Free At Last!

Testimony of Brian Hennessy

             I'll never forget the distinct impression I had the day my wife and I, with our four children, took our leave of institutional Christianity. It felt like we were exiting the main gate of a stockade fort and heading out into an unknown, hostile wilderness. I could hear the jeering and mocking calls coming from the parapets saying that we wouldn't last long out there. That we were walking away from God. That there was no protection outside the fort. That we'd soon be back, begging to be let in.

            Well, I'm happy to report, that after all these years in the wilderness (from 1980), we're doing just fine. We can testify to the complete accuracy of that classic Church hymn: "Like A Mighty Fortress is Our God!" We have not lost our eternal life. We have not become backslidden reprobates. Our kids are not atheists. On the contrary, we all still love the Lord, bask in His love for us, and look to Him for our daily provision and protection - which He amply supplies. Not that we haven't had our trials and tribulations. We've had to face our full share of life's difficulties just as everyone else on this planet. But He has watched over us and each time brought us through victoriously.

The awful things many Christians thought or said would happen to us spiritually if we left the safety and security of the institutional church were simply not true. They were unfounded fears. We discovered we could live a fuller, freer, more satisfying Christian life to the glory of God outside the confines of organized religion than inside. By doing so, we avoided all the emotional and spiritual turmoil that comes with trying to reconcile what we believe God is leading us to do with what certain church leaders think we should or should not be doing. Not that we won't submit to true spiritual authority when we recognize it. Or that we don't have koinonia fellowship with a close circle of other believers. Not at all. We may have departed from organized religion, but not from the Body of Christ.

            I would be so bold even to liken this good report to the one brought by Joshua and Caleb after returning from their spy mission into the Promised Land. As you recall, the other ten spies who went with them came back with a negative report of giants and fierce dangers in the land. And because the people believed the majority report and didn't put their trust in God, they became paralyzed with fear and refused to venture forth from their camp. As we all know, that fear and unbelief cost them their inheritance in the Land, and they died in the wilderness.

            For those who may be wrestling with making a similar decision "to go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach," I would like to share with you now the story of how we first awakened to the reality of Jesus Christ. And then to the startling realization that institutional Christianity was a major hindrance to our walk with Christ.      

 Wake Up Call

            Our story began in a Seventh Avenue bar and grill in New York City in 1973. I was having a long Friday lunch with two men I knew casually from the large, mid-Manhattan advertising agency where I worked. Our conversation had just turned to the topic of the existence of God. I discovered that one man, a copywriter like myself, was an atheist. The other, a photographer, described himself as an agnostic. Since I did believe there was a God, I was arguing strongly for His existence, when suddenly I found myself as two people. One was speaking, while the other - the real me - was listening carefully to every word I was saying. I was suddenly struck by how hollow my words sounded. Not that they weren't true, but that I wasn't speaking from first-hand knowledge. I realized all the thoughts and words coming out of my mouth had been put there by my parents, teachers, nuns, and priests. For the first time, I realized I had no personal experience to verify any of this knowledge!

            Simultaneously, I became painfully aware of how shallow my Christianity really was. Here I was defending God like I was His lawyer - yet not only had I never met Him, but my life was a poor example of someone who considered himself a follower. I saw my entire religion as no more than a topcoat that I put on Sunday, and took off on Monday. The rest of the week my thoughts and activities constituted a completely different focus. I was undone. I could see how much of a hypocrite I was.

            I left that luncheon shaken to the core. But as I stood on the curb waiting for the light to change, I resolved before taking another step to get to the bottom of this matter. Was there a God? What about my religion of Roman Catholicism? Nothing would escape serious questioning. Anything that was a mere childhood carryover - like Santa Claus - would be discarded. I still felt pretty certain there was a God, but I now needed more proof.

