hillsongs - the next installment
As the comments in two weeks have gone beyond 500 comments - here is the new thread..
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Recent entries
December 21st, 2006 at 9:31 am
“which missionary organisation is this emblazoned? Are you a forge imbiber?”
Haha. Nah. Campus Crusade. I don’t know forge.
December 21st, 2006 at 9:48 am
Hey, can I have everyone’s permission to quote them on a new blog? The more people who just say ‘emb. yes’ the more resources I will have to quote the multitude of stories and takes that exist on signpost.
December 21st, 2006 at 10:46 am
Emb. YES
Janet, yes the Homer thing has gone too far… Mild coigation perhaps can be of benefit but a good thorough coigation is maybe taking the whole thing to an unneccesary level. From now on I shall desisit in my endorsements of extreme coigation pertaining to 1 Corinthians 5.
Please accept my apologies -
WIGGY
December 21st, 2006 at 11:33 am
Emb. Yes.
December 21st, 2006 at 11:36 am
emb. YES.
I wioll even contribute for you - time permitting.
December 21st, 2006 at 1:39 pm
emb. quote me too - Hillsong is AWESOME!!!!!
December 21st, 2006 at 2:04 pm
Are you sure emb. you are psychologically ready to be fully crushed by the Hill$ong machine, once it gets back to head office that you’re questioning ‘godly leadership’ and ’sowing discord among the brethren’?
December 21st, 2006 at 2:06 pm
Are you ready for all your friends to be told by Hill$ong head office that they are to no longer associate with you…and that they are to ‘move on’…..without regret?
December 21st, 2006 at 2:32 pm
A day in the life of a Hill$onger.
(*two things to note when reading this blog post.
1. No-one abuses the Salvo’s when they’re out on the streets. I wonder why there are so many people in Parramatta who ‘hate Hill$ong’?
2. Note how useless the Hill$ong pastors are in this situation, while the church..oops ..cult keeps promoting ‘how it’s helping’.
“Typical God, he wanted to stretch our faith to the very end.”
No, it’s just that like every ‘contemporary’ church, it can’t cope with anything that comes up outside of the church’s standard range of expectations and its pre-existing programs.)
“As usual Samuel and me went out to the streets of Parramatta, Sydney this weekend. As usual is not quite right. We weren’t in the mood to go at all, but we took the last of our strength and made the decision to go - it was more obedience to God than feeling like it really, and it really took us a lot to go on that day. But we had to go, ’cause everytime we go we can help people, there. So some time later we found ourselves in front of the City Council in Parramatta again - the walking mile. I distributed the new Hillsong Invitation Flyers and Samuel played full-on worship music over the mic and the amplifier. It is so cool when God is praised in the middle of the city. Everyone realizes that there is a difference in the atmosphere. And when the name Jesus is present, there is always something happening. That’s simply because this name automatically implies a decision. Jesus wasn’t a compromise. It is either yes or no. And we have experienced this truth over and over in the streets. Either I get verbally attacked by people even though I don’t do anything other than being friendly and distributing flyers… or the people say loud: “Oh cool, Hillsong!” It seems like either they don’t know the church or… they love it… or they hate it. One time there was a man who looked at me with hate and said: I hate Hillsong! But all the good responses are worth all the verbal attacks. Take the example of a maybe 50 year old lady this Saturday: As I handed her the flyer she started to sing a Jesus-song! But not just any old hymn, no, a full-on modern Hillsong rocksong. And she kept on singing until she entered the next store. Wow, that was so refreshing and motivating! But at that point we didn’t have a clue what kind of day lay ahead of us and what night(!). Samuel had this cool lady that came up to him and just gave him 100 dollars cash! She said that she had walked past him just before. She had been on her way to the fiscal authorities and didn’t expect to get a lot of money back from the government. But as she heard Samuel play, faith for a big amount of money suddenly started to rise in her and she felt the anointing of the Holy Spirit, as she said. She got a big amount and decided to give us 100 dollars of it when she came back. That is so cool! God is so good! We are really in a financial bottle-neck presently but there is not one day passing by without God providing for us. He is faithful to his promises and I am happy that the days of blessing are also close. Just like Paul said, he could be happy with a lot and with little. But this story was by far not what was about to going to happen…
I handed out a flyer to a woman, who kept on walking for five steps then turned back to me and talked to me. She told me that she just had come out of jail - just had been released - she was a Christian, born-again and filled with the Holy Spirit, and Hillsong was her church 18 years ago when the church had around 80 people (today 30.000 on a weekend). She even knew the Hillsong leaders personally and by name (the guys that are world-famous today). She knew Darlene Zschech and Marty Sampson and so on. But back in that time she made a couple of bad decisions: She went out with a Nazi and became part of the wrong circles and didn’t go to church anymore.
