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Tag Archives: Frank Houston

Did Brian Houston Lie to Ps. Barbara Taylor?

10 Thursday Mar 2016

Posted by Nailed Truth in Brian Houston's Beliefs, Frank Houston, Hillsong Associations, Hillsong Scandal, Royal Commission Hearing

≈ 113 Comments

Tags

AHA, Barbara Taylor, Brian Houston, Frank Houston, houston, John McMartin, Maddog Mudford, McMartin, Mudford, Royal Commission, Taylor

Source material references are listed at the end.


Brian Houston is known for deceiving and abusing the trust so readily given to him by faithful people. It has emerged from the Royal Commision that Mr Houston told one thing to Ps. Barbara Taylor and testified something else to the Royal Commission.

Brian Houston swore on the bible at the Royal Commission.
Do you think he should have done this?

The Royal Commission (RC) proceedings provide a rare glimpse into the way Brian Houston operates behind the scenes as a ‘Christian leader’. A sad, sorry “meeting” at McDonalds between victim AHA (see Report of Case Study No. 18, section 2.2) and Frank with a family friend assisting Frank back in the year 2000, is an example of how Brian can spin the same event two ways to suit himself:

Continue reading →

Inside Story – Lazy Journalism Allows Brian Houston’s Unfettered Spin

29 Monday Feb 2016

Posted by Nailed Truth in Brian Houston's Beliefs, Frank Houston, Hillsong Associations, Hillsong Conference, Hillsong Scandal, Hillsong Testimonies, Hillsong worship, Marketing, News Headlines, Royal Commission Hearing

≈ Comments Off on Inside Story – Lazy Journalism Allows Brian Houston’s Unfettered Spin

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AHA, Brian Houston, channel 9, cult, Frank Houston, Hillsong, Hillsong Church, Hillsong cult, Inside Story, journalism, journalist, Leila McKinnon, McKinnon, Royal Commission

This article is broken into three sections, exposing the lazy journalism of Channel 9’s online report (Brian Houston speaks out on dealing with Hillsong’s nasty secret), on Hillsong Church. In section 1 we introduce the issues in Channel 9’s article. In section two we review the online report. And in section three you can examine all the sources to the material we referenced throughout our article.

Frank-Brian_Hillsong_CLC_Royal Commission

WHAT WAS CHANNEL 9 THINKING?

Continue reading →

Brian claims clergy privilege to prevent police investigation?

24 Wednesday Feb 2016

Posted by Nailed Truth in Brian Houston's Beliefs, Frank Houston, Royal Commission Hearing, Uncategorized

≈ 93 Comments

Tags

Brian Houston, clergy privilege, Frank Houston, Hillsong, hillsong conference, houston, religious confession

Did you know that right after the Royal Commission (RC) in 2014, Brian Houston tried to claim clergy privilege, in order to protect himself from a possible police investigation (45)? Hillsong and Australian Christian Churches (ACC) are also joining this claim.

Houstons confession comic

Did Brian not realise this undermines his testimony at the Royal Commission, his media statements and his book, “Live, Love, Lead”?

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The origins of Hillsong (Part 3): Frank Houston’s takeover and makeover of NZ AOG

21 Sunday Feb 2016

Posted by Nailed Truth in Associations, Brian Houston's Beliefs, Frank Houston, Hillsong Associations, Uncategorized

≈ 146 Comments

Tags

Batterham, Bloomfield, Branham, David Batterham, Frank Houston, Gospel of the Kingdom, Hazel, Hazel Houston, Hillsong, NAR, NAR cult, New Apostolic Reformation, New Apostolic Reformation cult, New Order of the Latter Rain, New Order of the Latter Rain cult, NOLR, NOLR cult, NZ AOG, NZAOG, Ray Bloomfield, William Branham

Many people assume that the origins of Hillsong originated from Charismaticism, Pentecostalism or the Salvation Army. This is not true.

Hillsong’s roots were founded in the Canadian New Order of the Latter Rain (NOLR) cult. Today, this is internationally recognised as the New Apostolic Reformation cult.

05_Code-Blue_NAR

This series of articles looks at the history of the New Order of the Latter Rain (NOLR) and how it overran the AOG in NZ, the AOG in Australia and how this was done through Frank Houston, the founder of Hillsong/Christian Life Center. In this article we will explore how Frank Houston climbed the ranks of the NZ AOG and how he influenced and changed the Pentecostal ecclesiastical structures of the AOG and Australia to the totalitarian NOLR leadership structure. You will notice many of these ideas present in Hillsong and the Australian Christian Churches model.

You can read our articles to see how Frank Houston was influenced by the NOLR cult through the teachings of false prophet and fraudulent healer William Branham and other New Zealand Latter Rainers in his church:

The origins of Hillsong (Part 1): The New Order of the Latter Rain
The origins of Hillsong (Part 2): Hillsong founder under the “New Order” cult


THE NEW ORDER OF THE LATTER RAIN RE-CAP

In our first article, we mentioned the fact that in the beginnings of the New Order of the Latter Rain (NOLR), they attempted to take over Pentecostal churches and fellowships in Canada. The NOLR have never stopped their aggressive campaign to take Pentecostal denominations in their attempt to spread their Gospel of the Kingdom.

Remember – according to the NOLR and NAR, there is dead or religious Christianity and then there is a living or true Christianity. They believe Christianity before them preaches a dead gospel but they claim to preach a living gospel. Their Gospel of the Kingdom proves God is alive by having their gospel message itself manifest signs, wonders, healings and miracles.

We would like you to keep this diagram at the forefront of your mind as we explore the paradigm of the Houston’s progress to power in this article:

New Order of the Latter Rain New Apostolic Reformation Gospel

This means one is recognised as a leader, apostle or prophet of the Latter Rain if they demonstrate in power, this NOLR/NAR ‘Gospel of the Kingdom’. They have the ability to prophesy, bring miracles, healings and supernatural signs and wonders into gatherings or manifest answers, abundance or material wealth for the benefit of the advancement of the Kingdom of God here on earth.


