Host James D. Newcomb shares his own background as a musician, family man, podcaster, world traveler, and more!
Today I share about my spiritual life within the confines of the Christian religion. I've been a churchgoer as long as I can remember; however, the journey has been, shall I say, interesting.
It was really a search for truth - a search that ended when I was introduced to the Orthodox Church interestingly enough through my own work as a narrator and producer of audiobooks. I was serendipitously hired to narrate/produce two separate audiobooks in 2018 and 2023 respectively, which convinced me that the Orthodox Church is where I was being led spiritually.
So this is my story.
Episode highlights:
01:30 Early Spiritual Experiences
06:53 The Bapticostals
10:15 Do we truly have free will when compelled to act by threat of eternal damnation?
15:10 The Calvinist Presbyterians
18:03 Messianic Judaism
20:48 Spiritual Purgatory in Korea
23:07 The non-Calvinist Presbyterians
27:53 Discovering the Orthodox Church
34:21 Conclusion: An Open Invitation
If you wish to ask me anything about what I've discussed in this podcast, or simply want to discuss any matter related to spirituality, please send me an email james@jamesdnewcomb.com.
I would love to speak with you and answer any questions you might have!
The devil doesn't want you to listen to this!
Napoleon Hill's Outwitting the Devil is now available in audiobook format, narrated by Yours Truly.
Visit my website, jamesdnewcomb.com to get instant access to the audios!
well James your journey has reached this beginning those words were spoken to me by Father John Manuel at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church in Virginia Beach Virginia on March 8th 2024 I had just been baptized into the Orthodox Church and I don't know that Father John really understood the profound nature of his words but it really was profound because my journey has been eclectic when it comes to spirituality and Christianity in particular it's been a it's been a journey I will say that and I want to take just a few moments to for the sake of people who listen to this show to understand myself and where I'm coming from and why we will be discussing Orthodox Christianity on this podcast I think it's important that you know where I'm coming from spiritually I don't remember a time that I've never gone to church for any prolonged period of time in my entire life my family my parents were both Christians they I think they were raised Baptist and they had their own hang-ups with the Baptist way of life it tends to be very rigid very disciplinary and very this is the word and that this word is final and oftentimes it's at the mercy of whoever happens to be interpreting that code that that ultimately just determines what is the truth and what is the right way of living and there's a lot of problems with that and actually I'll be speaking with somebody in the near future about this concept of that type of so-called Christianity is pseudo Christianity people who founded Christianity would never recognize that way of thinking that way of operating within a church but that's what they that's what they were and I think that they were a little bit they were a little bit skeptical of the church although they saw the need and the value of bringing their children to a church environment on a regular basis and so we went my very first personal encounter with God was when we were attending a mega church here in the Twin Cities and I don't remember the exact name of the church it's I'm sure it's still around because it was pretty big back then this is like the early 90s so I'm pretty sure they're still around but I really don't remember the name of the group anyway they would have these special not special but they would have these separate services for the teenagers the idea being that we're not mature enough to hear what the adults are listening to so we have to have special services just for the kitties and there's another problem with that way of thinking as well anyway in spite of all of these flaws and all of this error in the way of operating a church environment I managed to have a personal encounter with the Lord they had what is called an altar call and they would if you're not familiar with an altar call briefly explain it it's where they give the sermon and then it's basically it's the call to action in marketing terms which is to receive Jesus as your personal savior and you need to and and you'll be invited you don't need to do it but you'll be invited to come up and they will lead you through what's called the sinner's prayer and this whole they've got this whole script and then once you say that then you're good according to them I did that and I really felt drawn to God I really had an intense longing to connect with a higher being than myself and so I did what I was told this is what I was told is how to connect with God and so I did it and I really believe looking back at that period of time I'm 13 maybe 14 years old at the time and I truly believe that I had a genuine experience a genuine change inside of my and my spirit my way of life just the way that I viewed the world changed this change was sadly short-lived because there was not anything in the way of any type of discipleship or the community was not stressed in this environment as is the case often with these huge mega churches they're more concerned with putting feathers in their caps with how many people that they have attend any given Sunday and building community and providing a a haven away from the world so that one can develop their own spirituality is it doesn't have the same level of import as just getting as many people as possible to go up to that altar and say the center's prayer and then that's it they've done their job as far as they're concerned I have come to realize that is not all that there is to it when it comes to leading people to salvation and attaining one's own salvation and we'll get more into this as I go along but that was my first encounter and it was a genuine encounter and looking back it's regrettable that I didn't have people to just come up and say hey you're one of us now and here's what we do and we've got we've got these