Although Paul’s evangelistic work and Apollos’s ongoing teaching were essential to the Corinthians’ faith, only God could make that faith grow.

Watch Now

A member of your small group confesses, seemingly out of the blue, that he’s been attending Mass. Next, you hear a deacon wonder aloud if we really needed to break with Rome. Then a family member announces that she has “crossed the Tiber,” meaning she has converted to Roman Catholicism.

Such conversations seem to be happening with greater frequency in Protestant circles. But why?

Ask around, and you’ll get a dozen different answers: a hunger for apostolic authority, textured liturgy, historical rootedness, and tangible grace. Also, a distaste for consumerism, hyper-individualism, and a fragmented and culturally irrelevant church. It’s usually a pull and a push, and almost always a long time in the making.

As we consider the specific factors animating Romeward journeys, it’s helpful to understand the dynamics that motivate the process of conversion — in both directions.

Vortex of Vulnerability

Lewis Rambo, in his seminal work Understanding Religious Conversion, suggests that conversion begins with a destabilizing event. The crisis could be the loss of a loved one, career disappointment, cultural upheaval, or a sense that life no longer coheres. All it takes is one crisis to create “vulnerability,” an existential openness to a new way of living. Several arriving together, though, create an emotional and intellectual current (a vortex, in Rambo’s nomenclature), pulling one toward a new perception of reality.

A few years back, I enjoyed a public dialogue at Hillsdale College with a Roman Catholic scholar who had been raised evangelical Protestant. As a young man studying the classics, he saw a cleavage (or perhaps a yawning chasm) between the early church and the faith of his own congregation. For such a precocious young man, this was a genuine crisis that prompted his departure from Protestantism. His decision, however, wasn’t limited to his ecclesial angst. It unfolded gradually and involved a host of experiences that deepened his discontent and piqued his desire for what Rome offered.

Of course, this vortex works in both directions — conversion to Rome or from it. Consider my story. I was raised in an Italian Roman Catholic family and worked professionally in Catholic dioceses across the country. Growing up on Long Island, all my friends were Roman Catholic (or Jewish). Protestantism was foreign to me, and I had no interest in it. If you own a set of Big Bertha golf clubs, why bother with the imitation knockoffs? But then I had a crisis.

The story is long and complicated, but an illness brought me to my knees. I feared for my life and my soul. I lacked assurance — if I died, would I open my eyes to see God’s smile? It was then, suddenly, that several Protestant friends walked into my life, all with the same message: “By yourself, Chris, there’s no hope. Turn from your sin and embrace Christ alone for salvation, as the Savior who died for you, who rose, and who now lives.” I believed, and everything changed — including my church. And as with my Catholic friend at Hillsdale, all of this took time, unfolding through months of questions: Who am I? Why am I here? What can I trust?

Current Trends

Research today suggests more people are leaving the Roman Catholic Church than are joining it. Pew’s 2023–24 Religious Landscape Study, the latest one available, finds that for every convert Catholicism receives, roughly eight adults raised Catholic no longer identify as such, and about 15 percent of those raised Catholic now identify with a Protestant tradition. The data do not yet capture the reverse flow, that is, how many Protestants become Catholic. Several US dioceses have reported notable increases in adult converts since 2024, though it’s too early to know whether this represents a lasting shift.

To many, though, the dominant movement seems to be toward Rome, especially if you follow the issue online. Spend an evening on YouTube and you’ll find an entire ecosystem devoted to Catholic apologetics: conversion testimonies, debates, former evangelical pastors narrating how they crossed the Tiber. At eleven o’clock on a restless night, a young man searches for an answer about why there are so many denominations; the recommendation engine does the rest. The convert-testimony genre promotes the vortex, presenting religious migration as the natural way to resolve one’s discontent.

Watch enough of these testimonies and you begin to see a pattern. A frustration such as “interpretive vertigo” (thirty thousand denominations, your reading of Scripture against mine) comes up against Rome’s claim of magisterial authority. The anxiety that emerges from this vertigo meets the assertion of unbroken succession. Disenchantment meets kneelers and grace you can touch. The cumulative force of these vulnerabilities creates a discernibly Romeward movement.

Restless Heart

This brings me back to Hillsdale. My friend’s conversion was carried along by a current of concerns. So was mine. Both of us were drawn into the vortex, albeit in opposite directions, finding in our new traditions the solution for our personal angst.

For him, Rome answered in stone: The Vatican’s Via della Conciliazione (the “way of conciliation”) led to an embrace in the arms of Bernini’s colonnade around St. Peter’s Square. On the other hand, I found the Father of prodigals running to meet me with arms outstretched, not because I had earned it, but because his Son had died in my place. This was an utterly new understanding of God for me. I had always imagined God with his arms folded, tapping his toe, waiting for me to get my religious act together. But now I looked heavenward and received mercy.

