My Journey Home

Bill Smith

Just a few weeks ago I was and had been for 23 years Pastor Bill Smith. I resigned June 26th from my ten year pastorate of a midsized church in Bloomington, Illinois. About a week later I was confirmed into the Catholic Church during a special mass on July 6th. I actually preached my last Sunday as a Catholic to my Protestant church. A friend said that it all happened so fast that it was as if I simply stepped off a tall building. Maybe it seemed like a sudden decision but it was actually a very long time coming.

I was ordained into the preaching ministry a week before Father's Day 1982. Just one week later my family and I moved from Illinois to Abbyville, Kansas to begin our first ministry. It was a wonderful pastorate and I still receive phone calls from one of the elders there who is now somewhere in his late seventies. He enjoys updating me on the church and sometimes asking for my counsel concerning their church matters. After our time in Abbyville I worked my way through the 80's as a Bible college student and weekend pastor.

The Bible College I attended was a part of what is called the Restoration Movement. This movement began sometime around the Civil War era and was founded by Alexander Campbell. The idea was to restore the church to its original structure and practices. It was to be done by relying only on the New Testament for the source of belief and practice. It was the old sola scriptura ideal taken to the extreme. For example, since the New Testament mentions nothing of using musical instruments during worship, the rule then became for one branch of this movement to never allow organs, pianos or any type of instrument to accompany singing. I was baptized at 19 into this type of church. I never really bought into the non-instrumental doctrine.

The Bible doesn't mention having an air-conditioner in the sanctuary either but somehow this didn't apply. Many churches also allowed song leaders to use pitch pipes to get us started. Aren't pitch pipes an accessory? A favorite motto of this church was WE ONLY SPEAK WHEN THE BIBLE SPEAKS AND WE ARE SILENT WHEN THE BIBLE IS SILENT. Seems on the surface to make good sense but it is disastrous as a hermeneutic. Things can get a bit absurd.

It wasn't long before I made an exit from this group and moved toward the Charismatic Movement, which in the 70's was really big. I was attracted to the music and the sense of excitement. There again, a big part of the movement's appeal was to return to the early church way of doing things. Everything had to be Spirit-filled or led by the Spirit or baptized by the Spirit. This too became confusing to me. After all, how can two people with entirely different messages on the same subject or issue be led by the same Spirit and both be correct? It seemed to me to be a lot of subjective thinking disguised as being "led by the Spirit." The final authority became "The Lord said to me" Or "The Lord is telling me to tell you." All you had to do to trump everyone else was to declare that God personally spoke to you. How can you argue with that? Too much confusion there for me. Where is the final authority? The ego-driven self became the final authority. My wife and I left this group and soon gave a more traditional Pentecostal denomination a try. I remember thinking, "At least this group has a central headquarters somewhere. The local pastor answers to a board somewhere or some sort of group of official leaders of the denomination." But then just to whom does that group answer to? I didn't think to ask that question then.

After a short while we left this church and settled into the group called the Independent Christian Church. This was another branch of the Restoration Church with the third branch being the Disciples of Christ. This seemed to be a happy middle ground between the Church of Christ Non-instrumental and the liberal Disciples of Christ. All three groups trace their roots to Alexander Campbell. Well, this did work well for quite some time. As said before, I was ordained into ministry by this group in 1982. So we found ourselves at Manhattan Christian College in Manhattan, Kansas, one of the Independent Christian Church Bible Colleges. About mid way through my studies we decided to become church planting missionaries to Brazil. We were affiliated with a group called Christian Missionary Fellowship which had missionaries throughout the world with an emphasis in targeting the unreached peoples. Upon graduation we began what is called deputation. This meant raising pledges and funds to live on the field for four years and a year of furlough. It took us two very tough years to secure the financial support and our Brazilian work visas.

We arrived in Brazil March 1990. We lived there four years and helped to plant three churches. We landed in Sao Paulo not speaking Portuguese and immediately moved into a high-rise apartment building, not one of us even capable of asking a neighbor for directions. It was a tremendous challenge, but God blessed us beyond our dreams and our life there was very good. We left behind many friends and a Brazilian pastor to carry on the work.

Upon our return to the States our family went through a trying time of readjustment to American culture. In some ways we will never be the same. My wife Marcie went back to school and got her bachelor degree graduating with honors, my oldest son finished his last year of high school and went off to the University of Illinois, our youngest son was still in elementary school and did all the things kids his age do. As for me I taught at a local Bible college, Lincoln Christian College as their Missionary in Residence. I did this for one year and then was ask to be an adjunct professor. I did this as well for one year. At the end of my being the missionary in residence I answered a call from West Twin Grove Christian Church. I was there until I resigned this June, for a total of ten years. I began as their Family Life Minister and served as Senior Pastor for the last 5 years. This brings me to where we are at present. I am Catholic. Marcie has been a Catholic for four years waiting patiently for me to join her.

Her story is so wonderful. You would be blessed to hear it. We are so full of joy to be home in the Catholic Church, the Church the Restoration Movement has been looking for.