events set up so that you can you can do this here's a reading plan of some sort here and I'm going to follow up with you in a week and see how you're doing there was nothing like that and that's sad it's very sad that was the case and fortunately I didn't fall into any serious um serious depravity when I came to my lifestyle through all throughout high school but I didn't have a real connection with God I was very involved in music but when I was given the opportunity to choose between going to church and having my Sunday morning I chose to have my Sunday morning and that that was just my childhood now that leads me to the next phase which I call the baptocostals boy there's a lot to say about this group I've hesitated to actually mention this group by name just because they did some serious damage to my own psyche as well as some a lot of the people who have been had the misfortune of encountering them but I'm going to mention them they're known as New Testament Christian Church again it was I had just left home and I was in the military I joined the army right after high school and and a young man in that position in that stage of their life I was afraid I was scared I was I had just come from an environment the basic training environment where you do as you're told or else there will be severe consequences not death not maiming of any sort not in 94 anyway I had heard some stories about previous to that but there wasn't anything like that but the consequences were not pleasant if you didn't do exactly to the letter what you were told and so this church organization they were able to capitalize on this and here's this crowd of young men who are away from home for the first time they're 18, 19, 20, 21 years old their brain is not fully developed completely developed they haven't reached true adulthood and so when someone burst into my barracks room when I was at the reception area at Fort Stewart, Georgia and said hey anybody want to go to a church service I was lonely I was brand new to the base I was away from home and I wanted to be around people because I love I'm not a outgoing person I think you would call me an introvert but I do like to be around other people everybody does and so I said yeah I'll go that was the beginning of me being heavily involved in this church organization from the years 1995 through 2003 is when I finally resigned I'd had enough of it then I just told them I'm I'm leaving I'm gonna go live my life elsewhere how can I describe this group it's like the Baptist rigid doctrine the lifestyle is this is what the scriptures say about this and this and it's very much the letter of the law followed to the letter and if you deviate even remotely from this letter of the law and I already mentioned this person's interpretation of the letter of the law then you have run afoul of God's will and God is displeased with you God is angry with you and that was how it was presented to us and then I talk and then I call it the baptocostals because they also believed in things like speaking in tongues revivals all of the things that and assemblies of God type of organization would have all of that charisma combine that with the rigid Baptist setting and you have that that was my reality for about eight years it consumed my 20s and it did some damage I recently published an interview on this podcast feed featuring Laura Davidson who is the author of a book titled God what's the name of her book the logic of freedom free will human nature and the rational argument for a genuinely free world and I think about that term free will and I often ask myself did I really have free will when I was in that part of my life did I really have the ability to say no to that man who was up there on the platform dressed in a really nice suit screaming at the top of his lungs that if you don't get saved this instant you're going to walk out those doors and you're going to get into a traffic accident and you're going to split hell wide open and that's an exact quote of things that they would say do you really have free will when you're 19 years old I mean you can say no and then have it weighing on your conscience that you have disobeyed God and God is he's angry at you and he's going to make you suffer because you have rejected him so when someone is agreeable to that type of thing are they really exercising free will now I'm 48 years old and this is old news this is 30 years ago that all of this happened and I can say with 100% certainty yeah I had the choice but it's dicey there's some gray areas when it comes to free will so I'm just going to leave it at that that's I think that's it is worth examining here on this podcast in future episodes do you really have free will when you're told when you're told lies about what's going to happen to you if you don't fall in line with the preacher I will just conclude this portion of my my telling of my story just by saying that there were a couple of times where I seriously thought of leaving and just handing in my resigning from the organization and I just when I had made when I had those thoughts I just thought I just felt a peace inside I felt like I was breaking away from something that was oppressing me but then I would be drawn back into that that that mentality of this is the will of God this is where God wants you and it did some damage I'm not going to lie there there were periods of time after I finally left and said I've had enough of this I'm I've there's more to life than what you guys have planned for me which was nothing I'm going to live my own life I'm going to truly exercise free will I'm 27 27 28 years old something like that but there were times where I would literally go to bed at night and think I'm not going to wake up in the morning because God is angry with me because I have left God because I left this organization fortunately that was not the case I would wake up the next morning and felt fine and felt healthy felt happy and I realized these guys are wrong you're not going to go to hell if you leave this church you just take what I just described and you multiply it by a thousand and you can maybe scratch the surface of what of the name of Jesus and the church has been besmirched by such