Hillsong - A Case For Change
There has been much talk, in the threads about documenting a “Case For Change” for Hillsong.
And very soon, Tanya Levin’s new book “Glass Houses” will hit both the boookstores, and the words contained within will be discussed and debated across the Blogosphere.
Recently, the Bulletin published a positive article on Hillsong, and to be more specific, the closing sermon:
“Skinner addressed the crowd with a blunt message: “You can’t separate God in his awesome power in heaven from the snotty, bloated kid with the fly in his eye in the ditch. God is not impressed by the size of our church. God is not impressed by how many times we go to church but by how much we become like Jesus. The world is on an accumulation binge - give me more and more and more - but God is a giver.”
We have all discussed the ‘what needs to change’ - but I am now left thinking.
1) Is real Change possible within Hillsong and other contemporary Churches?
2) What will be the real driver for change in the Contemporary Church (that includes Hillsong) - Critique or the Gospel?
3) Is reconcilliation without compromise really possible between the Contemporary Church and those overwhelmingly disenfranchised by it?
August 10th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Hi Emma, nice to see a blog from you. You have been in my thoughts, I remember that very busy time of motherhood. Hope you and your loved ones are all well and thriving.
That’s interesting Wakey, what was it specifically that struck you about the PC/ nativity scence comment? Yes, it seemed a very cynical ploy to gain the ‘christian vote’ (whatever that is…)
August 10th, 2007 at 3:35 pm
Daisy,
I think of the things they talked about, foreign aid, work choices, balance of family life, filtering of the internet. Things that are real and need to looked into. But the biggest cheer from the audience came when he was asked the question of whether christian prayer would be continued to start parliment and he made the comment about political correctness gone mad.
I think that showed me the mindest of the audience and what they hoped to get out of the evening. The person who asked the question for those interested was Keith Ainge National Secretary of the Australian Christian churches (formerly AOG). If I had the chance to ask a question of John Howard I think I could come up with something better then that.
August 10th, 2007 at 6:57 pm
Hey daisy thanks for your kind words, it has been a little tough lately with morning sickness and then kids having chicken pox and then everybody having flu.
wakey did anyone ask about the refugees??
August 11th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Hi Emma… nice to hear from you again. I was thinking the other day “what happened to Emma?” and there you are!
It’s not surprising that politicians say what they think people want to hear… it’s just sad that the Christians concerned have a teeny tiny version of the Kingdom of God.
I’ve long thought God was much more concerned about injustice and the poor than whether nativity scenes get put up in shopping centres (which is much more about cultural traditions than the priority of Jesus IMO).
August 11th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Yes IMO too. Actually if anyone knows anything out there about actuial legislation in childcare centres re: nativity and Christmas etc I would be interested to hear. All my conservative Christian friends are always going on about “well kids aren’t allowed to celebrate Christian holidays etc anymore at day care/pre school but they’re allowed to celebrate all other religious holidays” but no one can actually give me any examples or proof! Certainly everything is celebrated at my son’s pre school. Is it right-wing Christian hype as I suspect?
August 11th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
Emma
There is no actual legislation that prevents people having Nativity scenes in Australia - all the stuff you hear is usually stuff that happens in the good old U.S A - and that’s a completely differerent situation .
Sometimes those in charge in Australia don’t understand and they get a bit politically correct and start banning religious celebrations - the tabloid press love to beat this sort of thing up around Christmas . But there’s no legislation that prevents a school or a day care centre from celebrating Christmas.
August 11th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
Emma,
Kevin Rudd did talk about the fact that since we were involved in the war in Iraq then we should take more of an effort in taking the refugees that are streaming out of Iraq and into Syria and Jordan, especially the Iraq Christians.
There was also talk about the fact we should continue to take in refugees and should process them more humanly, no longer then 90 days to process them, etc
August 12th, 2007 at 9:07 am
For those coming to Newport - I will be wearing jeans - T shirt and a light brown woolen jacket - we will be in the bistro queue at 1.00.
If anybody needs contact this morning my email is frolley@hotmail.com - here until about 11.00
August 12th, 2007 at 9:27 am
I will be wearing a black t-shirt with a skull on it, dark brown shorts, white Puma shoes, and a lip ring (sorry Reve, I have to). Oh, and I’m incredibly sexy.