            As "luck" would have it, that very weekend a men's retreat was scheduled at my parish church in Riverside, Connecticut. I decided to attend. A professional football player by the name of Bob Vogel had been invited to speak. I'll never forget his opening statement. It couldn't have hit me any harder if he'd tackled me. He said, "Jesus Christ is the most important person in my life." And he said it like he knew Him! Like He was a personal friend! He went on to say that he and his wife would spend their weekends having Bible studies in their home with friends. They actually considered this more fun than having parties or doing anything else! My head was spinning! In all my life I'd never heard even a priest talk like this, much less a "layman." Although I couldn't relate in the slightest to anything Bob was saying, I did feel a strange sense of encouragement within me. As if I was being told, "See? There are people who believe in Me...who even know Me. Keep searching... you're on the right track."

            My quest to know God began in earnest with some personal house cleaning. I eliminated those activities and habits I knew immediately were inconsistent with a Godly lifestyle. It was a time of true repentance. I began stopping at a Catholic chapel on West 43rd St. on the way to work each day to pray, frequently purchasing a book at the back of the church on the lives of the saints or by a respected Catholic teacher.

            As the books and months passed, I felt I was learning more about God and even getting closer to Him. I didn't realize I was still accepting somebody else's words about Him instead of experiencing Him for myself. I was also driving my wife, Mo, crazy. I was constantly reading passages to her from some book that would cause her just to roll her eyes and wonder what in the world I was talking about. Undaunted, I continued with my search. Besides being more attentive in church, I started including a whole litany of other religious activities to my list. I took advantage of many of the means of sanctification made available to me in Catholicism. I began saying the rosary on the steering wheel of my car. Wearing a scapula and a miraculous medal blessed by a priest around my neck. And faithfully adhering to a booklet of prayers by St. Bridgett that promised, if I'd pray them every day for a year (which took 45 minutes), that Jesus, Mary, and Joseph would meet me at my deathbed and escort me into heaven. A task I successfully completed.

Fortunately, God didn't leave me all tangled up in religious works for too long.

Encountering God

            A year or so after the bar experience, Mo and I were encouraged by friends to attend a Marriage Encounter. Recommended as a way to make a good marriage better, we decided it couldn't hurt and signed up. It was billed as an interdenominational weekend at an Episcopal retreat house in Connecticut. Although a Catholic priest acted as the spiritual moderator, the weekend was really run by other married couples like ourselves who shared their "feelings" concerning their own life experiences.

            The weekend was going along well and Mo and I were opening up to each other in new ways. Following a moving candlelight session on Saturday night, where the story of the Marriage Feast of Cana was read, we all returned to our respective rooms. As Mo and I were dozing off to sleep, she suddenly remarked, "Oh, I feel God is here!" and then promptly fell asleep. I continued to lie there awake thinking about her strange words and about how much I loved her. It was then that I noticed the shaft of hall light coming into our room through the transom.

            As I focused upon the light, it suddenly enveloped me. I found myself being embraced by the love of Almighty God which permeated to the core of my being. He was somehow communicating with me, telling me about why I had been born. About how much He loved me. About the unique plan and purpose He had for my life. He was telling me that there was absolutely nothing accidental about me. That every facet of my personality and physical makeup was personally hand-crafted by Him (as the 139th Psalm, which I read later, declares). In that moment of time, I have no idea how long it lasted, my life was given meaning and purpose. A lifetime of insecurity and fears melted away like butter under a hot sun.

            I awoke the next morning with a deep love for God and for all His creation. I loved my wife even more (who also experienced the reality of God that evening, but had a different, less-intense experience). I loved and appreciated everyone I met - no matter how unlovely or unlikeable they might be. I also realized I had a healthy new love of self based on the knowledge that God really knew me and loved me, and that He had indeed created me for a purpose. Later I would read in the Bible, "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them" (Eph. 2:10). When I'd step outdoors, I could see that the very creation itself was worshipping God. All the trees and shrubs, especially the rhododendron, seemed to have their leaves and branches upraised praising God. It was a wondrous time.

            Later I read in the Bible, "You will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart" (Jer. 29:13). I'd been searching with all my heart, and true to His Word, He'd let me find Him. I would never again have to take someone else's word for the existence of God. Or be at the mercy of someone else's well-reasoned argument against such an existence. I had finally met my Maker.

