One of my close friends since grade school is Orthodox, and another close friend from college is as well. There was a kind of overlap of discussions with them, disillusionment with the church I was in, and dissatisfaction with my own spiritual life.

I think I encountered Orthodoxy in a real way the first time reading a book called "Themes in Orthodox Patristic Psychology." From there I read Met. Kallistos Ware's "The Orthodox Church" and I started, as best I could, to live the life of the church, through prayer and fasting. I found a church, and after a couple of years I was baptized there. It started as a purely intellectual exercise - what was the faith and practice of the apostles? - but I encountered Christ, and that is why I am where I am today. Conviction of truth, yes - but the real and immediate experience of the reality of the love of God, of Him as the Lover of Mankind, is something I have.

I worship at an Antiochian church (Arabic / Syrian). It doesn't matter theologically, but it does practically. You don't join THE Orthodox Church.. you join AN Orthodox Church, a parish. Some parishes are more open than others... some parishes are more focused on 'the old country' than others. And, to be honest, some parishes have a kind of ethnic emphasis to a fault.

Coming to Orthodoxy from a southern Baptist background was challenging enough...we didn't want to also have to struggle with language barriers. So, we found a church that did their services completely in English. That's why we're at the parish we're at.