Around 1810 Ravenscroft experienced a religious conversion, and he and Ann joined a group known as "Republican Methodists". After three years, he was asked to become a leader of the community, but Ann died on August 5, 1815. About a year later, Ravenscroft decided to become a minister, but harbored doubts as to whether every Christian denomination (including the Republican Methodists) were valid and authorized by scriptures, and especially their fitness to perform sacraments. His great grandfather Capt. Samuel Ravenscroft had emigrated to Boston in 1679 and helped found the first Anglican Church in that city. His son (this Ravenscroft's father) Thomas had moved to James City County, and then Prince George County, Virginia where he represented his neighbors in the House of Burgesses as well as acquired land to the south along the Meherrin River and the North Carolina border. This old-line Virginian family had been long members of the Church of England. However, its successor in America, the Episcopal Church was disestablished after the Revolutionary War in both Virginia and North Carolina, and that denomination almost became extinct in the south. Rev. James Craig had retired or left the Meherrin River/Lunenburg County by 1795 and evangelical denominations predominated—Presbyterians led by the Caldwells, Baptists founding the multi-ethnic Meherrin Baptist Church as well as the Cedar Creek Baptist Church, and Methodists visiting the area as part of their Brunswick Circuit included Francis Asbury and Thomas Coke. Nonetheless, as the Second Great Awakening began, Virginia's Episcopal Church was reviving. Richard Channing Moore become its bishop and happily confirmed Ravenscroft as an Episcopalian.