Abundant Life Christian Fellowship

Busting Up a Bar for Jesus
By Alex Martin

Pastor Dennis Hodulick cast the first barstool yesterday at the mirrored walls of a former Bay Shore bar, and soon it was followed by other stools, sledgehammers and shouts of "Hallelujah! Praise the Lord."

It looked like a bar fight for Jesus as about 50 members of the fundamentalist Abundant Life Christian Fellowship gathered to clear out what had been Blackberry Jam disco to make way for their new house of worship. But first they had to finish the practical and symbolic work of busting up the bar.

"A number of people in this church were in the bonds of alcohol," said Hodulick, 43, who used to be a bouncer in bars and met his wife in one. "We see this as a kind of catharsis, a symbol of our freedom and the freedom of future individuals we don't know about yet."

To start the unusual ceremony, children in the congregation broke empty liquor bottles against the L-shaped bar. Then, Hodulick asked, "Who was held in the bonds of alcohol?"

After several men stepped forward, Hodulick, brandishing a large sledgehammer, asked, "Where's the rest of these sledgehammers?"

Armed with the hammers and pickaxes, the men laid into the bar with righteous zeal. All that punctuated the loud reports of metal crashing through wood were the periodic exclamations of their faith: "Thank the Lord."

All the while, Joe Gallagher, 36, of Brentwood, strummed a guitar and sang a medley of choruses from hymns, such as "Victory in Jesus" and "Victory, Victory is Mine."

"We're resurrecting this property for Christ," said Steven Hodulick, 32, a former motorcycle gang member and the pastor's brother. "This isn't a death; this is a birth of something."

When the bar was down amid jubilation, applause and cheers, Dennis Hodulick - toting a Bible and wearing heavy work boots, blue jeans and an orange nylon jacket - stepped forward to speak.

"We did what we saw we needed to do," Hodulick said. "We've gotten victory. There's no need to continue destruction. Let's be constructive now."

Blackberry Jam, at 66 Redington St., was a functioning bar and disco up until the $265,000 purchase was completed last week, Hodulick said, and the church has since had to turn away people looking for a drink.

The former owner could not be reached yesterday. Barbara Yourch, the real estate agent for the church, said the building had been a bar for about 10 years, and before that had been a print shop.

The bar area of the sprawling U-shaped complex will someday become the church's fellowship hall. The Sunday school and nursery will be housed in the west wing. The sanctuary will be in the east wing, where yesterday stools and chairs were stacked on the old dance floor. Members don't how long the conversion will take.

The 7-year-old church, which worships now on Brentwood Road in Bay Shore, began looking for a bigger building for its 200 members about three years ago, said John Kurdt, 32, a church elder from Brentwood.

Martin, Busting Up a Bar for Jesus, 12-31-1989, pp 06.