrisburg Christian Church, a Campbellite church, was where I first began to grow as a Christian. A year later, realizing that farming was not for me, I started school at the denomination’s college in Eugene. Two years in the dorm there, and I began to understand what it was to grow up as a young man and a Christian.

While in Eugene, I began to visit other churches. I finally settled on a small independent church with Calvinist doctrine. While not buying into all of that, I greatly appreciated the respect for Scripture and the supremacy and sufficiency of Christ for salvation. One evening one of the pastors preached on Ephesians 2:1-10. Somewhat put off by his emphasis on God’s sovereign choice, I went to talk with the pastor to argue my case for “free will.” In a few minutes I realized that I was a Calvinist. What’s even more interesting is that, though I can’t pinpoint a time or place for my conversion to Christ, I can tell you when I became a Calvinist. Do what you will with that.

As I continued to attend, I also began to work out my sense of calling to the ministry. I apprenticed with that congregation’s pastoral council, and began to study at McKenzie Study Center (now morphed into Gutenberg College). It was there that I first studied Reformed theology rigorously.

Things began to come to a close in Oregon. In 1986 I moved back to Pennsylvania and found my way to the Reformed Presbyterian church there. Labor Day Sunday 1986 was my first RP worship experience. I have never looked back. The preaching was sound and the worship was freeing. Coming out of Catholic, evangelical and charismatic worship experiences, I had never been exposed to the Psalms. Hearing them sung gave me relief from all the silliness, emotionalism and manipulation of what passes for worship today. I also found a denomination that respected the history of the church and the continuity of God’s work in salvation.

In 1990 I began classes at the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary. I graduated in 1993, and since then have pastored in Lawrence, Kan.; Lancaster, Pa.; Hazleton, Pa.; and for the past 10 years in San Diego, Calif. I am still amazed and humbled by God forgiving my sins and holding onto me in Christ. So undeserved, yet so good.

—Mark England pastors the San Diego, Calif., RPC.

Heeding the Call

My brother and I were both raised in the Roman Catholic faith by our mother, but growing up we didn’t really know each other. Mark is 17 1/2 years older than I am and he was getting ready for college by the time I arrived on the scene. As he relates, one of our earliest interactions was when he came home to the family farm for a short visit. I was asleep and when he woke me up I asked if he was Chewbacca. To my disappointment, he was not. However, in God’s providence, he ended up being something greater—not only a brother by blood, but also a brother in Christ.

Being raised as a churchgoer, I had always believed there was a God, but in my limited experience He was somebody “out there,” a little bit like Santa Claus (He saw me at all times and knew when I was being either bad or good). Essentially I treated Him like a genie or a vending machine—coming to Him in prayer when I wanted to get something. One of my earliest memories was asking God to complete some farm work for me so I wouldn’t have to do it myself, at which point I said I would never ask for anything ever again if He answered that one prayer.

By the time I was old enough to ask questions a little more thoughtfully, Mark was well into his time with Grace RP in State College, Pa., and getting ready for seminary. I remember asking silly questions like, “Did Adam and Eve speak English?” What I will always remember and appreciate is that Mark never laughed off my questions nor ridiculed me. He answered thoughtfully and honestly, and I always remembered that.

In the winter of 1994, I left for Poland as part of an agricultural exchange program. Before I left, Mark bought me a small NIV Bible, which I carried along and began reading after having a brief struggle with homesickness. Unfortunately, I started in Genesis and thought I could make my way through. By the time I got to 1 Chronicles 17, I was “Bibled out,” but God had planted the seeds of His word in my heart.

After returning to the States for my senior year of high school, I began attending Catholic Mass in earnest, feeling like there was a spiritual thirst inside that needed to be quenched. Around that time I met a girl and began attending her church. I was surprised because, while attending this church, I heard the pastor preaching from the Bible (Nehemiah), speaking to the congregation from the Bible, and encouraging us to read and study along with him. Up to that point in my life, that was all new to me. I began attending a young men’s discipleship group, where we were encouraged to memorize Scripture and to pray for one another. That was the beginning of the beginning for me.

Not long after this, I encountered a series of personal crises in my life, yet I still found myself being drawn more and more into the church and Christian fellowship. Around this time I left home for Penn State University, and after bouncing around for while amongst different churches, I followed Mark’s advice and began attending Grace RP. My first day there included an invite to the Streit family home, and I was hooked. As a single college guy, I was all about free food wherever and whenever I could get it, but an unexpected blessing was being able to see a Christian family in action—prayer, play, fellowship, joy in the Holy Spirit.

After a few years of church involvement and regular meetings with Pastor Keddie, I began to prayerfully consider whether God was calling me to pastoral ministry. Between college and seminary I had the chance to live a little bit of “regular life”—job, marriage, etc. About a year after getting married my wife and I moved west to attend seminary at Westminster in California. In God’s providence, about a year after that Mark arrived to pastor the San Diego RP Church and we were able to enjoy more of each other’s company as I finished my M.Div, graduating in June 2005.

Since then, Mark has been a regular source of encouragement and prayer for me, as well as my family. He offered many helpful words of encouragement during my first years in ministry as a church planter in Great Barrington, Mass., and he reminds me that the congregation in San Diego continues to keep me in prayer, My ministry now finds me serving as a chaplain in the federal prison system. For the last two years I have served at the United States Penitentiary in Allenwood, Pa. As of the writing of this testimony, I will soon be returning to Massachusetts, serving as the supervisory chaplain at the Federal Medical Center in Devens, Mass. Please keep our family in prayer, when you think of it, as we seek to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.

—Brent England is the supervisory chaplain at the Federal Medical Center in Devens, Mass.