The Briefing: Your church is too small

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By David Lewis for Background Briefing. A sign protesting the sale of a church in Bungwahl. Residents are angry their local church is being sold. Signs have been erected on local properties. Bungwahl locals Greg and Karen Thomas have erected some of the signs on their land.

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The cross of Jesus, amidst his people, built together to be a dwelling place of God. We stand together, and the atmosphere continues to build through the first few songs towards the signature song of the week:. I decided to go along to the week-long convention to get a feel for where Hillsong was up to.

I went expecting a fairly different experience to my normal church life—and sure enough, it was an astonishing few days. Another article on Hillsong in The Briefing? Why is this necessary? This seems to be true more so now than even five or six years ago. Or is it, as Tony and Gordon feared it might be several years ago , a mainstream Christian movement adrift from its Christian moorings, and increasingly less recognizable as faithful, biblical Christianity?

We need to acknowledge at the outset that no-one approaches a topic like this—or, indeed, a conference like this—in a vacuum. In fact, this might be an excellent time for you to stop reading what I have to say for a moment, and evaluate your own preconceptions of not only this church, but of this article itself. What do you expect from this article? As I went to the conference, several things were on my mind. One was that it is slightly unfair to judge a church on the basis of a conference: In addition to this wariness, particularly relevant in my case was my own personal Christian background.

You see, I grew up going with my parents to a small Pentecostal church in Christchurch, New Zealand, and then to a very large Pentecostal church in Sydney, Australia: My parents knew the leadership team quite well; my dad was a deacon; we were in with the movers and shakers. Yet my parents walked away from the church and from the faith for a variety of reasons, not least of which was the way that prosperity teaching had overtaken parts of the church.

Needless to say, I reserve a certain fiery part of my heart for those who teach that financial and physical blessing are a result of faith in Christ—and, more to the point, for those who draw the connection between suffering or need and lack of faith. For that reason, I approached this conference wary of a few things, particularly given that two of the main platform speakers were Joyce Meyer and Joseph Prince.

The other relevant part of my experience with Charismatic churches that shaped my expectations going in to this conference was my memory of how passionate these Christians are. They knew the Scriptures well, and used the language and phrases of the Bible in everyday conversation—an enormously edifying practice. At several points throughout the week, we were reminded of the growing network of Hillsong churches around the world, and the successful read: We heard interviews with those doing social work with street kids in Mumbai, educating and feeding children from the slums.

The Cornerstone album was launched at the start of the week, and we were informed before the end of the conference that it was on the top-five list on iTunes both in Australia and the US. Everyone on the platform came from a big church, or a big movement, or had a big vision.

The movement of the movement

Hillsong Conference this year is all about Revival. Joyce Meyer quite explicitly connected this prophesied movement with the current and ongoing success of Hillsong. Several years ago Tony and Gordon noticed that some of the hard edges of Pentecostalism were being downplayed: So it does seem that some of the distinctively Pentecostal or Charismatic practices of Hillsong have been softened. Sure, there were places for them: But by and large the Hillsong message appears to be positioned more and more as mainstream evangelicalism. Having said that, however, the mainstream evangelicalism they are part of has many of its sharper edges being rubbed off too, smoothed to a more acceptable message in the eyes of popular culture, perhaps about the blessing God has in store for you.

Explicit prosperity teaching was absent from the conference, but then again so was any indication of: The speakers did not say anything that I would call specifically wrong with regards to the Scriptures although there were some notable exceptions ; they simply talked about other things in place of the emphases of the Bible. The talk on forgiveness, for example, was about letting go of past personal hurts in order to be able to move on in life.

In fact, other than one throwaway line, there was no appreciation for or recognition of the need for forgiveness from God. To give you an idea of the tone of many of the talks, it was a little like a reversal of the sermon illustrations that many of us are used to: The preaching on the main platform was almost entirely about us, and the widely-varying blessing God desires to bestow on us, including health, wealth, and success.

In fact, my brief summary to those who asked me what the conference was like was this: Alongside the main sessions, a host of smaller sessions and workshops throughout the week focussed on aspects of the life of the church, broadly categorized into three streams: Off that main platform, however, my constant impression was that everyone involved was keen to be shaped by how God has revealed himself in his word, and to align their ministry and understanding of church to that.

For sure, they came up with conclusions that at times I disagreed with, but the principle of carefully reading Scripture and forming how you act on that foundation was both clearly in place, and widespread.

My seminar on Wednesday afternoon run by a few people from the training college—a sort of open day to the public—was a prime example. Different people from the administration and faculty talked through how the college seeks to equip their students for ministry in a wide range of areas by teaching them how to read the Scriptures carefully, and to speak the gospel to others in a variety of circumstances. They read broadly, from a range of theological traditions.

They grapple with serious issues. After the conference, I caught up with one of these lecturers for coffee, and we had a warm, stimulating conversation about church, preaching, social engagement, and ministry. You probably know the one: Christians claim that God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and good, yet there is evil and suffering in the world; clearly God must therefore be either limited in his power, or not good or both.