Five days ago she had finished her methadon cure. She was a heroin-addict. So she had been clean for five days. She was a really open and nice person and she said that she had to go only through half of the pain than the other heroin addicts ‘because she was filled with the Holy Spirit’. What she said seemed really trustworthy (and afterwards we realized that she hadn’t lied because Lucinda Dooley, the wife of one of the three main speakers at Hillsong actually knew her, as we found out later on). I introduced her to Samuel and she told her story. She didn’t want this kind of life anymore. She just wanted to get out of it. She had enough! She wanted to get back in touch with God! And she knew everything about the grace of God and was completely convinced that God had sent us. She just yesterday had prayed to God in jail to give her a new life. Samuel said: “I’m gonna play a song just for you!” and he played a song, while I put my arm on her shoulder. She sat there crouching on the pavement and just started to weep about the goodness of God.
Then I took her to a café because Samuel still wanted to busk a little bit. I bought her a coke. She told me how she and three other Christian women were the only Christians in the prison in the Blue Mountains and the other 100 female inmates always were looking to be close to them, because they were always the happiest while eating their lunch with everyone. She told me how she led three women to the Lord in prison and about dreams, visions and prophecies on her life.
Then we brought her home. That was the biggest mistake. She lived with other drug addicts and that wasn’t a good thing. As we came home she called us and she had a conversation with Samuel and me for over an hour and we were happy in being able to serve her, because she obviously really needed it. The later it got, the weirder she became and suddenly we couldn’t recognize her anymore. We prayed with her, ’cause she said that she had spiritual attacks and that she was really tempted to take drugs. Oh, I tell you what, it was crazy! I prayed with her: I proclaimed the blood of Jesus over her. I commanded all powers to leave her. And she bravely repeated all of my prayers. We prayed in tongues. She was under complete attack. She screamed and she did all kinds of things and suddenly she said: “Go away, go away in the name of Jesus, you demons!” And I prayed with her and something must have come into the room: I could hear the the CD Player which had been playing Christian worship music in the background did the weirdest sound suddenly - the CD jumping around. Not like how CDs usually jump… It completely went crazy for minutes jumping from one spot to another. She told me that it never does that with this CD. Along her talking to me on the phone she hung up several times and I always called her back. She told me that something always forced her hand to hang up again and again. I prayed with her like trying to win the world cup. God had prepared me for this already the week before by me having listened to a bunch of Derek Prince deliverance preachings and now I knew why I had spent so much time on that the days before. I also suddenly felt an anointing flowing through my hand flowing onto the phone. I sent Samuel and Sky to immediately get her out of the house! And off they went. Then I heard her suck on a bong. I shouted: In the name of Jesus, let go off that and go to your room immediately! (She had left the room and joined the other drug addicts smoking pot). Then she hung up again. I called her again and again and also kept on praying with her. I could have nearly gone crazy about my helplessness just being able to talk to her on the phone and not being present there. As if not already enough stuff going on, my housemates - as I asked them to pray for her along with me - were totally concerned and anxious of us bringing her to our house. Then my security fuses burned through: I said to them, that they had no love… just concerned about their own well-being, instead of simply pray and welcome a sinner that is needing help. Of course, it was wrong of me to say that. (We settled that issue they day after.) I called the police and sent them to her house, ’cause I didn’t want to risk her having heroin in the house and give herself a shot. Samuel and Sky had such difficulty in finding the house, that the police was there before them. And then Samuel and Sky, didn’t dare to go into the house after the police had been there, ’cause the drug addicts could have been a little angry at us sending the police. So I called the house of her again and suddenly came through again. (It had been busy for quite a while). One of the drug-addicts took off the phone and he didn’t want to pass me to her, M., because she always had attacked him, when he wanted to give her the phone when I called. He was completely lethargic and not aggressive so I called Samuel again and told him, that they could get her out of the house. They took M. out and took her with them. Now, we were in the situation of having her out of that house, but not knowing where to find a place to sleep for her. We asked our houses if we could take her in for one night but nobody wanted drug addicts at their home. But man, if the love of Christ burns in you, you don’t care about anything. (Back then I didn’t know that we weren’t legally allowed to take anybody in the house, so don’t imitate what we did if you are ever in the situation. It could bring Hillsong College or the church in trouble.) So all three of us took her to Parramatta in a 24h restaurant where Samuel and me got into a little vocal fight pretty much because we were completely at the limit of what we could bear after that long and exhausting day. We stayed all night in there and at 6:30 in the morning we went home, where Samuel and me took turns in one guy sleeping inside the house and the other in the car (her on the backseat and us on the front seat). So one guy was in the house for an hour and one guy in the car for that time. We slept 2 hours, but that was ok. Then we took her to her parents. She had only said positive thing about her parents and they were really adorable. Her dad had been an orthodox Christian and had beaten her mother in the past (of course that’s not adorable and also not because he was orthodox, sorry for the sentence structure), but as he got born again and filled with the Holy Spirit, all of his life changed and you could really tell by looking at him. His snow-white hair was like a crown of silver and wisdom on his head.
