What I learnt from my visit to Hillsong

I used to joke that the church in Carlingford where I was employed had successfully beaten the tired old three application points to every evangelical sermon of "Read your Bible more, pray more, and tell more people about Jesus", by instead adapting a four-part "Read your Bible, pray, tell people about Jesus and Hillsong is evil." This is of course the jest of an ignorant young man, and is far from the truth. However I have learnt much being a follower of Jesus just around the corner from the Hillsong megachurch.

Nestled in the heart of Sydney's Bible Belt, Hillsong Church is arguably the most influential single church in Australian Christianity. For the past three years I've been a part of Baulkham Hills North Anglican Church which is itself in the middle of Hillsong country. I'm not quite sure what to make of the concept of "The Bible Belt" and yet you can't deny the disproportionate amount of churches in the area. As one person put it to me recently about church in Carlingford, if you can't put up a sign that says "Church meeting here this Sunday" and get 50 people to show up, you should give up the game.

Sarah and I decided a few weeks back since we finished up at Cumberland Uni Church and Baulkham Hills and are yet to start as student ministers at Carlingford Presbyterian, to use the month of January to visit churches and see what we can learn from the way others are doing things.

"I just don't want to go" Sarah pleaded, when I first suggested Hillsong.

I reasoned in return, "If you don't want to, that's fine. But they're the most influential individual church in Australia, so it's worth knowing what they're doing."

"I'll feel like a fraud."

"How many students did you meet at uni last year that go there? How many own their CD's? How many attend their annual conference? You can't deny their influence."

For those playing at home, I won, so off we headed last Sunday evening to the 6pm congregation at Hillsong's first and largest campus in Baulkham Hills.

Hillsong Church began as the Hills Christian Life Centre in 1983. Seventeen years later they claim to have 20,000 people attend their services each week and through their incredibly popular congregational CDs (which regularly achieve gold and platinum sales) as well as the role of Brian Houston as former National President of Australian Christian Churches, Hillsong has disproportional influence on the church in Australia.

Now before I share what I learnt during my visit, let me first offer a disclaimer. If you already know that any potential criticisms I might have of Hillsong will leave you labelling me as "just another Charo-basher" then it's probably best you don't bother reading on. It will save both of us a lot of hurt. Well, not me, but definitely you. I could assuage your anger by offering "Some of my best friends are pentecostal" but I doubt I would be successful, and regardless I would not wish dear reader to patronise you. Likewise, my comments are my own and general in nature based on my experience and reflections on Sunday 10th January 2010AD. And before you comment that "My best friend's sister's cousin's great aunt's kelpie's original owner attends the church, and he happens to be a very godly Christian", let me state clearly that I am not making comment on any individual person who has in the past or currently attends the Hillsong Church. Similarly, I wish to state for the record that my bark is worse than my bite. I am told I am much more pastorally sensitive when speaking with someone in person rather than in written form.

At the ministry training strategy SPUR conference last year, we were challenged by one of the speakers Greg Lee to not just write Hillsong off, but instead to ask "What are they getting right? What can we learn from them?" One of Greg's observations was "They know Jesus left them with a gospel and not a creed." The criticism of the evangelical crowd in attendance was clear - Hillsong's congregation aren't happy to simply be doctrinally pure, but to recognise that God gave them a message to proclaim, and they're out there doing it. And as Sarah and I drove the 40 minutes or so to the Hillsong Convention Centre, Greg's challenge to ask "What can we learn from Hillsong?" was ringing in my ears (this would be an opportune time to make jokes at the expense of the loud music however the sound quality was surprisingly quite poor - especially to hear introductions, prayers and most of the announcements. This may have been a result of our seating location as well as the music being played in the background, but it was even relatively difficult to hear the main speaker who didn't have the benefit of a constant movie score being played behind his words.) So what can we learn from Hillsong?

My first impression was simply the enormity of everything. The gathering was huge. The building holds 3500 people and it was packed to the rafters for the 6pm Sunday service. The auditorium is a thing to behold, and so I beheld it. It is new and big and extremely fitting for their size. If you had 3500 people at church, why wouldn't you have a building like it? Tiered seating, comfy chairs, climate controlled, specced out sound and lighting, university style folding desks for writing; it is a lovely building. As a son of a builder I appreciate good construction however it would be remiss of me to digress longer on the building, because church is not really about the building at all.

