Debating whether to stay a catechumen or go back to a Protestant church
Hello, my husband and I have been going to a GOC for almost a year now and became catechumens about 6 months ago. (Both grew up protestant) We travel a lot of weekends to see family and aren’t the best at making it to the studies.
I have a few reasons I can’t seem to decide and wonder if I’ll ever be ready to convert. The saints is one, which I keep hearing “just give it time”.
The second is everyone saying to just “ask the priest” and there’s a lot of questions nobody can answer. I like how the priest doesn’t claim to know everything but something about this just seems strange. I want a mentor for me and my husband and the organization of the church maybe doesn’t allow for that because the priest is the highest and knows best. And during the Bible studies the priest leads, he seems to talk down to people and shoot down questions. He’s also just said some things that I don’t agree with that seem opinionated not biblical. And so many of the questions just end in “we will never know. Nobody knows.”
As for the women’s Bible study, we go through different books that are about Orthodox faith. However every time it just turns into an hour and a half of us all comparing Catholic Churches and Protestant churches to Orthodox churches. And then them digging on Protestant churches. At first this was amusing and eye opening but now I’m kind of sick of it. I want more community, not division, and I want tools to help me get closer to God and live out my faith more. I don’t want the whole time to just be comparisons.
Lastly, there are maybe 60-100 people and not many young adults. Theres about 6 young adults that are sociable and all late, late 20s or 30s. I’m in my early 20s and am struggling with wanting more of a social life. They also rarely talk about their faith. The events are just hang outs and talk of pop culture.
My husband wants to stay, the older people are very friendly. The liturgy is a nice fellowship and he’s pretty sick of trying different churches. My parents always church hopped and that’s become normal for me. I know I can’t agree with everything a church/pastor says but in the Orthodox Church it seems you really have to believe everything they say before converting and that makes me feel like I’ll never convert.
Do I just try out other churches for awhile? How do you stop being a catechumen? And why have I lost the spark to learn more?