This same gift animated the Reformers, each caught in his own vortex, each drawn not into the arms of an institution but into the arms of a gracious God. Consider Luther, poring over Romans in search of this mercy; Calvin, struck by what he called a “sudden conversion”; Vermigli, opening Scripture and finding the “greater light of God’s truth.” Each was driven by a different angst but led to the same cross.

The Father Who Runs

The Reformation recovered this blessed vortex of unmerited grace, and our tradition carries it still. The longings that lead one to Rome — apostolic authority, textured liturgy, historical rootedness, tangible grace — the Reformation heritage offers, along with the one thing no institution can manufacture: a Father who runs.

How can we serve our friends and loved ones on the threshold of Protestantism? More than a sharper apologetic, they need to encounter a living faith. When my own crisis arrived, a handful of friends surrounded me with this gift. They showed compassion and loved me enough to speak the truth. Indeed, this is our calling, to be trustworthy friends and guides who ask the question on which everything turns: Does the communion you are considering proclaim the gospel that alone can justify a sinner before God?

On this Reformation Day, the invitation remains: not to find the right communion, but to be found in Christ.

If you’re a faithful follower of Jesus today, try this experiment: Imagine that in five years you have completely walked away from Jesus.

You’re not questioning or struggling or arguing anymore. You’re not wrestling with whether to stay or leave the church. You never open the Bible. You have almost no impulse to pray. You’re shutting out anyone and everyone who wants to talk about God. You’re just gone. All the way gone.

I hope it feels horrible, even unimaginable. I’m not exaggerating when I say nothing worse could happen to you (Revelation 14:11).

If you’re honest in this hypothetical horror, what do you suspect might have led you away? What could have possibly drowned your once-strong love for Jesus?

You might immediately assume some stubborn sin, or an especially painful relationship, or something in the Bible that never sat right with you. Sadly, souls discard Jesus every day for all kinds of awful reasons.

If you forced yourself to list a dozen serious threats to your faith, would you think to list the risk of worldliness? Do you ever fear that you would love this world too much to keep loving Jesus? Too few of us fear enough.

Could You Be Demas?

We know how dangerous worldliness can be because God gave us Demas. He inspired the apostle Paul to report, “Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me” (2 Timothy 4:10). Demas once seemed to be an unusually strong, devoted, and fruitful lover of Jesus (Colossians 4:14) — a bold and effective minister of the gospel! — but he kept nibbling at the wrong buffets. And as he nibbled, an unholy hunger grew and grew until he spat Jesus out of his mouth. Paul watched his once-close friend die by short-lived pleasure.

Worldliness is loving what the world loves at the expense of what God loves. Sometimes, worldliness is a love for something bad — drunkenness, gossip, violence, pornography. Often, it’s a distorted and disproportionate love for something good — family, food, career, sex. The unbelieving world loves those things, but in ways that defy God and deface all he loves — his word, his Son, his church. Do you love any calling, hobby, or relationship in such a way that it has started to erode the most important loves? Do you see hints of Demas’s descent anywhere in your life?

• Do you find your thought life being devoured by work?
• Do you spend hours and hours with your family and rarely talk about Jesus?
• Do you never miss your favorite show, but you struggle to find time to pray?
• Do you drag your feet to get to church and rush home to catch the game?

Jesus warns us about the seed that falls among the thorns of worldliness: “They are those who hear the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful” (Mark 4:18–19). He’s describing soul suffocation — the sharp tentacles of worldliness slowly wrapping themselves around a heart and strangling out hope, joy, and love. It’s horrifying. Why would anyone ever let that happen?

Because Satan knows all too well how to make worldly anxieties seem bigger than God (Matthew 4:2–3), and he schemes to make earthly pleasures seem sweeter than God (Genesis 3:4–5). “This world is all that really matters,” he whispers. And if we believe him, we end up wanting the world God made — but hold the God, please.

Four Dangers of Worldliness

When this temptation comes — and it will come — will we cave and run like Demas, or will we fight for the only love that will truly satisfy? God arms us to face the deadly thorns:

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world — the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life — is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. (1 John 2:15–17)

Do not love the world. Worldliness, these verses teach us, deceives us, defiles us, disappoints us, and eventually destroys us.

1. Worldliness will deceive us.

Do not love the world or the things in the world. . . . For all that is in the world — the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life — is not from the Father but is from the world. (1 John 2:15–16)

When John says world here, he’s not talking about the world as God made it, but the world in rebellion against him. Don’t love the world’s way of living in this world, the world’s way of taking what is good, twisting it, and subtracting God from it.