I've always wondered about how welcoming is done in a gathering that large. The primary way welcoming is achieved at Hillsong is by inviting newbies to a newcomers supper after church. As for during the meeting, there was a moment to meet and greet, which consisted of one person beside us and one in front introducing themselves, shaking our hand and then turning back to their immediate friends. At least this quasi-rejection was friendly, and achieved with perfect smiles. I know they weren't newcomers because the guy that greeted us in front spent the whole time of singing, surfing Facebook on his iPhone. Actually, so did his friend two seats down. I wonder if they were messaging each other? Other than that, another insular group was to our left. To the right, there were two seats - perfect for another couple to come and join Sarah and I. And not too long into the singing they did. My friendly smile was returned with another perfect one in kind. Yet I was surprised to look over at the end of the song to discover they had disappeared. Sarah tells me they spotted some friends not far away and had gone to sit with them. Oh well, there were still people coming in, we still had hope of another couple coming and speaking to us. As spare seats were at a premium we soon had another couple join us. Yet again, while I was busy singing, these too slipped away unnoticed as they had spotted friends not far away. The third couple to sit beside us stayed. I like to think it was because they could sense we were new and didn't want us to feel rejected, though I suspect the reality was that it was getting towards sermon time and there really was nowhere else to sit. They did well to stay, as I must have freaked them out a little because already twice bitten I kept weirdly looking at them out of the corner of my eye to make sure they wouldn't stealthily leave as well.

As a group, the congregation members were young and pretty. So fitting in wasn't a problem, but something else must have given us away, because we were identified by a woman sitting behind us as newcomers. I suggested to Sarah perhaps it was that we had brought along our Bibles, but that couldn't be right, as we weren't the only ones with Bibles, even though we needn't have bothered. I think what gave us away was the puzzled expression we gave each other as during the second last song about 20-30% of the congregation just packed up and left. We weren't sure what was going on. I thought it might be so they could set up for the newcomers supper, and this was no doubt true for some but once we got outside it was soon clear that just like major sporting events, once the result was certain the race was on to get out of the carpark before the traffic jam. The woman who invited us to the supper was herself a relative newcomer who had been there for eight weeks and said it was all a bit different for her and was taking some getting used to. She was extremely nice to us, but the crowd was filtering out and so we soon wished each other all the best and went our separate ways.

The message was delivered by Danny Guglielmucci. I use the word message deliberately as his opening words were "I'm not going to give a sermon tonight - instead I'll give a word of truth." I'm certain he would consider his sermons as words of truth too, but it was not a strong beginning. By the end of the 40 minute address I was wondering if not opened, that perhaps the Bible would at least be quoted. Sweet relief came late and fast.

"I didn't have a verse tonight, but if I did it would have been 2 Timothy 4 'Fight the good fight'. And there are good fights and bad fights -  and we're to fight the good ones."

That was it. I learnt absolutely nothing from 40 minutes of this 'word of truth'. At least nothing of significance. This is not a personal attack; Guglielmucci has gone through some difficult life experiences, and he seems to still trust God. He was an engaging speaker and yet I just left off feeling hollow, like there was some void that I was waiting to be filled that just wasn't going to. I felt like shouting out - "What about the Bible?" I assume as a guest speaker that failing to refer to the Bible virtually at all is not normal practice, but seriously. There must have been 100's of visitors in a crowd that size, and I can't see how they left with anything close to an understanding of Jesus or God or the Bible, or the necessary of rebirth through the Spirit. It was just a sad, wasted opportunity.