            Naturally we assumed that our new relationship with God should be continued through participation in our local church. We had moved that year, joining a new, but smaller parish. Overnight we became their most active members. Every time they opened the doors, Mo and I and the kids were there. We initiated a folk Mass singing group and held meetings to encourage going on a Marriage Encounter. I acted as co-chairman for the biggest fund raiser in the church. We also tried to reach out to our pastor, Father Al. He lived in a large rectory without any other priests, or even a caretaker for company. We just tried to befriend him by offering to do personal things for him from time to time.

            But in spite of all our parish activity, we could feel our new spiritual excitement leaking away. We thought the more involved we got in our parish, the more of the life of God we'd experience. But it wasn't happening. Worse, we were even having trouble relating to our fellow Catholics who found our experience weird whenever we'd share it. Even Father Sal, at one point, asked with more than a hint of annoyance, "Where'd you get your faith?"

A Second Encounter

             Our frustration at not being able to experience more of God at His official place of residence (as we continued to see the church at that time), and desiring to touch that Life again, led us to go on a second Marriage Encounter. Once again God met us and satisfied the hunger of our hearts, although the experience this time was quite different. As the weekend drew to a close Mo had had some experience with God, but I still hadn't found Him again. I began to fear I'd not meet Him, and I didn't know where else to look. After the final session, and still no God, I returned downhearted to my room. Suddenly the damn of my emotions broke and I collapsed upon the bed in sobs and tears that seemed to pour forth from my very soul. As a lifetime of hurts and disappointments were being washed away, I realized they were slowly being replaced by a fullness of joy bubbling up from within. Then, a small, still voice spoke from my innermost being, saying, "I will never leave you or forsake you." I realized suddenly He was now within me. I didn't have to travel to some geographic location to find Him anymore. Or be afraid that He'd go off to some unapproachable place in the sky where I'd never see Him again. We were now forever inseparable!

The Lord is My Pastor

            After returning from our second "God encounter," someone sent us a copy of, Cross and the Switchblade, by David Wilkerson, and They Speak in Other Tongues, by the Sherrills. After reading those exciting books we quickly involved ourselves with the Catholic Charismatic Movement, which met in other churches in the diocese. Here we began to get into the Scriptures and for the first time discovered the words that explained what had happened to us spiritually. They were found in Ezekiel 36:26,27: "A new heart will I give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances." Later, during a time of singing praise to God, that small voice spoke to me again, and said: "I am Jesus!" I now knew the name of the One I'd been pursuing and who had found me. It was Jesus all along.

            Seeing the Charismatic Movement as something that could possibly bring new life to our parish, we set out to introduce it to our pastor and church. We decided to invite our priest over to dinner one Sunday night so we could get to know him better, and also to ask him about allowing a charismatic priest to speak perhaps at a communion breakfast.

            After a delicious dinner of beef stroganoff that Mo had prepared, and some pleasant dinner conversation, I brought up the subject of the visiting priest. Instantly his demeanor changed. "Absolutely not!" he replied. Then leaning forward he fixed me with the coldest smile I'd ever seen, and added, "And what are you going to do about it?" Stunned by his totally unexpected hostility, I responded that we'd probably have to go someplace else. Although this was not something I'd considered until that moment, He had left me no choice. With that awful smile still on his face, he replied, "Remember, you said that...not me." Without another word, he got up from the table and walked out the front door of our home.

            In that moment, I knew this man was not my pastor. For the Holy Spirit quickened to me a verse from the Gospel of John that I had read just recently. "The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hireling, and not a shepherd, who is not owner of the sheep...leaves and flees" (John 10:11-13). It was the beginning of the realization that Jesus was my one and only Pastor. In the quiet stillness that followed Father Sal's departure, Mo and I could almost hear the shackles falling off. A divine euphoria swept over us. We knew we'd just been set free! The next day, we took our kids out of the church school and put them in public school.