August 12th, 2007 at 11:38 am
Sorry guys, I don’t feel able to emotionally face it all…won’t be there today. Sad, cos it woulda been nice to meet everyone…
August 12th, 2007 at 11:44 am
That’s cool emblazoned. Do what you need to do. Hopefully we can do it again soon.
August 12th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
Steve,
Yeah i had a feeling you might be getting overwhelmed with everything. You would have been in understanding & affirming company today - people who had high profile positions in HS & have been through everything you are to empathise.
But we know what it’s like when you just need to “shut down”.
We’ll be around when you’re ready….
August 12th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
Emblazoned,
Completely understand what you’re going through. It’s okay. Like Reve said, when your’re ready, we’re here.
Although, must admit I was looking forward to meeting you today.
We’re planning to get together again around Christmas…hope you can make it.
In the meantime, there’s a few of us here praying for you..so hang in there.
August 12th, 2007 at 7:29 pm
Extract from Tanya’s book or you can never get enough tanya
” The most common story I hear is that when you leave the AOG, nobody goes with you . You go from having a family to being spiritually homelesss . There is suddenly no follow up ,the phone doesn’t ring and nobody comes to visit . People you have spent years with in deep and intimate fellowship disappear off the radar…”
Extract from Tanya’s 1987 diary . This is the day I was freed from the spirit of Rock and Roll . I started up a conversation with John o Donnell who told me he despises the music . he told me that the worst person that Satan has annointed was Bruce Springsteen. I told him he was telling the wrong person . We talked . He released me from the spirit of R and B and seduction and I cried”‘
August 12th, 2007 at 11:43 pm
Thanks guys for your understanding. Felt a bit bad about dogging you all but I totally appreciate the understanding. Thanks.
August 13th, 2007 at 7:56 am
Emma,
and for all those others who want to hear some of what was said at the Howard/Rudd talk on Thursday night FM103.2 have put some of the talk up on their website
http://www.fm1032.com.au/MP3.asp?ChannelID=17
August 13th, 2007 at 10:06 am
This one is for Tanya if she is still reading here
Springsteen told The New York Times that although he’s “not a churchgoer,” his music is “filled with Catholic imagery … a powerful world of potent imagery that became alive and vital and vibrant
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/august/8.59.html
August 13th, 2007 at 11:48 am
‘There is suddenly no follow up, the phone doesn’t ring and nobody comes to visit’
When someone leaves a church, it works both ways, doesn’t it. The people who were friends often don’t hear from the person who has separated themselves from them. It’s a two-way thing. Did Tanya try to call any of the friends she’d made at Hillsong?
It hurts people greatly in churches when someone they’ve known for a long time walks out on them, especially if they cite negative reasons for going, or, almost as bad, just leave without explanation, or, sometimes, goodbye, or utter things about the people in the church which are hurtful, which tends to personalise their desire to go.
August 13th, 2007 at 11:54 am
FaceLift,
I get where you’re coming from, but at the same time, there’s an issue of numbers here. If someone walks away from the church, chances are they’re hurting an awful lot, and in some kind of ‘minority’ (over an issue, whatever it may be). I actually DO think that the people that remain bear a greater responsibility for trying to get in touch. If I’m aware that someone has left a community or organisation I’m involved in, I’d at least find out WHY they were leaving - and too often this doesn’t even happen.
August 13th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
Oh, certainly, bec, there should be contact within a couple of weeks if someone goes missing without explanation. That is basic pastoral care, and true friendship. I don’t suppose there would be many churches which don’t have this well established, though, and you’d think that a larger enterprise like Hillsong would have small group and under-pastoral arrangements organised for the care of the flock.
Although I’ve never been to one of their Conferences, I’ve heard feedback from others that Hillsong has Conference topics with an emphasis on follow-up and care ministries, including at least a phone call to those who have not shown up for a couple of weeks, so I can’t imagine that they’d leave it out of their structure.
August 13th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
FaceLift,
I assure you that there are plenty of churches of all sizes and persuasions - pentecostal, evangelical, emergent, whatever - in which people can and do “go missing without explanation”. It’s happened to me, and it’s happened to plenty of people I know. I dropped out, surprisingly and without explanation of a large Hillsong-esque church. Nobody followed me up. I heard later that it was because everyone knew I was going elsewhere. It always struck me as completely bizarre that nobody would bother to ask why (and, for the record, I was “plugged in” to that place and was known to people at various levels, be they my own small group leader or the youth ministers).