This lack of gospel presentation didn't prevent a call for a response. This was done in a bizarre manner, because I'm still not even certain what they were responding to. I think the phrase was 'If you've realised you're hurting before God' or something similar, then come on down. The pastor who called them down, who looked like Brian Houston's son but didn't introduce himself, kept saying the response was "awesome" that all these people were coming to the stage. I can't judge their hearts, and I hope it was the end of a process where people had been telling them about sin and about Jesus death on their behalf, but if their response was purely as a result of what had come before that evening, then I can see absolutely no indication to suggest they have any idea of why they came down the front. Thankfully, they were taken outside for a minute to pass on their details and to be given a Bible, so my prayer for them is that they were consequently explained the gospel. At the very least they now have a Bible which hopefully they will use, even if it's usefulness was implicitly discouraged by its lack of reference from the preacher.

Also good to note is that the guy that looked like Brian Houston's son was proven not to be a false prophet. After the initial call for people to come forward, we all sang a verse and chorus of a song as about 10 people came forward, while we waited for the repeat verse and chorus another call was issued for more people to come forward, and they did - another 15 or so. Lastly, the Brian Houston-looking guy "had a feeling" that "there's more people out there", and though he assured us "We don't normally do this", we went for a third repeat verse chorus in order for those who didn't come the first two times. Initially it didn't look promising, but eventually another two willing participants stepped forward to prove that amongst us was indeed a true prophet.

I truly was optimistic about learning from Hillsong. Sarah and I went to one night of their conference a few years back to hear the most (literally) god-awful sermon I've ever heard in my life from T.D.Jakes. And yet I was optimistic. I'd heard they'd mellowed over the years - that the unhelpful pentecostal and charismatic elements that had developed over time had been minimised as they went mainstream. But sadly to my view all that is left is motivational speaking for the masses with some-Christian sounding words thrown in and some well-played if lyrically airy songs.

So what can we learn from Hillsong? What are they doing right? Greg Lee was right - many of the people that attend Hillsong do indeed know that Jesus left them with a gospel and not a creed. I'm certain many of them are saved. Most of those who I know personally who attend are indeed much more evangelistic than myself. But by evangelistic I mean, not proclaiming the gospel per se, but just being a bit more overt in their God-talk. As for the content of the message they are proclaiming, if it's as lacking in content as what was served up to the faithful last Sunday then I can see no proclamation of Christ crucified, no obvious call to repentance, and therefore no salvation that leads to life. This all sounds very much like criticism from my high horse, but it truly was exceptionally hollow. We must not confuse desire to proclaim a message with desire to proclaim the gospel message.

It's great to ask what can we learn from Hillsong. It's great the members are known for getting out there and having a gospel to be proclaimed rather than a creed to memorise. And yet surely we must ask, if this gospel message is not the gospel of the crucified and risen Lord Jesus for the forgiveness of sin then I can not but conclude if all we are learning is they have a message to proclaim with fervour, then I need look no further than PETA anti-fur protesters or Mac users or GTD proponents for my example.

Sure let's ask what we can learn - and I got some great ideas about managing a large crowd (each kid in the kids program is given a number and if there's any problems, their number flashes on the screen for the parent to come and get them), great ideas about production values, and graphic design - but for most of the aspects of the meeting that I liked, I say to myself, I'm not certain this is being driven by sound theology and so is this something I want to be copying?

There were so many people there who came to be gathered with God's people but what a wasted opportunity.

Interestingly door-knocking around Baulkham Hills, I discovered for many people Hillsong is the nominalism of the suburb. In the way that people in some suburbs would dismiss you with "I'm Anglican", it is common to hear "I go to Hillsong". The follow up question of "That's great, how often do you go?" often reveals a former or semi-regular attender with an unsurprisingly hollow understanding of the gospel.

I know that the Bible must surely play more of a role in the regular meeting. And so it is my hope that the many blessings God has given Hillsong church and their visibility as a gathering of God's people and their pull-factor and their fame would be utilised for the powerful proclamation of the gospel. I pray that God will convince them further of the truths of Scripture in a way that would enable them to proclaim the true gospel in all its fulness. Because there are I'm certain 1000's of Christians within their meetings who understand the gospel, but are sadly being fed fairy floss. And I'm not certain that were they to put on some good music and actually preach the gospel powerfully and well that God would not use that for his glory and continue to bring spectators and huge numbers of people who consequently respond to Jesus in repentance and faith to be brought to eternal life.

**As one points the finger, three fingers are pointed back at oneself**