Through worldliness, our enemy weaves the subtle lie that because God made all this (whatever “this” is vying for our devotion), of course it’s spiritually good for us. John warns, though, “All that is in the world . . . is not from the Father but is from the world” (verse 16). Some people leach joy from God’s world in ways he didn’t intend — in ways that belittle him. They take something glorious God made, melt it down, and then form it into an ugly, lifeless god meant to replace him. Whatever that is, it’s not from the Father.

2. Worldliness will defile us.

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. (1 John 2:15)

Those who love the world lose the Father’s love. As we believe and indulge in the lies, worldliness corrupts us. “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other” (Matthew 6:24). The human soul doesn’t have room for both the Spirit of God and any competing master — Buddha or approval, Brahma or shopping, Allah or sex. A devotion to any other master is an invitation to all manner of evil. Whatever masters you shapes you, for better or worse — and if it’s anyone or anything other than God, it’s emphatically worse.

3. Worldliness will disappoint us.

The world is passing away along with its desires. (1 John 2:17)

The world may satisfy you for a moment, but however good it feels in that moment, the satisfaction will not last. It’s true that the pleasures in the meal, the show, and the sexual experience are all painfully short, always leaving you starving (Ecclesiastes 2:1–2). John’s point here is bigger, though: The whole world is passing away. If you put your chips in this planet, you’re going to be terribly disappointed. It’s all going away — and soon. Everything good in this world is pleading with you to look for satisfaction elsewhere: in the one who made this world.

4. Worldliness will destroy us.

But whoever does the will of God abides forever. (1 John 2:17)

Look at the contrast: “The world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.” The world that’s passing away isn’t just stuff — it’s people. It includes whoever doesn’t do the will of God. Not everyone abides forever. Many, many souls are perishing, and they will perish forever with no relief or end. That’s what the short-lived pleasure of worldliness costs.

Better to Lose the World

The apostle James adds his voice to those of Jesus and John: “Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” (James 4:4). And with that severe warning, we receive an invitation: instead of befriending the world and its love, befriend God and his promises. Worship him, and everything he has made becomes another ray of his light and an invitation to enjoy more of him.

Where the world twists and deceives, God never lies. Where the world defiles, God redeems and purifies. Where all those competing masters disappoint, God satisfies — fully and forever: “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11). And where the world destroys, God renews and offers eternal life.

Do not love the world or things of this world. Don’t give in to unholy anxiety or gratification that slowly waters down your faith and joy. Seek first the kingdom of God and his friendship, and you’ll gain so much more than the world has ever known.

What keeps us from seeking happiness in substitutes? John Piper opens Proverbs 4:1–13 to show that wisdom leads us to lasting joy in God.

Watch Now

In 1980, Bethlehem Baptist Church hired 34-year-old John Piper as lead pastor. Pastor John reflects on the life experience and biblical worldview that prepared him for ministry.

Listen Now

I really enjoy October 31. It’s not just pumpkins and spice. A big part is that we’ve had young kids for the last fifteen years. Another part is that I’m a Calvinist and very happy Protestant.

Halloween presents a challenge and an opportunity to young Christian families: we don’t want to participate in or subject our kids to much of what our world celebrates. But as Christians, we’re not left helpless to cower in our basements with the lights off. Instead, we can seize Halloween as an opportunity to teach our kids about Christ’s majesty.

Even more so, the longer I live, the more precious to me is the marking of Reformation Day. It’s no accident that Halloween and Reformation Day are both October 31. November 1 has long been All Saints’ (Hallows’) Day. So, October 31 is All Hallows’ Eve. In 1517, with the holy day coming, Martin Luther chose All Hallows’ Eve for the posting of his Ninety-Five Theses on the church door in Wittenberg. In God’s good timing, that little spark spread through Europe and beyond and freed many from medieval captivity to human tradition and elementary principles (Galatians 4:3, 9; Colossians 2:8, 20).

So, October 31 offers tricks and treats alike. We’ve curated a list of resources to help your family celebrate the joys of this day and navigate its challenges — and to highlight how Christ holds all days in his sovereign hand.

Trick: Handling Halloween

Halloween is not a threat; it’s an opportunity to reassure our kids of Christ’s supreme power over all things, including spiritual darkness.

Our Lord reigns — truly reigns, right now — on the throne of the universe, over all earthly and demonic powers (Psalm 47:8; Ephesians 1:20–21). At the cross, he conquered our sin, and so “disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them” (Colossians 2:15). We want our kids to know that in Christ, “he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4), and it’s not even a close fight between the devil and Omnipotence.