characters and such frauds that occupy positions of leadership who have vaulted themselves into positions of authority that are not theirs and again the name of the organization is New Testament Christian church so if you happen to know of somebody who might be attending one of their churches share what I've just shared with them I'll have a transcript available at my website JamesD Newcomb.com forward slash well just type in meet the maestro and that the episode will come up along with a couple of others but this one will be there I'll have the transcript copy and paste it send it as a text message whatever have them call me email me and get them out of there just tell them you're not meant to be there so I'll just leave it like that and if you know of somebody who you think is in a situation like this and they're young and they're impressionable and they really don't have the free will just like I've described then by all means share what I'm sharing right now and have them email me or call me on the phone and I can talk to them and evaluate whether or not their decisions regarding their eternal destiny are truly sound as I said I did survive that period of time by the grace of God did not come out of it unscathed there there was some psychological damage perhaps I'm still recovering from it for all I know maybe there's some things that that are still lingering that are causing some of my own dysfunction here in my middle age I don't know I'll take that up with my priest at my next confession now I want to talk about my experience with what I call the Calvinist Presbyterians and people who know of the Presbyterian what do you call it the Presbyterian name know that there is a lot of disparity when it comes to theology and doctrine when it comes with the Presbyterians although they have the same heritage being founded by the likes of John Calvin and John Knox some of them have strayed from what from their founding origins we'll put it that way there are two organizations that I consider to be sound theologically and doctrinally and they're called the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and the Presbyterian Church in America and they are very nice people extremely very warm generous with their time very gracious people is my recollection of these of these folks just really nice people and I would say genuine Christians they really genuinely preached a message of grace and mercy and peace and they would speak it in truth and love and so that is the de facto tagline of my show and my publishing business grammar Petrelow and so looking back at these these organizations although I would differ with them on certain things theologically and doctrinally here in 2024 having been baptized into the Orthodox Church I do recall those days very fondly and I actually was part of founding a brand new church in Saint Paul Minnesota in 2005 after I had become familiar with the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Kent Washington I moved from Washington to Minnesota where I grew up went from Minnesota to Kailua Hawaii and then from Hawaii to Louisville Kentucky after I had gone back into the military and so that was that was how I that's the types of Christians that I hung out with this would be the years 2004 through 2010 and again very nice people I would say genuine Christians I don't know of anyone that I met that wasn't a real genuine Christian I really liked them and I think they liked me so we got along well and so there wasn't any real compelling reason to leave the PCA the Presbyterian Church in America except for the person the woman that I was married to at the time was raised Jewish and so when we transferred to Atlanta Georgia in 2010 we heard of this thing called Messianic Judaism we went to a service at the invitation of some people that we had just known or we had met and befriended they invited us to this synagogue in Roswell Georgia called Congregation Beth Hillel very nice people really enjoyed I personally was enriched with the experience of having the men like the rabbi would wear a prayer shawl I don't remember the exact name of it and then all the men would be wearing the kipas or the yamakas and it was a it's a Jewish environment and they proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah and so the woman I was married to she had been raised Jewish and then she had become a Christian recently probably in it I think in the previous five years maybe five to seven years she'd become a Christian and so for her it was like wow this is my past and my present all in one and she loved it and I was I was willing to go along with it I thought if it suits her I saw some benefit in myself learning about the history and the heritage of the the religion that preceded Christianity and I didn't have any major issues with attending becoming members I encouraged it I thought if it's good for the spiritual health of my family then I'm all in favor of it did I ever become Jewish no I wouldn't say that but I did participate in the services and I wore the kipa and I think I even had a I can't remember the name of that it's it's one of those prayer shawls if you go to a synagogue the men some of the men wear these things and I had one of those and so I would wear it and I didn't feel at all uncomfortable wearing it I I felt completely at ease very natural I look again look back at that time with a lot of fondness we moved from Atlanta to Fort Bragg North Carolina again this is when I was in the military and we found a Messianna congregation in Carrey North Carolina called the Congregation Arre Shalom and again it was lovely it was wonderful very nice people the services were great the I don't have anything bad to say about it it was a nice it was a nice spiritual environment so this is 2013 is when I went into the mill or not into the military I had been in the military and that was the year that we went to Korea Korea was what I would call for me spiritually purgatory we did not have a home church we were okay we didn't have anything that he would call a home church we of course there was no Messianic Judaism in Korea and so I fell into what I would call spiritually it was a dark time for me it wasn't I didn't by the God's