He was Bosnian and he told us how he had preached the message of Christ in Bosnia, but the people rejected it, saying: “We know you. You are MX. (I don’t give you the guys’ names ’cause of their privacy) Why should we listen to you” So just like Jesus wasn’t accepted in his hometown, MX. wasn’t either. But then he told us about how he went to many nations and many signs and wonders happened wherever he went to preach. He also told us about being in Germany and proudly explained us about how he led a whole church, that hadn’t been born again, to the Lord. The German pastor had been a really good man, but he didn’t preach personal repentance and following the Lord - giving your life to the Lord so to say. The pastor was born-again but the entire church was just sleepy. As MX. told the Geman pastor that he had to preach repentance, the pastor realized that he had failed to do that, fell on the ground weeping and asking the Lord for forgiveness for never really having led anyone to the Lord all these years. All of the church repented under the leadership of MX. - 24 people! Somewhere close to Frankfurt. MX. said, that this pastor later called him and asked, ‘What should I do, they all suddenly want Bibles?’ MX. said: “Yes, of course give Bibles to them, they are hungry for God, now!” Isn’t that fantastic! God uses a Bosnian, who lives in Australia to bring an entire church to the Lord in Germany! Wow!
We didn’t understand why MX.’s daugther, M., didn’t want to live with her parents. But she said that on the long run she never got to really get along with them and always ended up at the drug-addicts house at the end.
We had a really good time with MX. and his wife. (We got served a feast!) and we also got to know two of three kids of M.: Two boys. Such great boys of such a destroyed woman was miracle for me. And the kids had really been happy to see their mom again. Wow! That was touching. The little ones were already full-on for God and the bigger one - around 6 or 7 years - prayed (really cute with his speaking disability) for my eyes! They told us that he already led a lot of other kids to Jesus in school and prays for kids there and they get healed. Man that was cool!
M. really wanted to move out of the house of the drug addicts and move with Christians. We told her that we would find something for her, because God was her father and he would provide something for her.
So we went into the Hillsong Church Service in the evening, where Pastor Robert Fergusson preached in front of 4500 people and the preaching fitted perfectly on M. (without any communication to him about it!): He preached: “Drug addicts will be set free!” Of course, it was God again who moved his mighty hand right there. We tried everything, really everything, to find a person to whom she could move to. I said to Samuel: “It must be possible in a church of 30.000 people to find one person that would take her.” I asked a couple of Hillsong Leaders and everyone tried their best by phoning around, but nothing seemed to work out. Typical God, he wanted to stretch our faith to the very end. I also had to serve three hours that evening in the church and I was physically and spiritually totally exhausted. I told God how I felt and that I wouldn’t accept him not taking care of that: ‘To bring her back to the junkies cannot be an option, God.’ Neither could sleeping another night in the car!