I don’t actually understand it. I think it’s got something to do with the fact that churches and church people often get caught up in “programs” and “projects”.
August 13th, 2007 at 9:11 pm
Has anyone seen the HS commercials on TV in prime time. I can no longer sit in my own loungroom without being harrassed by them. Its bad enough having them having to look at their signs in the Hills area now they are destroying my safe haven. AAAAAHHHHHH.
August 14th, 2007 at 2:10 am
“There is suddenly no follow up, the phone doesn’t ring and nobody comes to visit”
Personally I hate follow up. I don’t like people calling me at home or on my mobile about church related things. I don’t need motivation to go to church. Maybe Tanya struggled to make friends in the first place and always wanted to be treated like a new person. It’s pretty childish to leave and expect people to chase after you when you don’t even like the church. She just looks like an attention seeker. I haven’t even heard of any wrongdoing against her it just seems that she’s sour and left because she didn’t like the church. If she didn’t like it then why kick up a stink about it? Better to leave and move on rather than make it your life’s work to bring it down. That really is sad
August 14th, 2007 at 3:15 am
I think the lack of follow up is just an outcome of “seeker friendly” churches’ own spin. For years they hounded people and “micro-managed” their attendance and that put people off. So then most of just pulled back into a hands off approach.
The trouble is they still promote a life centred around a church building/church groups/church activities - yeah, even church coffee, church bookshop, church play groups - so that people still end up having their entire social circles tied in with the church. It’s not just that no-one cares (and in mega churches, most probably don’t notice - even if you drop out of cell groups people think you are just going to another one), all your friends drop away as well.
Which says to me that the “friends” were not real friends in the first place - just people who attended the same groups and did some of the same things you did once - and happy to leave all the “caring” to the pastor or cell group leader or what have you.
All pretty contrived really.
August 14th, 2007 at 8:21 am
“Which says to me that the “friends” were not real friends in the first place - just people who attended the same groups and did some of the same things you did once - and happy to leave all the “caring” to the pastor or cell group leader or what have you.”
Spot on Saint.
Fabio - that’s exactly why it hurts so much. You think you’re a part of a community, and you invest so much time and energy into it, and then suddenly WHAM! you’re faced with the reality that it’s just like any other club/organisation…when you leave, that’s it, finito.
Fabio - do you see church as a community? Because if so, what’s the big deal with people calling you at home or on your mobile “about church related things”. I mean, that’s what friends do, isn’t it? Don’t they call each other and chat about the things they have in common? I don’t believe it’s “pretty childish to leave and expect people to chase after you when you don’t even like the church”, either…if a church is just a club, then I guess you’re right. If I leave, say, a community organisation, I don’t necessarily expect people to follow me up. I would expect my FRIENDS to follow it up though, and this is exactly the issue we’re discussing here - we go to church, we think we’ve made genuine friends there, and then we realise we haven’t. We’re just a number, just a member of an organisation.
August 14th, 2007 at 11:30 am
Frankly, saint and bec, these things are not exclusive to ‘megachurches’. They can happen in small churches where everyone knows everyone else’s business.
When we left an Anglican church with an average congregation of 15 people (on a good day) they basically let us go without any follow-up, even though we lived in the same small country town of less than 2,000 people and saw them ‘around’ most weeks. We weren’t offended by this. I don’t think they thought any less of us, nor we them.
We left for a slightly larger charismatic church in a small city which involved a 50 k drive. In fact, the only visit we had locally, from then on, was from the Uniting Church Pastor who travelled up from the city and dropped in, and from the local Catholic priest who, for some reason, was interested in the ‘new birth’, which we discussed over tea and biscuits until he was sent back to the city presbytery for ‘reprogramming’.
The Church is more than the local church, don’t you think? It’s the Body, and we’re still part of it whether we are in the same local church or not.
So why would we not be friends, still, even if they don’t contact us? And, why not contact them to show that we still regard them highly, even if they haven’t got in touch, if we have a problem about it? Maybe they’re hurting because we walked out on them.
Friendship, I thought, works both ways. And why would we not show that friendship by NOT writing books about the ‘friends’ we have left, or mouthing off about their church, or, worse, about them?
Having sour grapes about people you have sour grapes about by having more sour grapes because they didn’t follow you up when you left with your sour grapes doesn’t, somehow, seem fair.