mercy and God's grace I didn't fall into any serious depravity I was always faithful to the the person I was married to I never cheated on her and I lived a decent life that's this is where my son Gabriel was born so in that respect it was a very happy time but spiritually it was not enriching it was not it was not thriving I did not thrive spiritually during this period of time this is 2013 through and I have also mentioned during this on this podcast in the very first episode that this is when I applied to be discharged from the military as a conscientious objector so that was it was a very difficult time for me personally and spiritually because I had I found myself in a position where I found my own role in the military even as a musician a seemingly innocuous job and in many ways a very enjoyable job I still found myself in an untenable position morally because here I am doing something and contributing to something that I find to be morally objectionable and it caused a lot of turmoil inside I believe it at that we left Korea at the end of 2015 and after a very brief sojourn in Minnesota for about six months or so we moved back to Kerry, North Carolina and although I didn't realize it at the time the seeds of the dissolution of my previous marriage had been sown and maybe I did realize it at the time looking back I I don't know I'm not a psychologist I'm not giving myself a therapy here but long story short is although we did move back to Kerry, North Carolina in 2016 our marriage sadly dissolved in May of 2018 this is after shortly after we moved to Virginia Beach my previous spouse and myself and that was a very difficult time the and no one who's ever been through a divorce ever looks back at it with fond memories it's just it's not supposed to be fun it's miserable and it's a lot of suffering and quite frankly it's deserved nobody should be happy about a divorce it's supposed to be it's supposed to be a dark time it's not supposed to be fun it wasn't fun for me there was a lot of things that just came to the surface a lot of anger that that came out of me or living in Virginia Beach I would take a lot of walks along the ocean at night and boy that ocean sure got an earful for me there was some things that I had to get off my chest and the ocean was my therapist at that time been through the divorce this is what led me to the I affectionately call them the Presbyterians who forgot that they're Calvinists and this is called the Presbyterian Church in the USA the PC USA they're by far the largest Presbyterian denomination they would easily swallow up the OPC and the PCA tenfold there's a lot of those congregations in America and I say that lightheartedly because they they're not they don't really take the Calvinism very seriously they're nice people they're nice enough they're they've deviated from the founding origins of their denomination just calling a spade I'm not criticizing it's just you guys don't practice what you guys practiced a year a century ago that's just the way it is and that's the truth it's the reality disagree with it if you want to but it doesn't change the facts the shining or the silver lining from being involved with this church organization was they had a wonderful choir and I I believe that in spite of the errors that this Presbyterian church had me being involved with it was very beneficial because as I'm a musician I was primarily instrumentalist on the trumpet but I got involved with the choir and they're wonderful choir boy and they hire professionals be the backbone of the choir but the vast majority of the choir is just members of the church boy did we make some good music that was a really enjoyable time as far as the music goes and that that was the only reason that I went to the church is because of I was active in the choir which isn't a great reason to go to a church you you want to go to a church because you want to experience God you want to have a genuine encounter with God that should be your number one motivation for going to church the fact that they have a nice choir is good that there's nothing wrong with that that is something that any church that has a choir should strive to be the very best that they can be make the absolute most of the gifts that they've been given and work hard and put out the best product possible that's not the issue the issue is that it was a great choir but there was no spirituality I would look around during the service and people are falling asleep the leaders of the choir they're falling asleep can't they just didn't show any interest in the spiritual elements of what what was going on gone around them even with the heavily diluted sacramental experience of the church it was just they didn't appreciate it we would be waiting in the vestibule waiting to go into the sanctuary beforehand while the minister is giving the remarks beforehand and everybody would just be talking and just carrying on you're about to enter into the house of God we're about to be have entered into the presence of God don't you think you should show a little more reverence than this and I think for that reason I was never really I was never truly a part of the group I was always that guy that was just there but not really a part of the group how did I find the Orthodox church as I said in the written word section of this podcast the show notes there are no coincidences in this life I discovered the Orthodox church through an audiobook that I had been hired to narrate in the fall of 20 I had of course heard the words Orthodox church in my life at some point in my life I heard that there was something called the Orthodox church I always equated it as something that was Roman Catholic so when I heard the words Orthodox church I just assumed that it was Roman Catholic and of course being a good Presbyterian even John Calvin said that the pope is Satan and so want nothing to do with that so when I heard of the the Orthodox church I just assumed that it was part of that high church the hoity toity elitist dog and pony show that you often see with a lot of these high church environments so I can't say that I ever really rejected it I just never really sought it out I didn't have a reason to seek it out I read