Our Sovereign permits and uses the ongoing existence of Satan and his demons for Christ’s own good purposes, as inscrutable as they are (Job 1:12). When Jesus is ready, one little word from his mouth will fell the devil (Revelation 20:10). Satan’s work in the world is real and terrible, but in Jesus, we enjoy ultimate safety. He is a reliable refuge — a castle the demons cannot crumble, a mighty fortress they cannot breach. We need not fear the night if we have the holy, delightful fear of God himself in Christ.

I’ve loved rehearsing these truths with our kids year after year. Now, my youngest daughter is almost ten. We are close to aging out of Halloween. And the older I get, the more grace I have for fellow Christians handling the loaded challenge of October 31 in a variety of ways. Our family has taken up different emphases from year to year. If your family is ready for a more aggressive, Jesus-rules-over-Satan emphasis, the resources in the link above may help.

Treat: Remembering the Reformation

Do what you will with Halloween, but I’d say at least don’t miss out on Reformation Day — even if the marking of days isn’t especially Protestant! The following resources can help shift your family’s thoughts away from ghosts and toward divine glory.

For an eleven-minute audio introduction, listen to this 2023 episode of the Ask Pastor John podcast that outlines five points to celebrate on Reformation Day: Christ’s glory, God’s free and sovereign grace, Christ’s achievement on the cross, God’s inspired word in Scripture, and the sufficiency of faith for fellowship with Christ. Before turning your attention elsewhere, know that “ultimately, we celebrate the exaltation of the glory of Christ.” That, at bottom, is the significance that makes the occasion soar.

Luther, of course, set the haunting spark in 1517. One way to observe the day would be to enjoy John Piper’s biographical message on Martin Luther from the 1996 Bethlehem Conference for Pastors. While Piper focuses on how Luther guides us to study Scripture, he also provides an engaging account of the Reformer’s life that’s sure to inspire.

If you’re short on time, a briefer but equally helpful read is Piper’s seven-hundred-word overview of Luther’s life, called “Here He Stood.” It’s part of our series “Here We Stand,” offering 31 brief audio and text profiles on various Reformers.

Luther didn’t reform alone, and the Reformation didn’t happen in Germany alone. Browse the table of contents to find a Reformer new to you. And if you’d like a personality overview in one place, I tried to make quick mention of many Reformers (with links) in an article for the five-hundredth anniversary in 2017: “Where Did the Reformation Really Begin?”

As important as knowing the tenets of the Reformation is to understand what the movement did not teach. This article series from 2022 aims to clarify points for which the Reformers labored — and allay confusion about those they didn’t. The culminating piece, Scott Hubbard’s “The Five Not-Points of Calvinism,” is a rewarding read.

For this and other pieces, Scott is one of my favorite late-October voices. Not only does he tell William Tyndale’s compelling story in “The Reformation of English,” but he also addresses the Reformers’ (many) imperfections — and even egregious flaws — in “Whitewashed Heroes.”

Finally, October 31 would be a great occasion to put the Bible itself on the screen. Watch John Piper walk through this six-part Look at the Book series that asks, Are the five solas in the Bible? Spoiler alert: Piper has Scripture for all five.

How do we avoid getting cynical in the face of people’s flaws? John Piper shows from Acts 9:18–31 how Barnabas watched for glimpses of God’s grace in others.

Watch Now

Before reaching Guangzhou in 1807, missionary Robert Morrison struggled between taking the gospel to China or Timbuktu and prayed “that God would station him in that part of the missionary field where the difficulties were greatest and to all human appearances, the most insurmountable” (Growth of the Missionary Concept, 21). This was a bold prayer, a lose-your-life-and-you-will-find-it prayer (Matthew 10:39).

Although the world has turned over many times since Morrison set sail, the day of pioneer missions is not over.

First-Wave Forces

Not all missionaries are pioneers — nor should they be. Pioneers are those who first enter the darkness, men and women who take the gospel to a group of people who have yet to hear it even once. They share Paul’s boundary-pushing drive: “I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else’s foundation” (Romans 15:20). Other missionaries follow with equal faith, courage, and sacrifice, and have an essential role in this kingdom-building work as churches and resources take root in native soil and multiply. In this article, however, I particularly focus on the need for and characteristics of the gospel’s first-wave forces.

Pioneer missionaries are still needed today because there are vast territories and high-rise megacities where the gospel message has yet to reach. Our risen King promised the gospel would go “to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8), a beautiful and boundless phrase that speaks of both his geographic reach and his sovereign rule. Plainly, Christ intends through his word and by his Spirit that his messengers are the answer to Paul’s question in Romans 10:14: “How are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?”