And I think it’s naive that anyone should think that the people they leave haven’t noticed, for some time, that there is something amiss, because people don’t actually ’suddenly’ leave, they usually consider it in great depth, as witnessed on this site, and carefully plan it and, and after great deliberation, execute the disconnection, so, even if it, then, seems sudden, it’s really not, and if you think no one knows, you’re really fooling yourself, because, in my observation, in effect, people who are about to be left behind have been trying to help those who eventually leave to come to terms with their discomfort, help them through their discouragement and be friendly WHILE they’re still IN the church and planning their great escape. Yes, we do notice, and no, we are not insensitive!
And often those around the people who are in the throes of leaving make sacrifices the people leaving don’t notice, or do notice and ignore anyway, and those being left compromise on some things in an effort to help the leavers stay, and hopefully, find better times up ahead. But as one wise Pastor once told us, ‘What you compromise to keep, you will ultimately loose’.
When people leave, generally they had already left, in their heart, and in their attitude, months before the day they went, and that process of making the decision can be just as wearing and uncomfortable for those around them as it is for those leaving.
August 14th, 2007 at 11:55 am
FaceLift - did you not read the first sentence in my post?
I said: “there are plenty of churches of all sizes and persuasions - pentecostal, evangelical, emergent, whatever - in which people can and do “go missing without explanation”.”
I agree with most of your post. In my own defence, I have endeavoured to speak to people when I’ve been in the process of leaving, and I know plenty of others that do. I think it’s a bit harsh to assume that everyone who leaves a church “has sour grapes”. I wish I could share more in a public space, but I can’t/won’t. Suffice to say that I don’t regard myself as someone who makes the decision to walk away lightly, and I think that if you asked around, there’d be people who know me that would say the same thing of me.
August 14th, 2007 at 11:58 am
Oh - and in another case, I did leave very suddenly, and without explanation. I later endeavoured to give an explanation, but nobody cared. Why didn’t they care? I reckon it’s because they knew I was going to another church. Not a good enough reason to follow someone up, in my view.
August 14th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Yes, sorry, bec, I probably had saint’s blurb in mind more than your individual case. I’m sure it was hard for you to make that decision, as, in most cases, it is. And of course, some people would be justified in leaving, especially if there was an abusive atmosphere, or similar.
I think my point is that it is often just as hard for the people who are losing a friend as it is for those who are leaving, and many times the friends know they are leaving before it is done, and do what they can to make the adjustments they deem necessary to help them stay.
August 14th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
FaceLift…
your post is an interesting one!! Firstly, you use the phrase “losing a friend” - this is my point exactly, we shouldn’t feel that we are “losing a friend” simply because they decide to worship elsewhere!! If we are part of a genuine community, then our friendships should continue irrespective of whether someone is attending the 9am service on Sunday morning.
I think that part of the problem has been hinted at by saint…we’re so focused on meetings, worship practice, running small groups, running sunday school, etc etc that we have this huge number of commitments to meet before we get to “having coffee with a mate”…this isn’t just a problem for building community among Christians, this is a problem for building community generally.
I think there’s also various issues of power etc that arise in relation to Hillsong…it’s my own experience that leaders of all sorts of churches (not just big pentecostal ones) simply don’t deal well with conflict or even disagreement. I don’t want this to be a Pastor Bashing moment, as I appreciate there’s many amazing ministers out there, and count many among my friends. HOWEVER, that said, I’ve witnessed and have heard plenty of stories of conflict and behaviour within churches that just would not be tolerated in any workplace I’ve ever been in. There are real issues of professionalism here. When I hear stories about people at Hillsong being excluded, I don’t just recognise that that’s not Christian behaviour - it’s also just profoundly unprofessional behaviour. There’s a lot of issues around the boundaries of public/private, community/profession etc that the modern church hasn’t adequately dealt with - I’ve raised some of them here before. We need to devote more time and energy to considering our models of church, and considering whether we want to be a community or an organisaton - and from that flow a whole range of ramifications for ministers - ie if we’re a “community”, then it’s arguably more acceptable to ring someone at 10pm than it is if we’re just an “organisation”, similarly, I’ll tolerate tantrums within a “community” that I won’t tolerate in a professionalised “organisation”.
Sorry, I’m rambling…I just find myself coming back to these issues/questions again and again…