On the Journey

Matt Swaim, Ken Hensley, and Kenny Burchard continue their multi-part series discussing what they used to believe about Mary as Protestants, and how they came to believe Catholic teaching about her. Kenny, Ken, and Matt discuss the third Marian dogma, the Immaculate Conception of Mary. Rooted in the biblical story, Mary is presented in the New Testament as “Woman, par excellence” — the fulfillment...

Matt Swaim, Ken Hensley, and Kenny Burchard continue to share what they used to believe about Mary as Protestants, and how they eventually came to believe Catholic teaching about her. In this week's discussion about Mary's perpetual virginity, Matt and Ken and Kenny discuss the reasons why they used to reject this dogma, and what they discovered in Scripture and history that led them to eventually...

Matt Swaim, Ken Hensley, and Kenny Burchard continue to share what they used to believe about Mary as Protestants, and how they eventually came to believe Catholic teaching about her. The first Marian dogma they tackle is the question of Mary as Mother of God. But before a proper discussion can be had about that, Matt and Ken and Kenny explain why it's important to understand first what a dogma is...

Matt Swaim and former Baptist pastor Ken Hensley are joined by CHNetwork's Kenny Burchard, a former Foursquare Church pastor, to begin a series discussing what led each of them to embrace Catholic teaching on Mary. Ken and Kenny share how they used to preach about Mary as Protestant pastors, why they used to think about her that way, and what it was that began to open their hearts to start thinkin...

Ken Hensley and Matt Swaim conclude their series looking at the life and thought of Martin Luther, and how his experiences shaped him to become the initiator of the Protestant Reformation. In particular, Ken looks at three key questions about the origins of sola Scriptura that led him to conclude that it could not possibly have been the faith and practice of the early Church. Having come to that r...

Ken Hensley and Matt Swaim continue their series looking at the life and thought of Martin Luther, and how his experiences shaped him to become the initiator of the Protestant Reformation. How did Luther, Calvin, and the other reformers respond to the theological chaos that followed from their own teaching of sola Scriptura and the right of private judgment? In this episode, Ken and Matt discuss t...

Ken Hensley and Matt Swaim continue their series looking at the life and thought of Martin Luther, and how his experiences shaped him to become the initiator of the Protestant Reformation. In this episode, Ken and Matt turn their attention from the material principle of the Reformation (sola fide) to the formal principle of the Reformation (sola scriptura) and discuss how Luther’s insistence that...

Ken Hensley and Matt Swaim continue their series looking at the life and thought of Martin Luther, and how his experiences shaped him to become the initiator of the Protestant Reformation. As Luther's doctrine of justification began to spread, it brought with it a moral unraveling that Luther lamented, but also admitted resulted from the widespread preaching of “faith alone.” Ken and Matt discuss...

Ken Hensley and Matt Swaim continue their series looking at the life and thought of Martin Luther, and how his experiences shaped him to become the initiator of the Protestant Reformation. In this episode, Ken backs away from Luther’s story to tell another story — the story of how he, a Protestant for 20 years, and a Baptist pastor for part of that, came to leave behind Luther’s doctrine of justif...

Ken Hensley and Matt Swaim continue their series looking at the life and thought of Martin Luther, and how his experiences shaped him to become the initiator of the Protestant Reformation. In this episode, they walk through Luther’s “discovery” of the doctrine of justification by "faith alone," the article of faith, Luther said, upon which the Church stands or falls, and how this answered his stru...

Ken Hensley and Matt Swaim continue their series looking at the life and thought of Martin Luther, and how his experiences shaped him to become the initiator of the Protestant Reformation. In this episode, they look at Luther’s time as an Augustinian monk, his struggle to find peace with God and the experience that brought him to doubt the teaching and authority of the Catholic Church. For more ep...

Ken Hensley and Matt Swaim begin a series looking at the life and thought of Martin Luther, and how his experiences shaped him to become the initiator of the Protestant Reformation. They begin by looking at Luther's early years, and how his family life and his time leading up to entering the monastery formed him to understand God, and were the seed of theological ideas that would take form later o...