THE NOLR TAKEOVER OF THE NEW ZEALAND AOG

In New Zealand, the NOLR was clearly in full swing, usurping the Pentecostal denominations through the New Zealand AOG. It was an easy target considering how lax their ordination methods were. Hazel Houston records how Frank Houston became the Superintendent of the entire New Zealand Assemblies of God.

Frank and Hazel Houston CW

Hazel Houston wrote how Frank Houston became “ordained” as an AOG minister in 1956,

“After the service Ray put his arms round Frank.
‘You’ll do. I would like you to be my associate pastor.’ When Ray made this unorthodox approach Frank asked what he had to sign. Ray smiled.

‘Brother Frank, God has a wonderful record book in Heaven. That’s all we need.’

He never did sign anything but on the spot he became an Assemblies of God minister. This was eventually ratified by the Executive Council, and two years later they discovered he was not even a member of the Assemblies of God. Frank often said a piece of paper didn’t make a minister, although he does not recommend this unorthodox approach.” pg. 76-77, Being Frank.

Who cares if Frank Houston and his wife were booted from the Salvation Army and were involved in a financial scandal earlier? (See previous articles in series.)

A few years later after “pastoring” Ray Bloomfield’s church (called Ellerslie-Tamaki Faith Mission), Frank Houston was asked to pastor a church in Lower Hutt. This request caused Houston to fast and pray until he found “the mind of God” (pg. 110). When Bloomfield responded to Frank Houston’s news from Canada, listen to how Hazel Houston records how her husband responded to Bloomfield and “God”:

“The umbilical cord was broken. As Frank put the letter down he glanced out the lounge room window. The sun was shining on a field of ripe cocksfoot grass. Suddenly it appeared to be blown by a gentle breeze. Every seed head seemed to turn into a human being.
‘I saw a multitude of people praising God,’ he told me.
Like a deep inner prophecy, God said: ‘I will cause you to raise up an evangelistic centre in Lower Hutt that will finally have an outreach to the world.
‘It will touch a multitude of people.'” pg. 112

When they moved to Lower Hutt in December 1959, Hazel wrote of an important event that shaped Frank Houston’s ministry:

“Christmas already broke into an already busy schedule. For the first time, Frank had decided we should go to the annual Christmas camp and national business conference. The business sessions, held in the afternoons, were enough to deter any newcomer. Pastors sat with a copy of the constitution on their knees and their tongues ready to argue irrelevant points. For five days the delegates wrangled over, what Frank decided, was inconsequential to the lives of people.

For a whole week they argued and there were only thirteen churches represented. Delegates were asked to nominate men for the executive council, the controlling body of the Assemblies of God. Frank was amazed that someone should nominate him. Unknown, though he thought himself to be, he decided to let his name stand. He was surprised to be elected.” pg. 114

Why did this happen? How did this happen? The only thing that proved his legitimacy at this point was his associations with Ray Bloomfield and David Batterham and that he received Bloomfield’s mantle of “double portion”. The only thing that seemed to qualify Frank was his “supernatural” power and the church growth numbers. All Ray Bloomfield did was put his hands on Houston and sweep him in AOG’s backdoor without anyone knowing what Frank Houston actually believed.

However, this is the way a prophet and apostle are recognised and established in the NOLR/New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) cult. Think of William Branham. And more recently, think of Todd Bentley of the man-made, Lakeland “revival”. Bentley automatically qualified as an “Apostle” by the NOLR/NAR because he was supposedly used by God to bring revival and was operating in healing, signs and wonders.

It is our opinion that electing a Branham-man like into the NZ AOG was inevitable. The Latter Rainers in the New Zealand AOG would not have considered the policies, regulations, rules nor bother looking at the credentials of Frank Houston. They would have elected him because of his “prophetic” William Branham-like ministry and qualities.

Hazel then highlights an element of the Latter Rain ideology emerging in Houston’s direction in the AOG,

“Then the feeling was replaced by a sense that God would use him to bring the movement into greater evangelism than it was pursuing. He would accomplish more than that. God would use him to release the fellowship into freedom in praise and worship.” pg. 114

The Latter Rain was HUGE in pushing “intimacy” in God and freedom in their worship experiences. Jack Hayford, a NOLR and NAR leader, was also trying to reform and restore the global church into TRUE “freedom in praise and worship” (see his latter work ‘Worship His Majesty’, 1987). It is possible to claim that Frank Houston was “Apostollically Reforming” the New Zealand AOG to the “New Thing” God was doing on the earth.

Hazel continued,

“He determined that he would also work towards getting the business sessions streamlined so that less time would be taken up with unnecessary argument. His opportunity came when he was appointed superintendent some years later.” pg. 114

Word got back to Ray Bloomfield about Frank Houston’s promotion. Hazel writes,

RayLetter_HazelHouston_BeingFrank

– Hazel Houston, Being Frank, pg. 115

“God’s desire is signs, wonders and miracles?” Ministers are to preach a “power-packed message of deliverance from sin, sickness and disease?”

The Pentecostal movement in its beginnings preached the gospel that the Apostles preached. Branham introduced the ‘Gospel of the Kingdom’ “power-packed message of deliverance from sin, sickness and disease.”

This is the classic Latter Rain “Gospel of the Kingdom” gospel which Branham claims to preach:

“So I believe that we’ll take God’s Word as the Rule and to go into all the world and preach the gospel. The gospel came not in word only but through power and demonstration of the Holy Spirit. So the gospel is demonstrating the power of the Holy Spirit.

I went into nations where they say, “Now we don’t want missionaries. We know more about it than you do. But the thing we want to see is somebody who’s got faith enough to make God’s Word manifest.” That’s what they want to see.

