Despite growing up attending an Anglican Sunday school in Sydney’s western suburbs as a child and getting confirmed as a teen, Merryanne Sumner generally avoided churches from her late teens until her early 40s.

“After confirmation, I went to church for a couple of years but left in my late teens in rebellion against what I saw as middle class judgmentalism and conservatism,” Merryanne explains.

Her first involvement in New Age practices was the result of a spiritual searching process which peaked in her late 30s. Merryanne, who was living in inner-city Sydney at the time, says she investigated all avenues including Ekankar, Buddhism and Transcendental Meditation.

“I then began consulting – very expensive – clairvoyants in the search for guidance in this process,” she says.

“Although often accurate, they achieved nothing except my need for clairvoyance grew as my need for guidance grew.”

Merryanne says the process became more intense after her marriage ended and she began to search for somewhere to practice spirituality in community.

“I had no idea of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ spirituality beyond a sensationalist and dichotomous view that Satanic practice was ‘black’ and everything else ‘white’ and therefore okay. So, I avoided ‘black magic’ but seriously sought in every other direction,” Merryanne says.

“This leg of the journey took me to some interesting spiritual places – Christian nuns who combined worship of Jesus with Buddhist practices, very liberal Christian churches and finally, a Lodge.”

Merryanne enjoyed the Lodge as membership there offered group meetings, social activities, temple worship, church-like rituals, New Age practices such as clairvoyance, past-life regression, crystals, numerology, Celtic practices and channelling disembodied entities. The Lodge grew out of spiritualism in the 1940s in Britain and a women‘s branch of Masonry called the Eastern Star.

Merryanne learnt how to meditate in order to channel voices of un-reincarnated entities and record their utterances. She consulted tarot and runes for most decisions and even witnessed levitation.

“I thought that such remarkable signs were evidence that the practices were real and indeed they are. One of the deceptions is that these practices can actually work,” Merryanne warns.

Merryanne spent 12 years in the spiritual seeking process including six involved in the Lodge.

Merryanne says her turning point was quite dramatic.

“After a series of events I had a broken marriage, lost my home and savings, lost my career, was in very poor health and was achingly lonely,” Merryanne says.

As Merryanne prepared to move to the Mother Lodge in Queensland to assuage these problems she had a vision which told her this path was closed to her.

“I cannot adequately explain it except that God mercifully had his hand on me even while I was engaged in practices which I now know are abhorrent to him,” Merryanne explains.

“The next morning was Sunday and in desperation I cried out to God saying ‘I need a spiritual community’. The response of the Holy Spirit was so powerful that I immediately telephoned the local Anglican Church for service times, prepared my daughter and took her to Sunday School while I attended church.”

A visibly broken Merryanne was approached by a retired Anglican minister who offered to help her in any way possible. While Merryanne declined the offer, the fact someone cared enough to ask brought her back week after week.

“This began a process of their loving me into the kingdom. My daughter was also enjoying Sunday School,” Merryanne says.

After a few weeks at the church a lady invited Merryanne to attend a Know Your Bible study group.

“The group was studying the book of Amos at the time which outlines God’s abhorrence and the dire consequences for practicing witchcraft. The Bible convicted me that the Lodge practices were wrong.”

Eight months after re-entering church life Merryanne asked Jesus to rule her life.

“While I would not want to minimise the experience of others withdrawing from occult practices or cults, God convicted and empowered me through his word to give up the paraphernalia and practices very quickly,” Merryanne says.

“In his grace, he provided me with a new community which aided the transition process immensely.”

Merryanne soon moved to Wentworth Falls and began attending Holy Trinity, Wentworth Falls. Merryanne’s enthusiasm for increasing her understanding of the Bible led her to attend Mary Andrews College classes at Emu Plains in 2000.

As her church’s need for pastoral ministry, particularly to single women, increased Merryanne’s minister approached her because of her studies, experience and qualifications and invited her to begin a lay visitors’ group and co-ordinate pastoral tasks.

“I serve God in this way when I can because I believe the particular gifts God has given me are pastoring and encouragement,” she says.

“Putting my trust in God and his word gives me clear guidelines to follow in life. It is also wonderful having the assurance that my prayers are heard and answered for the highest good.”