Missionary pioneers fill a unique role in the gospel’s advance. John Piper describes them as those who undertake “back-breaking, culture-penetrating, darkness-shattering initial work.” They serve where there are no churches and few — or no — believers. I don’t mean there is no particular denomination or sending agency in the area. I mean there are no churches — no gathering of believers — because there are none to gather.

On our own, the demand of evangelizing unreached millions is simply impossible — but not with God. As Christ is calling people to himself from every nation, so also he is sending them out to every nation. This is a global work for the global church. Over the years, I’ve met Brazilians, Peruvians, Arabs, Koreans, Filipinos, Chinese, Ethiopians, Dutch — men and women sent out from their churches to the forefront of gospel advance. This doesn’t mean that American churches should outsource pioneer missions — there’s plenty of work to go around. What it does mean is that we respect and rejoice in God’s work through all his people across all nations.

Profile of a Pioneer

Over the past few months, I interviewed ten pioneer missionaries to better understand the issues impacting their going — and staying — in gospel-destitute places. Their years of service ranged from 5 to 34, and their educational preparation varied from bachelor’s degrees to medical doctorates, with majors as diverse as Bible, nursing, music, and mathematics. Although they don’t fit any one mold, yet they all clearly fit the mold that God crafted for them. I noticed five common threads in their stories.

1. ENDURANCE TO STAY

First, they all possessed a particular kind of endurance to stay and serve in places of great spiritual and social isolation. Their capacity for living with uncertainty recalls the words of the intrepid British explorer Freya Stark: “One must be strong to place oneself alone against the unknown world” (Fever and Thirst, 214).

2. WISE COUNSEL

Second, most cited the impact of their pastors’ practical counsel and encouragement to go, serve, and follow Jesus. One recalled that when he was 21 and armed only with a Bible degree, he expected his pastor to recommend seminary before going. Instead, his pastor encouraged him to go, immerse himself in the language, and evangelize — and then to take seminary courses by correspondence. Looking back over thirty years of ministry, this missionary has planted churches, taken the gospel to war zones, and earned a PhD along the way. All such pioneer work began with a pastor’s encouragement to go, serve, and follow Jesus.

3. THE WORD AT WORK

Another common theme during interviews was the life-shaping force of God’s word. One missionary told me her calling came on a summer missions trip during “a deep dive [into] the book of Romans.” With Paul’s words on her mind, she said, “My heart was captured by the utter spiritual darkness — everywhere.”

Another veteran shared a similar story. As he pondered his future path one evening on a rooftop, the Muslim call to prayer sounded from minarets that spiked the cityscape. At the sound, Paul’s words came to mind: “But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24 KJV). This verse sealed his calling to stay. As he remembered the story years later, he still teared up.

4. COMMITMENT TO LANGUAGE FLUENCY

All the pioneers I interviewed cited language fluency as a lifelong pursuit. Some are especially gifted in learning a new language, but all described it as a labor of love. As one missionary put it,

Language acquisition needs to be your number one goal. If you can’t speak fluently, you have to work at it with all your might. If we really believe in the word of God as the thing people need, then we’d better be able to communicate it. Your love for the people and your love for God’s word have to be the driving motivators for you to work on your language skills.

5. AMAZED BY GRACE

Finally, I noticed an unpretentiousness — a wonder-filled humility — among all these evangelists. As an example, one missionary I interviewed said the following:

I have thought long and hard about the question, “Was I more worthy than an uneducated Muslim fisherman on a Southeast Asian island to have had constant, immediate access to the gospel?” Of course not, but sometimes we live as if the gospel and grace we have received are somehow more deserved by us than by “them,” or that we were somehow not quite as much of an enemy of God as the people we are reaching.

Grace is still amazing to these quiet, courageous servants of the King!

Prayer for Pioneers

Although there is no job title or career path called “pioneer missionary,” there is a vital need for Christians who are passionate about spreading the good news of Jesus where he is unknown. Some of these pioneers are missionaries already on the field, pushing deeper into unreached areas. Others are praying, as Morrison did, that God would call them to a gospel-destitute place where the challenges are “to all human appearances, the most insurmountable.”

As with Christian on the way to the Celestial City, the pioneer’s path is filled with dangers, distractions, and detours. Let’s intercede for them — and pray for more to join them — as they follow Christ into the deep darkness, knowing he is with them always.

Paul sometimes speaks to believers with sobering severity. How does God use warnings like his to keep us walking with Christ until the end?

Watch Now

What keeps faltering faith from final ruin? John Piper opens Luke 22:31–34 to show Christ praying for the faith of his people to not fail.

Watch Now