And that’s how they get converted. That’s how they find Christ. It’s because they believe in that manner.”” [Source] (Emphasis ours.)

This is not Pentecostalism. Here we can see Ray Bloomfield pushing the NOLR agenda through Frank Houston to newly reform the New Zealand AOG.

In response to Ray Bloomfield’s letter, Hazel writes.

“Sometimes Frank wondered if the movement could revive.

Yet when pastors of independent churches tried to persuade him to also go independent, the awareness that God had some special purpose for the Assemblies of God kept him where he was. The antagonism towards these independent groups by some of his fellow ministers left Frank puzzled.

‘How can you fellowship with pipe-smoking ministers in their fraternity when you will not associate with born-again men from other Pentecostal streams?’ he’d ask them. ‘Many of those ministers are not even Christian.” pg. 115

Notice Frank wanted the AOG movement revived and saw that the answer to revival was founded in unity, not division. And also notice his dig at some ministers for being “not even Christian”. This is the typical Latter Rain revival paradigm where unity is emphasised over doctrine. You are either spiritually on board with what God is doing or religiously dead and getting in the way. Don’t forget that there were heretical sects emerging from the Pentecostal churches such as Oneness Pentecostalism (who deny the trinity) and extreme Full Gospel/Foursquare sects.

THE NOLR MAKEOVER OF THE NEW ZEALAND AOG

On pages 115-116, Hazel gave valuable insight how Frank Houston progressed from pastor to prophetic visionary leader. She documents how Frank Houston “presented his vision for Lower Hutt” to the executive:

“There seemed to be no satisfactory reply. He is still puzzled by the narrowness of such a point of view. Although the work of the executive would require much time, Frank’s main vision was still the church. At the February board meeting, Frank presented his vision for Lower Hutt, a city of eighty-five thousand.” pg. 115 (Emphasis added.)

Notice the emphasis on ‘vision’. Houston claims to the board, “I’ve been asking God for direction and I feel we must take the town hall for a crusade” (pg. 115). Now he is prophetically dictating what needs to be done. He is now putting the hat of a governing Latter Rain Prophet on himself in the NZ AOG.

When people asked questions how this could be done, Hazel writes,

“Frank knew he had to bring them to the point where they shared his vision. Without that there could be no success. Seed thoughts dropped into the discussion took root until the whole board agreed to fully support the plan.” pg. 115 (Emphasis added.)

This is frightening insight into how NOLR Prophet Frank Houston manipulated the board to agree with his “vision” from God. And this is exactly how the Hillsong church and the Australian AOG operate to this day: you don’t question the Apostle, Prophet or leaders vision.

And of course, Prophet Frank got what he wanted, bringing together a number of churches from all denominations in his first Hillsong Conference “town hall… crusade”. Frank got his critics from other denominations and he put them in place with fallacious arguments. (e.g. “We don’t steal sheep, we grow grass.” pg. 118.)

Frank Houston also started seeing himself as the only authority to make final decisions as the “man of God”. In looking for a new church property for his congregation, Frank,

“… could hardly contain his excitement. There had been no time to consult the church board. Nor did he want to for the moment. He’d come to feel that God never works through committees: he chooses a man (though the man may need committees to help him.)” pg. 119 (Emphasis added.)

And when Prophet Frank Houston found a building he liked, how did he present his idea to the board members?

“It’s for sale and I believe that God wants us to buy it.” pg. 120. (Emphasis added.)

Prophet Frank has spoken.

Why would the board members question him? We hope you can start to see the New Order of the Latter Rain manifest itself through the authoritarian methods of Frank Houston at this point. Who can question God wanting Frank and the board to buy this church?

And this is what Prophet Frank Houston did,

“Frank phoned the mayor on Monday.
‘We’ll take the church,’ he said.
‘You had better make an appointment to come see me,’ the mayor said. He was an astute businessman. ‘It will cost you $60,000. Do you have that much money?’ the mayor asked.
‘Yes of course we do.’ Frank didn’t tell him it was still in the bank of Heaven. He believed God had shown him the city council would carry the finance themselves.” pg. 120-121.

Later on Frank Houston had to be honest with the council,

“When we had to tell the council the money was not forthcoming, they were in a predicament. If what they had done became known there would be a public outcry. If they evicted us the same thing would happen. They carried the finance for five years.”

We will look more into this scandal in another article. However, this is the god of Frank Houston and the New Order of the Latter Rain.

Touch not God’s anointed.

This was the aura Frank Houston created around himself in the New Zealand and Australian AOG. The NOLR “Prophets” and “Apostles” were climbing the ranks and swiftly destroying and redefining the Pentecostal institutions and churches of Australia and New Zealand with their totalitarian spiritual regimes.

Here Hazel writes how Frank Houston became Superintendent of the AOG,

“The executive council was not a body of men who agreed on everything, but they were in agreement when they needed a new superintendent. Ralph Read, the current superintendent, had accepted a call to a church in Australia. He was a gifted organiser who had given strong leadership to the movement in New Zealand. The Lower Hutt church wondered anxiously who could replace him.

Our board offered to pay his salary if he’d stay as superintendent in a full-time capacity. Ralph felt that would be out of the will of God. Frank, now assistant superintendent, found himself elevated to the position. Neither of us wanted that. There was already so much to do in the ministry but we yielded to what was assuredly the purpose of God. We knelt in dedication while Ralph Read prayed for us with laying on of hands. Both of us were aware of a special sense of God’s calling into a phase of ministry which would release the fellowship into a period of growth.