she still sat at Gloria Jean’s up the road close to church - one hour after church finished!). This woman was so fantastic and filled with the Spirit I couldn’t believe it. She was Asian, single-mom and was so full of joy - only spoke of the Holy Spirit and of Jesus. It was simply unbelievable. M. was so happy, that she could move to her house. Samuel liked that woman so much and we were so thankful that we had found her, that he wanted to buy some fruit for her at Norwest. We asked her: “What kind of fruit do your kids like?” (Her children were all around her playing and pulling her clothes) She said. “Ah, my kids like all fruit, patience, gentleness, peace, joy,… all fruits of the Holy Spirit…” She was completely on fire for God, I couldn’t believe it. She was smiling all the time - her drug was the Holy Spirit. M. had for sure a good substitue for the heroin being with that lady ;-). And the craziest thing was that the room that was free actually would have cost 100 dollars per week. The Asian lady was in a financial bottle-neck, as well, as Paulos told me. But she immediately said that M., who coming out of jail had of course no money, didn’t have to pay anything. So we bought her a huge basket of food for her and her four children. Samuel and me danced outside Norwest and shouted prayers of thanksgiving to Jesus, so good did we feel: “That was all worth it, God.” All the organising, driving around, phoning around, evangelising around, asking around, standing around, waiting around… God, with you it is like in a soccer match: Fighting for the victory is much more intense and feels like the greatest joy and freedom when it comes.
The absolute last person that I purposed to ask that evening, Paulos from Ethiopia, knew someone, who knew someone who perhaps could take her! It was a miracle by itself that I still was in church one hour after the service ended - 9 o’clock at night: Sky and M. had been waiting 20 minutes in the car already and only because Samuel had to be helping to finish up something, I wandered around - totally drained - and asked people, even if I only knew them a little bit, if they could maybe take M., a junky, to their house. Man, I tell you what! It was really crazy! I almost didn’t ask Paulos cause I already had asked Chol (his best friend from Sudan). But then I said to God: “It will not be up to me that she didn’t get something. I will go to the very end and I will find something for her.” And that was it! Paulos knew a woman: (such a coincidence
M. was in court today and we have to pray, that after all the court stuff she has not to go to prison again. She really made a decision and on Sunday she went up to the front after the altar call to give her life anew to Jesus. Please pray for her, ’cause she is full of fire for God and this dirty heroin is not gonna get her anymore. God has a plan as a preacher for her and she also wants to come to Bible College with us. Pray for her, people, ’cause she will be a great help to many that are in the same situation as she was. This very moment - as I write this - she should already sit in McDonald’s with this Holy Spirit Asian lady and hopefully everything works out so she can sleep over at her house tonight.
What a weekend, but God is so cool. I encourage everyone to go out on the streets. The Holy Spirit is there to help out the people out of their miseries. With Him it is possible. It is sometimes not easy. But afterwards you’re always happy that you’ve done it. And don’t forget that the reward, according to the Word of God, the Bible, is unimaginably great.
Yannick”
From http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=131494430&blogID=206061059
December 21st, 2006 at 2:46 pm
I suppose what I’m wondering out of that story is….does Hill$ong try and do everything on its own..without liasing with other agencies ..non-Government or Government.
As well as the drug-addiction issues, there were obviously mental health issues. I would have thought that at least through its Teen Challenge contacts that it could have found the right help…but is it the culture at Hill$ong that it tries to do everything itself, and when it can’t do everything itself…instead of referring to an outside agency…does it just throw its hands up and say..’well….it’s not our problem anymore’?
December 21st, 2006 at 2:47 pm
I just think it’s an interesting case study.
How does Hill$ong typically handles things like this, and how should it have handled it?
I’d be interested to hear from those who understand the inner workings of the Hill$ong culture.
December 21st, 2006 at 3:18 pm
It’s too late for me to be concerned by those things Lance. Jesus first. He is Truth.
The Hillsong machine can’t crush me. I’m not at Hillsong anymore. And my main friendship group is in Campus Crusade now. Hillsong friends are more periphery, but I know and have the respect of quite a number.
By the messages i’m getting on my phone, they are taking me quite seriously.
And has anyone noticed on my blog just how much support I’m getting from all through the woodwork? It’s quite stunning.
December 21st, 2006 at 3:23 pm
This is crazy! I’m getting messages of support from complete randoms! I’m a little scared though. I’m not completely beyond Hillsong’s reach, they can still hurt me pretty badly if they do their research.
December 21st, 2006 at 3:30 pm
“By the messages i’m getting on my phone, they are taking me quite seriously.”
Can you please transcribe those messages for us back at HQ?.
“I’m not completely beyond Hillsong’s reach, they can still hurt me pretty badly if they do their research”.
Just make sure you don’t put any contraban in your wheelie bin!
December 21st, 2006 at 3:39 pm
The msgs on my phone are all from ‘laity’, no high up pastors yet, and they are long, rambly and involve personal details of people…so i won’t transcribe them if that’s ok, but their general nature is shock/surprise/what do you think you’re doing?
Haha! No, I’m a good boy Mr Fish. They wouldn’t get me like that.
