{"id":1155,"date":"2009-01-25T06:50:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-25T06:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2009\/01\/a-minister-converts-i-respect-the-methodist-church-but-its-not-the-fullness-of-the-faith.html"},"modified":"2009-01-25T06:50:00","modified_gmt":"2009-01-25T06:50:00","slug":"a-minister-converts-i-respect-the-methodist-church-but-its-not-the-fullness-of-the-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/01\/a-minister-converts-i-respect-the-methodist-church-but-its-not-the-fullness-of-the-faith.html","title":{"rendered":"A minister converts: “I respect the Methodist church, but it’s not the fullness of the Faith”"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Virginia comes this inspiring story<\/a> of one man’s journey to the faith, involving Methodism, music and monks: <\/p>\n

When Jeff Hendrix was 5 years old, he experienced a moment of \u201ctranscendence\u201d while listening to the 19th-century symphonic suite \u201cScheherazade\u201d by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. For the next two years, he begged his parents to let him take up the violin in an attempt to recapture that pivotal experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat really was to me, I think the Holy Spirit\u2019s first entr\u00e9e in my life into really what beauty and truth and goodness was like,\u201d Hendrix said, sitting in the classroom at St. Charles School in Arlington where he teaches sixth grade. \u201cMusic has always been an important part of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Born in Bremen, Ind., in 1954, the youngest of five brothers and sisters, Hendrix was raised by an evangelical United Brethren pastor \u2014 a background that \u201ctaught me to love the Lord, to avoid sin, to seek salvation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He followed his nearly lifelong attraction to music, planning to graduate from DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind., with a degree in music. Feeling continuously unfulfilled, however, Hendrix switched tracks and discerned what he thought was a call to ordained ministry in the Protestant church. He earned a master\u2019s in divinity from Duke University in Durham, N.C. \u2014 where he met his wife, Mochel \u2014 and the two embarked on a life of ministering to the United Methodist community together.<\/p>\n

For 20 years they served in the Virginia Annual Conference of the Methodist Church, ministering in communities all over Virginia. But despite his active ministry, he remained unfulfilled \u2014 searching for \u201cmore meaning, more purpose, something I couldn\u2019t put my finger on.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the early 1980s, Hendrix was invited to an ecumenical book study led by two monks at Holy Cross Abbey in Berryville. He developed long-term relationships with several of the monks, and Hendrix began attending regular retreats at the monastery, still searching for complete fulfillment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat started to open me up yet to another experience of transcendence that was more specific, especially in a time in my life when I was really searching,\u201d he said. \u201cEven though I will always love the United Methodist Church for what it taught me and what it has done for me, the best answers that I was receiving were coming from the Catholic sector of influences in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was in Berryville that he found the closer relationship with Christ for which he had been searching \u2014 in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was only really when I was in the chapel there at Holy Cross Abbey that I began to have an extreme awareness of the real presence of Christ in the tabernacle, in the Eucharist,\u201d he said. \u201cI started to really yearn for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Realizing that a conversion to the Catholic Church meant leaving behind two decades of work, the common bond of ministry with his wife and his Protestant roots, Hendrix struggled with his decision. But he retired from his Methodist ministry in the spring of 2001.<\/p>\n

Leaving the Methodist Church was not a rejection of that branch of faith that taught him so much, Hendrix said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI honor and respect the United Methodist Church,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it\u2019s not the fullness of the Faith.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Check out the rest<\/a>. And a h\/t to The Dawn Patrol<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Virginia comes this inspiring story of one man’s journey to the faith, involving Methodism, music and monks: When Jeff Hendrix was 5 years old, he experienced a moment of \u201ctranscendence\u201d while listening to the 19th-century symphonic suite \u201cScheherazade\u201d by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. 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