It grew from fifteen to forty churches as the bonds of traditionalism were broken by spontaneous praise and worship, often accompanied by dancing.” pg. 125-126. (Emphasis added)

Once again the NOLR paradigm is overriding orthodox Pentecostalism. And Frank Houston made sure that his paradigm was caught by others:

“The ministry in New Zealand was suffering from a lack of trained people. It would also be part of the vision to reach the world.
‘Lord, give me one hundred men. One hundred men dedicated to you at whatever the cost. Then we will make a real impact for the kingdom.’
The aim of the college would be to train young people to evangelise the world. Academic excellence would be important but secondary to the development of their spiritual lives. No way must the fire of the Spirit be doused, although education must not be despised. Students came from Samoa, Fiji, Indonesia, Australia and Sri Lanka.
‘These are your spiritual sons,’ the Spirit whispered.
‘They have laid aside fears and frustrations for the hopes and challenges of faith, but they know God is their partner,’ Frank declared.” pg. 126-7

We want to make it clear. We are not against goals and accomplishments being achieved in the name of Jesus. The issue is that people blur the lines and claim that God gave them a “vision” to achieve something, thus making themselves out to be infallible men. Frank Houston was clearly a man who controlled the New Zealand AOG as God’s vision-seeing prophet and restructured it accordingly so that he was accountable to none. That is incredibly dangerous.

 

It is clear Frank Houston considered himself to be above church boards and various forms of governing AOG and church infrastructure. And what is concerning is how the AOG executive board and his own church board seem to be more than willing to submit to his prophetic direction.

If you think we have come to serious erroneous conclusions of Frank Houston and his relation to any form of accountability structures in the AOG because of his prophetic delusions, we would please ask you to consider the articles that are still to come in this series.

 

Hillsong’s success secret: scrapping early years & scratching itching ears

21 Sunday Feb 2016

Posted by Nailed Truth in Associations, Brian Houston's Beliefs, Hillsong Associations, Uncategorized

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Brian Houston, Christian Life Centre, CLC, Frank Houston, Hillsong, paedophile, paedophilia, pedophile, pedophilia, secret, success

SCRAPPING EARLY YEARS: WRITING A PAEDOPHILE OUT OF HILLSONG’S SUCCESS STORY

Brian Houston’s “success secret” in building his Hillsong empire is not because of his faith in God, or his love for people. Rather, Brian Houston’s success rests solely on his paedophile father (Frank Houston) who founded CLC and then merged his mass ‘move of God’ into Brian Houston’s church before he was exposed for molesting children.

Frank-Brian_Hillsong_CLC_Royal Commission

Face it – Hillsong’s success story is not a rags to riches story.

Brian Houston has deliberately lied to various media groups and the general public about his church’s past, omitting the facts of his father’s involvement with his early beginnings.

The reality is that Brian Houston’s success was founded on the fraudulent ministry of the paedophile Frank Houston. And it took the son of a paedophile to cover up his father’s crimes to merge their corporations to form the successful Hillsong empire. (Read more on the findings of the Royal Commission here.) Of course you will NEVER hear Brian Houston mention this.

The simple fact is this: Hillsong’s success was not founded on Jesus Christ but on lawless men. 

SCRATCHING ITCHING YEARS:

Hillsong is not even founded on God, the gospel or the scriptures. The proof of this is in Brian Houston’s own statements to the media.

Brian Houston Hillsong quote itching relevance

Recently, Sky News put out a tweet advertising their interview with Brian Houston.

FULL INTERVIEW: @BrianCHouston opens up to @SkyNewsRicho about the success of Hillsong http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-stories/2015/12/09/hillsong-pastor-says-facing-father-was–hell-.html …

Source: Sky News Australia, Twitter, https://twitter.com/SkyNewsAust/status/674543296656445441Published 2:57 AM – 9,Dec 2015. (Accessed 02/02/2015.)

proof_TwitterSkyNewsAus-InterviewBrianTweet_02-02-2016

Brian Houston responded with this:

I so enjoyed speaking to @SkyNewsRicho tonight. Thank you for your kindness Richo. So good to get a fair hearing.

Source: Sky News Australia, Twitter, https://twitter.com/SkyNewsAust/status/674543296656445441Published 2:57 AM – 9 Dec 2015. (Accessed 02/02/2015.)

proof_Twitter-BriansFairHearinfOnSkyNews_02-02-2016

Below Brian Houston’s retweet was this comment by “Pastor” David Hall:

@BrianCHouston When Ps Andrew is praying even the media perform #unusualmiracles

proof_AndrewEvansSG_02-02-2016
proof_Twitter-DavidHallandAndrewEvans_02-02-2016

So Brian Houston claimed he got a “fair hearing” and Andrew Evans believed this will be “one of the best and fairest interviews concerning Hillsong”. Andrew Evans was the former president of the Australian AOG/ACC before Brian Houston.

57cwcportrait_Andrew_Evans

We need to ask the question, how was this interview with Brian Houston a fair hearing?

Brian publicly lied about his involvement with how he dealt with his father AGAIN in a public interview. That is not a fair hearing. That’s called bias and propaganda. It’s actually brainwashing. A form of cult-control. And the fact that Hillsong and AOG heavyweights were pushing the idea that this “interview” was fair should indicate to readers how corrupt these men really are. And we know Brian Houston and Hillsong have been very seriously pushing a media campaign to tell their own version of the facts in order to cover up what was exposed of him in the Royal Commission.

However, there was one thing that is worth noting  in this “fair” interview. Brian Houston is constantly asked by the media why Hillsong brand is so successful. In this interview, Brian Houston explained just  why Hillsong is relevant and effective:

Brian Houston Hillsong quote itching relevance2

“I really believe that there’s more of a spiritual hunger in Australia then a lot of people realise. I know the statistics are full of negativity about the church in decline. But I think when – you know- genuinely people can scratch where people are itching, the message itself is fantastic. The gospel of Jesus is a great, great message.”

So there you have it. You have the former president of the AOG/ACC still endorsing Brian Houston. Brian Houston, a man who does not know the gospel; who publicly confesses that he and his church are scratching ears; who covered up the crimes of his serial paedophile father and continues to blatantly lie in his media interviews

We are dealing with a “pastafia” that has no respect for God, truth and public authorities.