If I squinted a bit, he could have been one of my ethics lecturers. Jesus was central to his argument; he was logical, thoughtful, pastoral; in the end he was careful to affirm our brokenness and yet declare the glory of God. Given the experience of both the church meetings and the main conference sessions, this was not the approach I had expected from the Hillsong training college.

I thoroughly expected the quality of the musicianship to be very high; they did not disappoint. Hillsong has, after all, been at this level for some time now.

Surprisingly, at least to me, the lyrics were also really really good. The album Cornerstone contains some cracking songwriting that matches or exceeds the level of songs I would sing at my own church. The music covered more elements of Christianity than any other part of the conference.

Almost the only references to salvation from sin were in the songs. Somewhere along the line, therefore, there seems to be a disconnect between the way that various ministries of the church operate, and the church package as a whole. Behind the scenes—or at least out of the spotlight—Hillsong seems to contain plenty of faithful, enthusiastic Christians who want to see Jesus glorified in what they do, and who give Scriptural thought to what they do.

But the church experience, whether at the conference or on a Sunday morning, is one that results in de-emphasizing not only the way God has told us he speaks to us, but what God has told us he has done for us. If, as in Charismatic and Pentecostal theology, you have an encounter with God by his Spirit in any or all parts of the gathering—the music especially the music , a direct word from God, the prayer, the dramatic, artistic performance, or the empty spaces between—then the encounter you have with God in his word is relativized.

At best, the Bible is just one way amongst many in which you can hear from God. To take this even further, preaching is generally spoken of as a step removed: Brian Houston and a few others had an open conversation about preaching at one point during the conference, and that was how they spoke of it: Previously, Hillsong church leaders have indicated that the main meetings of the church and by extension, the conference are about belonging before believing: The best scenario in this case is that the inspirational can-do attitude the preaching seeks to inspire merges with some biblical Christian discipleship from the music and hopefully the small groups.

This means that we have a fairly major disagreement about the nature of church, evangelism, and ministry—that all of these things ought to be built very firmly on the gospel and the word of God. Let me give you an example of how this plays out in the preaching on the platform. Nothing quite captures the way that the biblical gospel is glossed over, truncated, and domesticated than the final talk of the conference.

It started out as the most biblical main talk of the conference so far, including a reading of the first 11 verses. Sadly, the three points from this talk were about the encouragement John the Baptist would have received from Jesus, and by extension what we can be encouraged about:.

It left me wondering about the discipleship and biblical instruction that was supposedly taking place in small groups and other contexts.

The town's fight

What sort of Bible study was it, if it led to people being so enthusiastic about such appalling misuse of the Bible? No-one who came to that conference heard of the need for forgiveness by God, that is, for our sins. No-one heard about what Jesus accomplished. There may have been 20, people in the room, gathered as one church under Christ, but the church was too small.

It was too small because the gospel being proclaimed was too small: Not only was the form of preaching individual—the preacher sharing what God had revealed to him or her personally—but the content was individual too: How unlike the way that Paul talks about what God has done in and for us! God chose us before the foundation of the world:. In [Christ] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

But my personal circumstances, my life and what God has done and is doing in it: The effects of this individual focus are felt in a number of places, but let me pick on just two: As I mentioned above, prosperity theology in the bold, financial categories of the s is not part of the Hillsong package, but blessing—understood broadly as being over our whole lives—is what God desires to give us.

However, where he takes this is that to be the blessing to others that God truly desires you to be you need to be one who is overflowing with material blessing, able to give to others and bless them with no constraint. That is, a house and substantial income are the blessing of God to you, for the blessing of others. It follows then that sharing that blessing of Jesus with others is about sharing that material blessing. There appears to be no tension between evangelism and social action at Hillsong, because providing materially for others is the blessing of God you are called on to share with them.

During the conference, I tweeted and posted to Facebook occasionally. I was intentionally even-handed, praising where it was due to the point where the conference Twitter account re-tweeted some of my material to their followers , and critical when it was appropriate. I had people contact me privately and say one of two things. Some urged restraint, worrying that I was simply pushing the same old divisive character that is unnecessarily painful and not to put too fine a point on it arrogant.

Others worried that by being positive about certain aspects of the conference I would encourage some Christians to see Hillsong in a positive light, when, in their opinion, they are simply false teachers. Is this just another instance of being divisive, picking up on points that in the broader scheme of things are irrelevant or not such a bad thing in context?

In fact, I have good reason to believe that you will be taught something else altogether. You will hear an attractive message about the God of the universe, committed to you, promising you many good things you can receive if you honestly believe in them. You will hear about the blessing God has planned for you, the better job or bigger house or healthier future in store. But you are unlikely to hear much biblical, orthodox Christianity. I cannot in good conscience commend fellowship with Hillsong. I can also understand why many churches decide not to sing their songs, given that singing them profiles Hillsong and gives a tacit endorsement to their movement.

The fact that there are good things about the movement and good people in the movement is not really the point; the gospel message championed by the church is distorted, and in the end being part of that is not the way that we love or care for people. It out-stripped anything else on the platform by a long way in speaking about sin, judgement, salvation, resurrection, and hope.