            Not knowing where to attend church the next Sunday, we stayed home. Since we'd never missed church so deliberately before in our lives, we felt like two kids playing hooky. But we didn't feel the least bit guilty. Somehow we knew we had God's permission to just worship Him in our hearts. But at the same time we knew it was only temporary. You can't stay out of church forever, can you? We just figured we'd join another Catholic parish next week. But God soon redirected us. As I was reading in the Book of Revelation I came to the 18th chapter and a description of the Great City of Babylon. I was struck by its remarkable likeness to the Vatican which I'd visited a few years before when we were filming a TV commercial in Rome. Babylon's trappings were described as..."fine linen and purple and silk and scarlet, every kind of citron wood and every article of ivory...costly wood and bronze...incense and perfume and frankincense and oil...and human lives." I called out to Mo to listen to this, and began to read again from the first verse. As I read the fourth verse, "Come out of her my people that you may not participate in her sins and partake of her plagues," I stopped. Both of us knew instantly we had just heard the voice of the Lord. And that we were being told not to go back into the Roman Church at all. (Later I'd realize Babylon's description isn't limited just to the religious system of Rome.)

            As we prayed and asked God about where to go next, we remembered St. Paul's, the charismatic Episcopal Church in the next town where Mo had been going to a Bible study on Tuesday mornings. She'd enjoyed it so much that she had convinced me to go to the Wednesday evening session. The study was taught by a priest they called "Terry," who was the head pastor there. Just addressing a priest without the title of "Reverend," or "Father," was a shock in itself. But His teaching from the Scriptures was so good, that I felt I got more out of one of his messages than all the sermons I'd ever heard in the Catholic Church put together! The more we considered St. Paul's, the more we believed that was exactly where the Lord was directing us. So the next Sunday, off we went to join this Protestant church. We were the first Hennessys to my knowledge who ever officially left the Roman Catholic Church. It was like stepping out of the 14th century!

The Episcopal Church

            Coming to St. Paul's was like coming home. We finally knew we were among people who knew and loved God as much as we did. Although the service itself was remarkably like the Roman Catholic rite, still, sitting under the anointed Scriptural teaching of Terry Fullam each week caused us to grow quickly in the Lord. Like dry branches, we just soaked up the Living Water pouring forth from the anointed ministry in that church. Not only was the teaching, singing, and worship absolutely wonderful - but so was the fellowship. Everyone there genuinely cared about you. As we would say, when you walked in the door at St. Paul's, love would smack you in the face!

            The more we understood about the truths of our salvation from the Bible, the more we found we could explain it to others. Soon we were sharing more freely with our family and friends. One by one, they began to get saved and filled with the Spirit, and many started attending St. Paul's also. But it was my sharing at the office in New York City that would precipitate the next move of God in our lives.

            Called into my supervisor's office one morning, I was told the higher-ups wanted me to promise to stop talking about "Jesus" around the office (which I'd been doing on a strictly judicious basis, but obviously someone had balked). As his words began to cause fear to arise in me, the Spirit of God caused the response of Peter and John to the chief priests and elders in Acts 4:19,20 to flood my spirit. “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God, but we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.” Suddenly a new boldness and courage filled me and I heard myself saying, "I'm sorry, but I can't make that promise. If one person came to know Jesus through something I said, that would be more important to me than even my job."

Since that was not the response the company wanted to hear, I suspected my days there were probably numbered. Sure enough, my workload began to mysteriously shrink over the next weeks until I had nothing to do but close my door and read my Bible and pray each day. I felt trapped between the two worlds of heaven and earth. After two agonizing months, the Lord finally rescued me. Picking up a Christian newspaper one night I noticed page after page filled with ads promoting Bible colleges. It was like the Lord was shouting at me, "Go to Bible college!" We both knew immediately our prayers had finally been answered. What a great joy and release swept over us both!

            A few days later I felt the Lord leading me to apply to Melodyland, a charismatic, inter-denominational school in Anaheim, California. I applied for admission, gave my two weeks notice at the office, and immediately we put our home up for sale. (You know its really God when you're wife gets excited about you quitting your job.) It was hard to leave St. Paul's, even though we'd only been there six months, but God knew it was the right time for us to step out in faith. To be honest, St. Paul's was the only church we ever regretted leaving.

