How'd He Get Into My Head?

The feeling I get when reading stories of other CoC converts to Catholicism never ceases to amaze me - it's as if someone stole the very words out of my own head. The description of the progression of thoughts and feelings is just so strikingly similar to my own! Here's an example from one Joe Stauffer, who describes his reaction after reading in an Encyclopedia as a young teen that the CoC was a product of the restoration movement:

I was very young and very naïve. I was crushed. First of all, this was not the story I was fed from Day One. I had grown up believing that the COC had been around since the Apostles. The famous Pauline greeting, "The Churches of Christ salute you!" was proof positive that my church, the COC, was not only the true church (after all, where in the Bible do you find reference to the Methodists, Lutherans, or Catholics?) but had been around since New Testament times. I recall how utterly fortunate - and amazed - I felt to have been born into a family that belonged to the one true faith. That feeling of good fortune was amplified when I reflected on how precious few of us there seemed to be in the world. Now common, ordinary library references were telling me that a denomination calling itself the COC did not even exist until this century. I felt so stupid for thinking that "Church of Christ" was some sort of registered trademark, an appellation that could only be, and was, used exclusively by one particular denomination.

I could have written this, word for word! Simply amazing!