My Evangelical Beginning

I was raised in the United Methodist Church. As a child I was taught by word and example to value Holy Scripture and prayer. I remember seeing my mother read the Open Bible at the kitchen table while sipping on a cup of coffee. My father would occasionally sit down with me and read his favorite Psalm 23. Every time I would visit my grandparents we would begin every morning before breakfast with a reading from a Methodist devotional guide called The Upper Room which included readings from Scripture. In my teenage years I would listen to a local Christian radio station with the likes of John MacArthur and Charles Stanley who took Holy Scripture very seriously. Early on, God was laying a foundation for me in Holy Scripture and prayer that would later lead me to the Orthodox Church .