            Later, as the Lord began to teach me more about how the true New Covenant Church should function, I wondered greatly about St. Paul's. If the organized church was such an add-on, how and why was St. Paul's such a blessing? It was so spiritually invigorating there, that every church we visited afterwards, paled by comparison. I believe there were several reasons.

            First, freedom was paramount at St. Paul's. When we tried to join, we were told we couldn't because they had no membership roll. As Mo liked to say, "unlike other churches, they always left the back door open." That freedom, combined with the great anointing of love that abounded in that place, always made you feel that they were there for you. Not the other way around.

            Second, there was Terry Fullam himself. Uniquely gifted in music and in the ability to teach the Bible, he had been directly called by God to pastor this church (God spoke to him while he was leading a tour in the Sinai Desert, no less). Plus he was a humble man. He was always telling the congregation that he was not the head of this church - Jesus was. And that we, the congregation, were also priests (even though this message was being somewhat contradicted by the fact that only he and the other clergy members wore robes, and were allowed to serve at the altar). In short, St. Paul's was unique - even for an Episcopal church, as we later discovered. It was a sovereign work of God. (You can read the story of this amazing church in, Miracle in Darien, by Bob Slosser.)

            Whatever God's purposes for raising up St. Paul's (I believe it was to be a bridge out for those raised in the sacramental church systems) - it was clear that our brief time there was over. After a tearful, hugging good-bye to friends and family, we left St. Paul's and Connecticut behind and headed West. We had no idea if we'd ever be back.

Scales Fall from My Eyes  

            In California, we began attending the large charismatic/Pentecostal church associated with the Bible college. It was one of the mega churches that had sprung up in the early seventies with seating for 3000 at each service. We joined the throng on Sundays, but our real fellowship (I now realize) was a home meeting we had with several students and their wives during the week.

            At the start of the second year of my studies, God finally revealed the answer to a question that had nagged me from the start. Which was, "With all those 'saintly scholars' in charge over the centuries, how did the Church get so far off base? Wasn't anybody paying attention?" As I began to study the writings of the early Gentile Church leaders - the Church Fathers as they were later called - the Lord let me see in their writings all the doctrinal seeds that would eventually spring up to become the Roman Catholic Church. For unlike the Jewish apostles who had been nursed on the Scriptures from birth, and who could therefore correctly interpret them in the light of the New Covenant with the Spirit's help, these Gentile leaders had no such preparation. On the contrary, they'd been raised on the philosophies of Greece, the mystery religions of Babylon, and the organizational and legal skills of the Roman Empire. As a result, their teachings were riddled with ungodly influences. And it was the Church's reverential acceptance of their leavened writings (even today) that caused us to move off our Scriptural foundation on to the shifting sands of human tradition. The Emperor Constantine simply came along in 325 AD and made it official when he "Christianized" the Empire, flooding the Church roles with unconverted pagans and their practices.

            This "gentilization" of the Church occurred rapidly after the death of the Jewish disciples and the fall of Jerusalem. "While everyone was sleeping, the enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat" (Matt. 13:25). Those early Jewish believers had given the Church a solid Scriptural beginning with their divinely inspired writings (later called the New Testament). However, few copies existed, and even those were removed from the hands and minds of the people for many centuries. When access to the Scriptures was finally restored, many doctrines and practices of the Church were quickly revealed to be false and were discarded. However, the false organizational concept of the Church as it had developed under Rome was kept. And it plagues us to this very day.

            The very day I began to see this (it took a few more years to become convinced enough to leave it), a brother at school told me that during his prayer time, my face appeared to him, and he saw scales falling from my eyes. I knew then I had seen what the Lord had brought me 3000 miles to see. And that even though I had only completed half my program, it was time to leave.