Listen to Chris Rosebrough review :

Brian Houston Admits to Scratching Itching Ears

Download

PROGRAM SEGMENTS:

00:10:29 – Patricia King Deborah Arise
00:20:53 – Connie Williams I Ca’t Breathe
00:35:55 – Church in a Strip Club
00:51:36 – Brian Houston Admits to Scratching Itching Ears
01:05:1 – Sermon Review:  The Power Of Right Believing by Joseph Prince

Source: Published: Chris Rosebrough, Brian Houston Admits to Scratching Itching Ears, http://www.piratechristian.com/fightingforthefaith/2016/1/st7z8hh3bvl9d2tzouwbv7rjicsu96, Published 28/01/2016. (Accessed 02/01/2016.)

The origins of Hillsong (Part 2): Hillsong founder under the “New Order” cult

31 Sunday Jan 2016

Posted by Nailed Truth in Associations, Bobbie Houston, Frank Houston, Hillsong Associations

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

AOG, aog nz, Assemblies of God, Brian Houston, CLC, Frank Houston, Hillsong, Hillsong Church, houston, Latter Rain, Latter Rain cult, NAR, NAR cult, New Order of the Latter Rain

Many people assume that the origins of Hillsong originated from Charismaticism, Pentecostalism or the Salvation Army. This is not true.

Hillsong’s roots were founded in the Canadian New Order of the Latter Rain (NOLR) cult. Today, this is internationally recognised as the New Apostolic Reformation cult.

05_Code-Blue_NAR

This series of articles looks at the history of the New Order of the Latter Rain (NOLR) and how it overran the AOG in NZ, the AOG in Australia and how this was done through Frank Houston, the founder of Hillsong/Christian Life Center. In this article, we will provide more concrete evidence of how Hillsong’s founder, Frank Houston, became heavily involved with the NOLR cult teachings, specifically through NOLR ministers such as David Batterham and Ray Bloomfield (even though they believed they were Pentecostal ministers).

You can read our first article to see how Frank Houston was influenced by the New Order of the Latter Rain cult through the teachings of false prophet and fraudulent healer William Branham:

The origins of Hillsong (Part 1): The New Order of the Latter Rain

RECOLLECTION OF PENTECOSTALISM’S CONDEMNATION OF NOLR TEACHING

It is important to recall that the Pentecostal AOG denomination condemned the teachings and practices of the New Order of the Latter Rain, specifically:

1. The overemphasis relative to imparting, identifying, bestowing or confirming gifts by the laying on of hands and prophesy.
2. The erroneous teaching that the church is built upon the foundation of present day apostles and prophets.
3. The extreme teaching as advocated by the “new order” regarding the confession of sin to man and deliverance as practiced, which claims prerogatives to human agency which belong only to Christ.
4. The erroneous teaching concerning the impartation of the gift of languages as special equipment for missionary service.
5. The extreme and unscriptural practice imparting or imposing personal leading by the means of utterance.

Even though the American AOG condemned these teachings of the New Order of the Latter Rain, they did not scrutinise all of the NOLR teachings. The NOLR kept evolving in its theology and embracing new and often bizarre teachings.

Another aspect of the early Latter Rain movement was their emphasis on end times revival and church growth. Those would usher in this growth revival were “present day apostles and prophets” which the NOLR teach are governing and restoring the church and ushering in the Kingdom of God.

Oddly, Frank Houston also was known for passing the buck and responsibility of a pastor and carried an unhealthy desire to be a church growth leader. He was driven by results. Divine kingdom manifestation results.

In this article, you will notice how Frank Houston preached not the good news of salvation but the false ‘Gospel of the Kingdom’ good news of William Branham. The belief is that no one will believe the true gospel or believe God is alive unless they see signs and wonders. People in the end put their faith not in Jesus and his cross but in the person and the manifestations that around their ministry. You will notice this is what qualified Frank Houston as a minister in the Salvation Army and the New Zealand AOG, NOT his biblical or pastoral qualifications.

EYE WITNESS DETAILS OF THE NOLR INFLUENCING FRANK HOUSTON

 

Thankfully, Hazel Houston records Frank Houston (in her book ‘Being Frank’), practicing the New Order of the Latter Rain teachings in his ministry.

On pages 50-51, Hazel Houston captured a breath-taking event where Frank Houston tried to negotiate with a youth to not take his life. The youth eventually “flung his gun on the floor” and decided to sleep off “his bout of drinking” (pg. 50). Hazel records Frank complaining to God about ministry and whined, “I thought that ministry would be peaceful”. (Clearly Frank Houston neglected to read the lives of Jesus and His Apostles in the New Testament.)

And although a “sprinkling of converts gave their lives to the Lord in the twelve months” the Houston’s were at Hawera, this was “not enough” to Frank Houston who thought “this was not enough to satisfy a heart hungry to win souls” (pg. 50).

“Frank wanted more of God. He knelt at the altar at officers’ councils searching for the elusive experience called Holiness. He never found it.”

Hazel ended the chapter with this comment:

“In our next church God would give us a taste of His power. The full answer was still some years away.”

The next chapter is conveniently titled, ‘Blow A Strange Wind’. Indeed it was a strange wind the Houstons embraced.  It was in this chapter we wrote about the NOLR teacher William Branham influencing Frank Houston. But we wish to open up the chapter with another few people that influenced Frank Houston in their new church at Levin, New Zealand:

“We studied our people. Amongst them there were the Allisons, a mother and daughter who claimed to be Spirit-filled, and a seventy-year-old man who loved cricket and declared that silence always woke him up, and his wife. These people, with Ernie Hill, his wife and two sons, who moved into the town soon after we did, influenced the direction of our ministry. They, too, claimed to have an experience with the Holy Spirit.”
Source: By Hazel Houston, Published 1989 (UK: Scott Publications), Being Frank, pg. 52. [Emphasis ours]

While Hazel Houston said that she dismissed all of Pentecostalism from her mind, she informs her readers that, “Frank knew less about it until those four Pentecostal people talked to him” (pg. 52). She then goes on to describe that Frank had a supernatural encounter while he was praying in his empty Salvation Army hall. The experience frightened him and he called his church to prayer over the following days.