this audiobook in the fall of 2018 and although the book itself wasn't great I wouldn't recommend it to anyone I wouldn't read it if I wasn't being hired to read it and narrate it it was a very bad book terrible but one of the characters in this book was an Orthodox priest Russian Orthodox priest and the manner in which this character was portrayed defied my conceptions of what I thought an Orthodox priest would be this person was portrayed with a great deal of wisdom insight very sensitive to God and the Holy Spirit and although I didn't pursue the Orthodox church immediately after reading that it made an impression on me let's fast forward a couple of years and I have been here and there I've lived in Vietnam split time between Vietnam and Virginia while I was courting and in the first years of my marriage with my wife Sana and again I was hired to not narrate but to produce an audiobook and this was my former client Ben Greenfield who I think I've mentioned on this podcast but anyway Ben is really well known in the fitness industry and I had produced this podcast for four and a half years or so and I was asked to produce his audiobook on parenting and the way that the book was formatted was that Ben Greenfield himself contributed a chapter maybe I think a chapter maybe two chapters and then he would write a small blurb about each of his contributing authors and each of he would just gather a bunch of his friends and ask them to write their philosophy on parenting answers a series of questions and that was the book one of the people that Ben asked to contribute to this book on parenting was his own father Gary Greenfield and rest in peace he passed recently he was an Orthodox Christian and Gary spoke with such affection and such reverence for the Orthodox Church there was just something about the way that he portrayed it that made me want I think it was my experience with narrating that audiobook a few years prior and then being exposed to this passage written by the father of a man that I highly admire and respect Ben that just sealed it for me said this is where you're supposed to be God has led you to the Orthodox Church so this was in March or April of 2023 I decided right then in there I'm going to become an Orthodox Christian I'm going to go to the services and just ask the priest what's the process of becoming a member I first attended St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church in Virginia Beach in June of 2023 and I never missed a service I didn't feel entirely comfortable my first couple of services because it was very new and when you're raised Protestant you're conditioned to have a just a suspicion if not outright animosity towards Catholics and so when you're doing things like the sign of the cross and kneeling down at certain portions of the service and kissing the hand of the priest kissing the icons that was unnatural it was not comfortable it was uncomfortable but I stuck with it and I just said this is what I'm going to do and I'm going to stick with it until it's comfortable and it took a few months of just attending going through going through the motions I would when I felt ready and comfortable I would just do the sign of the cross and I would do my best to sing along with the liturgy of the service I had no idea what I was doing I had no idea of the what the liturgy represented I just was like a kid going through the motions and then you realize there's a lot of meaning behind so that is what Father John Manuel meant when he said your journey has reached its beginning I don't think that he understood what he was saying I think it was just a very wise comment that he made in passing me he's a very wise man but I it was very profound and it was very appropriate what he said so that is my own journey into the Orthodox Church and I realized that everybody has their own spirituality everybody has their own spiritual journey and so the last thing that I would ever want to do is to compel anyone to view things the way that I view them or to make any decisions that I have made that's given my experience that's the last thing that I would want anyone to do however if anything that I have shared in this podcast has opened up any questions for you has made you want to ask anything about either my own history or perhaps about the Orthodox Church by all means send me an email and I would be happy to entertain any questions that you have any comments about anything that I've talked about and again it's just an open invitation to just talk spiritual things I don't have any agenda to convert anyone to my way of thinking I think that the word convert is a very bad way to describe any type of embracing any religion I like the word transition better this is my journey of transitioning from one way of thinking one way of life as far as the church is concerned to ultimately the final stop which is the Orthodox Church you know a little bit about me and or the Orthodox Christianity is something that will be discussed on this podcast there are a number of guests that are lined up to do interviews I have a few interviews that I've already recorded featuring Orthodox Christians who will be played on the podcast in the near future I feel it's important that people understand who I am as it pertains to my own spiritual journey and again the the invitation is open to discuss anything related to spirituality and any questions that you have about anything that I've said by all means send me an email james@jamesdenucom.com enough I'd be happy to discuss it with you thanks for listening and we will be in your ear balls very soon grammar p true low is your go to full service publishing and marketing firm specializing in podcasts copywriting email marketing website design course creation and much more if it involves clicking a button that says publish we're here to help let us handle the technical side of things while you focus on creating and delivering value for your audience with grammar p true low your vision becomes reality shared with grace mercy and peace in truth and love discover the grammar p true low difference today visit g m p t l dot o r g and receive a free gift just for checking us out that's g m as in mary p t l dot o r g