In this final episode of the series, Ken Hensley describes how he and his family found a home in the Catholic Church in the years after he stepped down as a Baptist pastor. In the moment, all Ken could see were the difficulties. The wonderful things God had had planned for him -- and for his ever-growing family -- could only be seen with the benefit of hindsight. For more episodes, visit chnetwork...

Matt Swaim continues to interview former Baptist pastor Ken Hensley about his path to the Catholic Church. Once Ken Hensley resigned his ministry as a Baptist pastor to become Catholic, he was met with all sorts of challenges, from finding a job where he could use his gifts, to figuring out his identity now that everything he'd worked for in his ministry career to that point was gone. He shares wh...

Matt Swaim continues to interview former Baptist pastor Ken Hensley about his path to the Catholic Church. Once Ken decided to become Catholic, there were a number of massive questions he had to answer in his personal life. What about his marriage? His children? What was he going to do to make money, now that he was no longer a Baptist pastor? Ken shares some of the ways he wrestled with these iss...

Matt Swaim continues to interview former Baptist pastor Ken Hensley about his path to the Catholic Church. As Ken continued to pray and study, it became more and more apparent that Christ was calling him, a Baptist pastor, to enter the Catholic Church. Ken shares some of the most important realizations that led him to step down from ministry and enter the Catholic Church. For more episodes, visit...

Matt Swaim continues to interview former Baptist pastor Ken Hensley about his path to the Catholic Church. Ken shares some of the questions that he began to mull over once he realized he'd never really spent any time thinking about the arguments for the Catholic Church. He talks about how he wrestled with the questions of justification, baptism, and the meaning of Church history, and how what he f...

Matt Swaim continues to interview former Baptist pastor Ken Hensley about his path to the Catholic Church. After Ken found out his old friend Scott Hahn had become Catholic, it raised tons of questions for him, but one of the biggest was this: after having gone through years of studying theology in college and seminary, why had he never really encountered any of the serious arguments for or agains...

Matt Swaim continues to interview former Baptist pastor Ken Hensley about his path to the Catholic Church. Ken shares some of his experiences in seminary formation, and later, as a Baptist pastor. He looks back at the kind of things he was focusing his preaching and ministry on, and even his impressions of Catholicism at the time, based on his experience of monastic retreats. Ken also shares the c...

Matt Swaim continues to interview former Baptist pastor Ken Hensley about his path to the Catholic Church. Having shared how he first became a Christian, Ken Hensley shares how he began to feel God's call to study Scripture and theology, and how that eventually led him to pastoring a Baptist congregation for several years. He also shares how while at Fuller Seminary, he struck up a friendship with...

After exploring Matt's journey to the Catholic Church, Ken Hensley starts to share the beginnings of his own path toward Catholicism. Ken shares how his father became a Christian after his parents got divorced, how Ken himself came to believe in Jesus after years of trying to find fulfillment in music and other pursuits, and how he and his father were able to connect through their conversion exper...

Ken Hensley concludes his discussion with Matt Swaim about the process that led Matt to the Catholic Faith. To wrap things up, Matt looks at some of the things that were most important to him as an Evangelical Christian: Scripture, unity among Christians, care for the least of these, and more, and how all of those things were fulfilled and elevated by what he discovered in the Catholic Church. For...

Ken Hensley continues to interview Matt Swaim about the process that led him to the Catholic Faith. For many who become Catholic, there's often a significant adjustment period, almost like having to learn the language and customs of a foreign country. Matt shares some of the ways he had to get his Catholic "sea legs" as a new member of the Church. For more episodes, visit chnetwork.org/onthejourne...

Ken Hensley continues to interview Matt Swaim about the process that led him to the Catholic Faith. Having shared some of the key reasons he became Catholic, Matt now shares what some of the key struggles were for him on the way into the Church. From getting accustomed to liturgical worship, to sorting through seemingly thousands of devotional options, to the pressure put on new converts to be ide...

Ken Hensley continues to interview Matt Swaim about the process that led him to the Catholic Faith. Having gone through something of an Evangelical "deconstruction," Matt shares how the debates over what makes music "Christian," as well as the discovery of the thought of GK Chesterton, opened his heart to the Catholic understanding of truth, beauty and goodness. Matt also discusses how his efforts...