My prayer is that the leaders and teachers at Hillsong take seriously the words of one of their own, and testify to the lordship of Jesus in more than just the songs that bookend the meeting. My prayer is that they take very seriously the dramatic extent of our death to sin and new life in Christ, so that the life of the church would not consist just of what God is doing in their lives, but of the life of the Lord Jesus himself:. Thanks for the gracious and truthful reflections. Hard not to be critical, or even very critical for some, of what was seen on our TV screens, but behind the shop-front window and thats how they saw it was a great deal of serious deeply biblical ministry and evangelism according to friends who attended and staff i met from over there — ie one guy So Hillsong platform seems far weaker than their other stuff.

I have a number of friends who have finally left Syd Evangelicalism Anglican churches — very godly, biblical, really evangelising, financially generous Christians not me — obviously who don;t know each other BUT they left for very similar reasons, of which part was our capacity to critique others but not willingly to look at or speak to the man in the mirror. Hope that is not misread as a slap at Sam — thanks mate ian powell. So while I believe the social action arm of Hillsong is built on a foundation that leaves a lot to be desired, at least some parts of what they are doing are worth commending.

I also agree with Ian, that our Sydney Anglican churches and especially many of our clergy tend to be very review-resistant, with the exception of Chappo in particular helped us establish the expectation and practice of sermon critique. A very helpful, even handed post Sam. Ian, your point is also very helpful; we are not always very good at self-critical analysis. I think myself that the problem we have is an increase in the lack of careful theological reflection.

New Commandment Devotionals

What seems to go with that is a certain arrogance that we are the ones bequeathed with the means to evangelise the nation. In other words, I see more humility among those who seek to be theologically driven than those driven by the latest fads. Thanks Sam, very helpful. I wonder if you know someone from Hillsong or elsewhere who could observe a KCC conference and a few traditional style evangelical churches, and could write a similar review for your readers?

I have found myself attending a church that is similar at least in part to Hillsong, it is Charismatic and has committed believers attending. The music is well done and I certainly enjoy spending time with the people there, though I have been realizing that the Gospel is in some ways assumed as opposed to explicitly taught from the Biblical text. I am currently attending Bible college and other students attend the church with me, we all have conversed at some point about this trend.

What do you recommend for a believer attending a church like this who hopes to reverse the trend back to a more historic biblical orthodoxy? We are small currently and I do have a good relationship with the pastor, but I do not wish to cause dissension in the way I approach this, though dealing with the issue is a large concern of mine. Your article addressed much of my concern with the Charismatic movement, and my own church. So basically my question is this: Great question, but very difficult to answer in the abstract without knowing you or your situation very well.

What you can do is start to instil and spread a culture of wanting to know the Scriptures and be shaped by them in discipleship. As you do it, it spreads, as more and more people are talking about the Scriptures, and how they impact on all sorts of things in life. Tony Payne and Col Marshall talk about this in terms of getting a sense of Christian discipleship, but the idea carries across cf.

May I just say… I know of that hardship and that quiet desperation. I am so very sorry you are in that position now. I remember treading as soft as I could and my leaders… They still wounded me very dearly. I shall pray for you. I hope you get a response back from this. And if I may just add… if it does end poorly… please remember our King is busy at work in the hearts of those that have begun to assume the Gospel.

I had the same issue in my Church. I believe all churches can learn from each other Hillsong can learn from the evangelicals more solid God focused rather than people centred in depth Biblical teaching. Figtree Anglican is a good example of the best of both worlds. A real stumbling block to many! Leaders are not to be "lovers of money" The Problem with Hillsong. In Your Church is Too Small , Sam Freney editor of The Briefing gives an excellent update on where the Hillsong movement is at, including some really positive and insightful reflections from his experience of attending the Hillsong Conference.

And with a fair minded and refreshing perspective, he makes the challenging call to a movement that has spread globally: It was too small because the gospel being proclaimed was too small: But it sums up not only the immediate highs and lows of a church excursion to Hillsong; it also explains why in the end, we're left more than sad and grieved, but also dis-unified. Freney gets to the heart of what divides us -- why we can't fellowship and work together as 'evangelicals' with the broader Hillsong movement: In fact, I have good reason to believe that you will be taught something else altogether.

You will hear an attractive message about the God of the universe, committed to you, promising you many good things you can receive if you honestly believe in them. You will hear about the blessing God has planned for you, the better job or bigger house or healthier future in store.

But you are unlikely to hear much biblical, orthodox Christianity.

The church on the hill

I cannot in good conscience commend fellowship with Hillsong. I can also understand why many churches decide not to sing their songs, given that singing them profiles Hillsong and gives a tacit endorsement to their movement. The fact that there are good things about the movement and good people in the movement is not really the point; the gospel message championed by the church is distorted, and in the end being part of that is not the way that we love or care for people.

That was 15 years ago. Many of my reflections here at Talking Pentecostalism are based on a perspective that dates back to that time. How far has the movement come since then? This article asks the same question.

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