This is where Hazel Houston’s language get’s VERY interesting (see if you pick it up):

“Sixteen people turned up. Some stayed a short while and went on to work. Others were able to stay an hour and a half but all stormed the gates of heaven.
A week later the Holiness meeting throbbed with power.” (pg. 52)

The Houston’s saw a “hidden force” in this meeting at work and claimed “This was the Holy Spirit at work”. The following week,

“Sunday morning was even more powerful. This time the whole congregation was touched. There was no sermon, no altar call yet the people flocked to the front. Frank burst into weeping. He turned to me and asked me to carry on but I was also weeping. I turned to the organist. She was weeping. The Holy Spirit alone was in control as conviction swept the congregation. This was a totally new experience. We believed we were touching revival…

… One Sunday a group of Methodists walking past the hall on their way home from their own service sensed an unusual power emanating from our building.”
Source: By Hazel Houston, Published 1989 (UK: Scott Publications), Being Frank, pg. 52-53. [Emphasis ours]

Royal Commission - Frank HoustonHopefully you are recognising the AOG list of identifying features and teachings of the NOLR emerging in Hazel Houston’s language ideas:

  • “all stormed the gates of heaven”
  • “the Holiness meeting throbbed with power”
  • “the whole congregation was touched”
  • “there was no sermon”
  • “the Holy Spirit … swept the congregation”
  • “this was a totally new experience”
  • “we believed we were touching revival”
  • “sensed an unusual power emanating from our building”

This is not Pentecostal nor Charismatic talk – this is NOLR/NAR talk.

As you can see, it was Pentecostalism that condemned the Latter Rain Movement – but it was the confused New Zealand Pentecostals that were leading and influencing Frank Houston with the condemned Latter Rain practices. They thought that the teachings and practices of the NOLR were Pentecostal.

Nothing can be further from the truth – and yet no one from the Salvation Army or the established Pentecostal condemned the Latter Rain heretical practices happening as Frank Houston grew in prominence in the eyes of New Zealand Christians.

It was not long after these “Holiness” power meetings that a “Pentecostal” gave Frank Houston the books on NOLR teacher William Branham.

This all happened in their church in Levin, New Zealand.

When Frank Houston and his wife were moved to their next church, they were involved in a scandal and subsequently left the Salvation Army altogether. According to Hazel Houston, her husband backslid into depression, bad health, financial ruin and gave up on God and church altogether. At this time Frank Houston changed jobs from a door-to-door salesman to a “dry-cleaning man”.

THE LATTER RAIN INFLUENCE OF RAY BLOOMFIELD

A youth by the name of Tony Austin met Frank Houston on the job and invited him to his Queen St AOG church. In Chapter 5 (titled ‘Fire Falls), Frank Houston immersed himself in Latter Rain teaching in this so-called “AOG” church. Pastor David Batterham became a friend and mentor of Frank who then introduced Frank Houston to Ray Bloomfield.

Just like Branham, Frank Houston claimed to Dave Batterham that the Holy Spirit revealed to his heart that ‘healing was in the atonement’ (pg. 69). (This was a key scripture to the Healing Movement which was also fueled by the NOLR.)

Batterham’s response?

“”You can accept healing like you accepted salvation,” David assured us.” (pg. 70)

Because Houston was constantly sick most of his life, his relationship with Batterham and Ray Bloomfield flourished and was heavily discipled by their Latter Rain healing heresies. It was under Bloomfield’s leadership that he accepted the role of assistant minister at Bloomfield’s new church plant (called Ellerslie-Tamaki Faith Mission).

Both Frank and Ray supposedly preached the gospel and brought revival to the Maori communities in New Zealand. They were trying to continue in “revival power”. And when Frank heard Ray Bloomfield accepted missionary work in Canada, Frank felt that if he were to move in “revival power”, he “must move in the same way and with the same anointing as Ray did” (pg. 100). (Notice the dependency on ‘the man’ – and not on God?)

This is important. Consider what the AOG condemns the Latter Rain of doing while reading how Ray Bloomfield gave Frank Houston his “authority” to take over his church:

“On the last day before his departure, Ray publicly committed the church into Frank’s care. Placing his hands on Frank’s head he prayed, ‘Lord give your servant a double portion of my spirit and let my mantle fall on this your servant Elijah’s did on Elisha,’ Frank staggered backwards as he experienced the transference of faith from Ray into his own spirit. With it came a sense of divine authority. Ray burst into prophecy. ‘You shall keep your eyes on Jesus. Look not unto man but unto God.'” (pg. 100)

These apostles and prophets were building up their own spiritual authorities before men – and no one would dare question them.

If you are still convinced that Frank Houston was NOT influenced by the New Order of the Latter Rain, this is what he wrote about Ray Bloomfield in his book ‘The Release of the Human Spirit’, (conveniently published in 1999). Do you think Pentecostals or NARismatics believe in “walking in amazing supernatural realms”?

“… early in my Pentecostal ministry I was blessed to be linked with Ray Bloomfield… Ray ministered widely all across New Zealand, doing great miracles and walking in amazing supernatural realms– levels where no one else in the southern hemisphere was walking at the time. God brought us together, and I worked alongside him a couple of years in  a church he was pioneering. He mentored me and I witnessed the amazing things God was doing in his ministry… Building on this foundation, I established a pattern for break-out in my ministry.”

Source: Frank Houston, The Release of the Human Spirit, Published: 1999, pg. 7. (Emphasis ours.)