Walk on the Wild Side  

            After leaving school, we felt led to go back to eastern Pennsylvania where my wife's sister and her husband lived. This began a five-year Spirit-led walk of faith with our four children that would purge us of all dependence upon anything but the divine provision and guidance of the Lord. Having exhausted all our money traveling to California for school, we were completely at the mercy and love of God to provide shelter, rent, food, clothing and direction. And He never failed us once! During this time we moved five times and were involved in both ministry and secular activities. Although I was expecting some sort of full-time ministry to develop, it never did. Instead, slowly but surely, we were led down the mountain back into the world. I began working as a security-alarm installer, and later as a bug exterminator. Both Mo and I also purchased a distributorship selling Christian books and music at home parties.

            During this time we joined a traditional, Mennonite church, which we then had to leave after the pastor began preaching against the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. We also experienced some home fellowship with a family the Lord led us to live with for several months. Where I worked with the husband who had a home-alarm system business. Our last and final attempt to find a church home in a local institutional church was with a fellowship of a hundred families, mostly former Mennonites who had gotten filled with the Spirit, and who were then meeting in a school. (But already looking forward to their own building.) In spite of the openness of this church - microphone sharing, home cell groups, plural leadership - it wasn't long before we began to sense the cold breath of religious control again. When we suggested we'd like to pull back a bit, we were accused of spiritual pride and shunned by the leadership. As a result, we found ourselves passing through the front gate of the fort once again. This time we kicked the dust from our shoes and never looked back. We were free at last!

            After this, we knew that our true community home would never be found in any of the variations of Roman/Protestant Christianity. It was finally crystal clear to us that all the Protestant sects were simply stripped-down models of the Roman version from which we'd originally escaped. All were cut from the same pattern of hierarchical religion, which includes "holy" days of obligation not mentioned in the Bible (including Sunday), buildings that continually negated the fact that the Body of Christ was now the sanctuary of God's presence on earth, a clergy/laity division, an endless supply of works-righteousness, and programmed worship services that allowed very little room, if any, for the leadership and koinonia fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

    We took again the verse the Lord had placed in our hearts from the beginning, and stood upon it: "It is for freedom that Messiah set us free, so keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery" (Gal 5:1). We accepted the fact that we were already righteous in His sight through faith in Jesus, and no amount of religious activity could improve or diminish that status. Only unbelief could rob us of enjoying the blessing.

            By now the Spirit had also drilled into us the truth about the Sabbath rest of God - i.e. understanding that Sabbath-keeping meant simply ceasing from our labors in the flesh to serve the Lord, while resting fully in the finished work of Jesus by His Spirit. Seven days a week. 24 hours a day.

            He'd also begun to reveal to us that our true local Church was actually made up of those born-again individuals who He had gathered around us, and who met in our living room from time to time (or theirs). And prayed with on the phone. And that our true corporate identity was found, not within a spiritualized Gentile Christianity, but within the context of Abraham's family and the promises made to him. "If you belong to Messiah, you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise" (Gal.3:29).

            We were finally able to see clearly that the true "Church," that is "the ones called-out of the world" as the Greek word ekkclesia means, is a family of believers drawn from both old and new testament periods. A people of God being gathered together in Messiah to form, and be ultimately manifested as, the nation of Israel. Not that we "Christians" replace the Jews as God's people, an erroneous teaching that our Gentile forefathers propagated, but that we are grafted in among them. As Jesus gathers his lost sheep together, both Jews and non-Jews, and we become of one mind and heart as He prayed in John 17:21, the more this divinely-chosen family under His headship will be seen as One New Man by the world. Until one day "all Israel" will be saved and the Son of David will come forth to reign upon His throne to judge the nations, with us and through us, forever. (Rev 5:9,10).

            Then will the peace of the Kingdom of God finally rule over the earth, as the prophet spoke, "...and the nations will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks, and never again will they learn war (Isa. 2:2-4).

            Just to conclude our story, in 1982 the Lord led me to return to being an advertising copywriter, while Mo got her license in real estate. We continued there until 2004 when the Lord brought me out of advertising again to join my wife in real estate with one of our sons, Chris. All but one of our children are married and have given us seven beautiful grandchildren.

This story is now written large in my new book, Valley of the Steeples.