December 21st, 2006 at 3:42 pm
You are doing well Grasshopper.
I had faith in you - even when Lance did not!
December 21st, 2006 at 4:07 pm
Lance has his own issues to work on. Don’t you Mr Lance?
December 21st, 2006 at 5:19 pm
Apology accepted Wiggy… one Homer per blog is plenty!!!!!
December 22nd, 2006 at 1:22 am
From ‘Boy Who Choked Teacher Escapes Detention’
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/boy-who-choked-teacher-escapes-detention/2006/12/21/1166290672548.html
“Mr Mulroney said the boy had previously been the victim of “excessive physical discipline” from members of his family and at the time of the attack was also under psychological stress because of family issues.
He accepted an expert report that the teacher was “unfortunately in the wrong place at the wrong time” on a day that the boy was feeling “considerable rage and anger”.
The boy is an active member of the Hillsong Church and is now undertaking distance education and is a realistic chance of attending university, the court was told.”
December 22nd, 2006 at 8:02 am
and of becoming senior pastor and beating up on some kid outside the church when the service is over!
December 22nd, 2006 at 8:16 am
at least there were no possums injured
December 22nd, 2006 at 8:35 am
or fisted
December 22nd, 2006 at 2:34 pm
It’s mindblowing the support I’m getting, particularly from many Hillsongers.
For those missing the debate, scoot over to myspace http://www.myspace.com/the_emblazoned_tome and on the top right you’ll see what is presently three blogs with raging Hillsong debate.
I’m happy for people to read but a warning, I’m going to be heavy handed on deleting comments that hint disrespecting anyone. It ain’t signposts over there.
December 22nd, 2006 at 3:28 pm
I have posted on emblazoned’s blog - a rather self-controlled half-spray - I didn’t even write Hillsong with the ‘$’ sign.
I thought I’d try out this ‘reasoning with a Hillsonger’ theory…just to prove it’s a load of crap.
December 22nd, 2006 at 4:00 pm
I’m impressed Lance.
You have evaded my editing.
My main concern now is overload.
People can only modify a small percentage of their worldview at time…according to my psycologist girlfriend, i think it was about 5%. If you challenge people too deeply too quicky, they just shut down and change 0%. So we must tread very softly and not all rush to vent.
December 22nd, 2006 at 4:05 pm
And btw lance, was it a waste for Mr Fish to reason with me?
December 23rd, 2006 at 2:12 am
Making (Brian Houston’s) Poverty History.
http://www.leadershipministries.com.au/product.php?xProd=98&xSec=5
$22 at a time.
December 23rd, 2006 at 7:16 am
Back to Yannick’s story… you do really have to ask the question what sort of training and supervision these students are getting. Wesley and the Salvos would seem to be a first port of call for those needing crisis accomodation, especially if they have mental illness and addiction issues.
I’d be very concerned about the single mum who has taken M in… she may be up for more than she can emotionally (and financially) bear if she is now suddenly the primary support person for M… it seems to me a huge amount of support service needs to kick in or both M and the single mum hostess are in for a heck of a lot of trouble. It can take quite a toll on her children too… my sister did crisis accomodation for a lot of years so I speak from her experience!
While shaking my head over the lack of supervision and guidance… it’s hard not to be impressed by the dedication and faith of Yannick and Samuel. One hopes they don’t burn out too badly.
December 23rd, 2006 at 8:13 am
Janet I totally agree with your post (1318).
Obviously there is a serious lack of guidance and assistance with the HS structure. Yannick and Samuel it seems do not even have any training in this area and just wandering around the joint singing HS tunes and “pleading the blood of Jesus” and rattling off the latest Derek Prince prayers won’t cut it I’m afraid when it comes to serious drug users.
One of the Pastors should have stepped in and taken over what they were trying to do… And what kind of burden have they just laid on the Asian single mum who is herself in financial difficulty? It’s so messed up it’s not funny. I admire Y and S for their obvious courage and willingness to help the community but they need serious training in that area and some mentoring from someone who has “been there done that”
WIGGY
December 23rd, 2006 at 11:25 am
Leadership proves itself to be grotesquely inadequate here. Someone getting clean from narcotics has very specific needs. A rent-free room with a single mum just doesn’t cut it. How about a referal to an agency?
Also, am I the only one a little nauseated by the blogger refering to the woman who took this person in as “Holy Spirit Asian Lady” ?? wtf.. does her ethnicity have to do with anything, why does it have to be stated multiply?