Our next article will look at how Frank Houston and the New Order of the Latter Rain infiltrated the NZ AOG and the Australian AOG and took over the Pentecostal denominations through unethical means.

The origins of Hillsong (Part 1): The New Order of the Latter Rain

30 Saturday Jan 2016

Posted by Nailed Truth in Bobbie Houston, Brian Houston's Beliefs, Frank Houston, Hillsong Associations, Hillsong Fascism

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Frank Houston, Hillsong cult, houston, Latter Rain, Latter Rain cult, Latter Rain revival, NAR, NAR cult, NARismatic, New Order, New Order of the Latter Rain, NOLR, NOLR cult, origins, The New Order

Many people assume that the origins of Hillsong originated from Charismaticism, Pentecostalism or the Salvation Army. This is not true.

Hillsong’s roots were founded in the Canadian New Order of the Latter Rain (NOLR) cult. Today, this is internationally recognised as the New Apostolic Reformation cult.

05_Code-Blue_NAR

The New Apostolic Reformation cult preach a false Jesus, false gospel and New Age metaphysical teachings and strategies in an attempt to bring heaven to earth.

This series of articles looks at the history of the New Order of the Latter Rain (NOLR) and how it overran the AOG in NZ, the AOG in Australia and how this was done through Frank Houston, the founder of Hillsong/Christian Life Center.

PENTECOSTALISM AT WAR WITH THE NEW ORDER OF THE LATTER RAIN

The NAR/NOLR cult is openly at war with Christianity and specifically targets and converts churches into its movement. In its early days, the New Order promoted aggressive ‘divide and conquer’ tactics in local churches while pushing the idea of ‘unity in the spirit’. For instance, in its early years in Canada, the New Order attempted an unethical takeover of churches in the ‘Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada’.

sharon-orphanage_1948

Sharon Orphanage, 1948, where the ‘New Order of the Latter Rain’ revival occured.

It is important to note that Pentecostalism (the American Pentecostal AOG) was the first denomination to denounce the New Order of the Latter Rain and its ‘revival’.

On the 3rd of September in 1949, the General Council of the American Assemblies of God condemned and rejected the NOLR.


They write,

RESOLVED, That we disapprove of those extreme teachings and practices which, being unfounded Scripturally, serve only to break fellowship of like precious faith and tend to confusion and division among the members of the Body of Christ, and be it hereby known that this 23rd General Council disapproves of the so-called, ” New Order of the Latter Rain” , to wit:

1. The overemphasis relative to imparting, identifying, bestowing or confirming gifts by the laying on of hands and prophesy.

2. The erroneous teaching that the church is built upon the foundation of present day apostles and prophets.

3. The extreme teaching as advocated by the ” new order” regarding the confession of sin to man and deliverance as practiced, which claims prerogatives to human agency which belong only to Christ.

4. The erroneous teaching concerning the impartation of the gift of languages as special equipment for missionary service.

5. The extreme and unscriptural practice imparting or imposing personal leading by the means of utterance.

6. Such other wrestings and distortions of Scripture, interpretations which are in opposition to teachings and practices generally accepted among us.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That we recommend following those things which make for peace among us, and those doctrines and practices whereby we may edify one another, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit until we all come unto the unity of the faith.

The motion was made and seconded that this resolution be adopted. After brief debate it was adopted with an overwhelming majority. The motion was then made, seconded and it was adopted that in order that the entire constituency may have the benefit of this decision, the resolution be printed in THE PENTECOSTAL EVANGEL. [Source] (From ‘Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center)


SALVATION ARMY

The founder of CLC/Hillsong, Frank Houston, grew up in the New Zealand Salvation Army. It was the Salvation Army who expelled the Houston’s when church members of Avondale corps in Suburban Auckland accused them of stealing church money to buy themselves a car. It appears that Frank Houston brought the musical aspect of the Salvation Army into his new model of church in Australia,, using musical outreach to draw people in to hear the gospel or to attend the church. (This is one reason why Hillsong was very influential in their early years. They used catchy praise and worship music when they did outreaches into the hippy communes of Sydney.)

The Baptists and the Salvation Army in New Zealand were very cautious in avoiding the ‘Pentecostal’ AOG in New Zealand. Hazel Houston in her book ‘Being Frank’ revealed her conservative baptist judgment of New Zealand ‘Pentecostals’. At this stage , the Pentecostal New Zealand AOG was usurped and taken over by the New Order of the Latter Rain cult. Sadly, the NZ AOG embraced the ideas of the Healing Revivals in America that promoted Latter Rain teachings. One prominent figure was William Branham.

WILLIAM BRANHAM

One of the spearheads that largely influenced the New Order of the Latter Rain ‘revival’ and the Latter Rain movement was William Branham.

William Branham - Latter Rain heretic

William Branham heavily influenced Hillsong’s founder Frank Houston through Gordon Lindsay’s book ‘A Man Sent From God’. With Pentecostalism already condemning the Latter Rain movement and the New Zealand Salvation Army and Baptists distancing themselves from NZ AOG (which was infiltrated by Latter Rain reprobates), it is easy to see why Frank Houston rapidly climbed to the top of the NZ AOG: he was ticking all the New Order’s apostolic and prophetic boxes.

The fact is, Hillsong is a New Apostolic Reformation Church, influenced by the New Order of the Latter Rain cult. With this background in mind, Hazel Houston specifically writes about Frank Houston being influenced by Latter Rain teaching through Gordon Lindsay and William Branham in her book ‘Being Frank’.


 

“I was upset when Frank woke up utterly miserable with a soaring temperature, his body aching in every joint. Obviously this had to be a day in bed. Usually sickness turned him into a self-pitying invalid, bored to tears with time dragging. This turned out to be four days of revelation. One of  our self-confessed Pentecostals brought him a book with the interesting title ‘A Man Sent From God’.

Gordon Lindsay had captured what to Frank were amazing insights into the prophetic ministry of William Branham at the height of his ministry. From the moment Frank opened the book, Frank forgot to grumble about being sick. ‘This man could tell people all about themselves, even to where they lived and their phone number. Isn’t that marvellous,’ he said to me.

‘Sounds like fortune telling.’ I was sceptical [sic].

‘But he also healed the sick and he gives scriptural references for what he did.’

‘Frank, don’t get carried away with such things,’ I warned.

‘You should read it for yourself.’

‘Not me. I don’t like to read stuff like that. Those things don’t happen today.’ I closed the conversation and my mind but Frank pondered the possibility of New Testament-type miracles in the 1940s. Tears touched his cheeks at the thought of the possibilities. Next Sunday’s sermons contained references to the book. Statements concerning the possibility of Jesus healing without the aid of medicine stirred up some objections from the congregation, Ernie Hall latched on to every word…

‘Captain, ten minutes ago the doctor told me I can’t live more than two months. I want you to come round tonight to anoint me with oil. I’ll get some of the believing saints to join us and we’ll have a healing meeting.’ Frank was shocked. It was one thing to believe and preach about healing but another thing to act on his preaching.

It seemed that Frank couldn’t avoid the issue. He decided he wouldn’t tell me what he had to do. He didn’t want any unbelievers there and I was an unbeliever with a mind as tightly closed as a can of bake beans. 

By the time he arrived at the house, sixteen believing Salvationists gathered. After some enthusiastic chorus singing, sister Allison handed Frank a saucer containing oil. He stared at it. How on earth did you anoint someone? Should he sprinkle oil on Ernie’s head or pour it over him. [sic] He’d start by reading James 5:14. There was safety in that.

‘If any of you are sick let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil.’ Not much instruction there. He’d have to do something.

The Catholics would make the sign of the Cross. Perhaps that would do. Frank dipped his fingers in the saucer and drew two oily lines in the shape of a cross on Ernie’s forehead as he offered a prayer of faith. Without warning the power of God sent them all reeling backwards. Ernie fell on the floor with a big smile on his face. When he’d scrambled to his feet again he picked up a kitchen chair with his left hand, raising it high above his head, something he hadn’t been able to do for months.

Frank could scarcely believe his eyes. This was a spiritual dimension untapped by most Salvation Officers he knew.

[…] This forerunner of future events lent weight to the reasons some people gave for calling us Pentecostal.”

Source: By Hazel Houston, Published 1989 (UK: Scott Publications), Being Frank, pg. 54-56.


You can read the book by by Gordon Lindsay on William Branham in pdf form online for free.

A Man Sent From God by Gordon Lindsay

The next article in this series will look more at how the Australian AOG was influenced by the Latter Rain ideas from Frank Houston and the NZ AOG.

BREAKING NEWS: Royal Commission criticises Houston in report

23 Monday Nov 2015

Posted by Nailed Truth in Brian Houston's Beliefs, Frank Houston, News Headlines, Royal Commission Hearing

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

ACC, AOG, Assemblies of God, Australian Christian Churches, Brian Houston, cover up, Frank Houston, Royal Commission, scandal

Brian Houston quote - cover up Royal Commission Hillsong

Source

 

The Sydney Morning Herald reports,

Continue reading →

An accurate report on Hillsong’s leadership and history

14 Saturday Nov 2015

Posted by Nailed Truth in Associations, Bobbie Houston, Books, Brian Houston's Beliefs, Frank Houston, Hillsong Associations, Hillsong Conference, Hillsong Fascism, Hillsong Scandal, Hillsong worship, Houston, Marketing, News Headlines, Royal Commission Hearing, Scipione, Sermons

≈ 7 Comments

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Brian Houston, Deborah Snow, Frank Houston, Good Weekend, Hazel Houston, Hillsong, homosexuality, houston, New Zealand, paedophile, paedophilia, pedophile, pedophilia, Royal Commission, SMH, sydney morning herald

Because this article on Brian Houston and Hillsong is questioning and analysing it’s history and leadership, this article is not from God but the devil. (That’s how the Hillsong philosophy goes. If it’s good, praise God! If it’s bad, it’s of the devil.)

There is so much to examine in this article which we are sure to refer to in articles to come.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports,

Continue reading →

Brian Houston: compulsive liar

04 Tuesday Aug 2015

Posted by Nailed Truth in News Headlines

≈ 17 Comments

Tags

Bible Society, bobbie houston, Brian Houston, bullock, EIC, Evangelical Industrial Complex, Frank Houston, houston, John Sandeman, liar, prosperity gospel

BRIAN HOUSTON PUBLICLY LIES… AGAIN

This is an important news article worth revisiting to understand how Hillsong has NOT changed or evolved from its cult-like status nor has Brian Houston repented of his lying tongue.

03_Code-Yellow_HAW

Prosperity heretics preach Christ teach Jesus Christ is rich, Christ died to make you rich, that you must tithe and demands that you are to “bless to be a blessing”.

We wish to remind our readers how the EIC and propaganda-driven “Bible” Society tried to give the impression that Brian Houston was not a Prosperity heretic and cult leader. In an article titled, ‘Brian Houston: There’s a huge difference to living rich and living blessed’, John Sandeman, reported in 2014,

“Brian Houston has never believed in a “prosperity gospel”, he told Eternity at a press conference marking the start of this year’s Hillsong Conference…

“The prosperity gospel is… not a term I’ve ever heard used in our church in any context whatsoever,” he says referring to Hillsong Church, suggesting the term has been invented by critics.

“There’s really only one gospel: it’s the gospel of Jesus, the gospel of grace.

[…] And so, when it comes to personal blessing, I see it the same way. God blesses you to be a blessing… that’s the essence of what we are all about.” [Source] (Emphasis ours)

However, in this 2006 article below, the reporter accurately summarised the Prosperity Gospel:

“The message of Hillsong’s prosperity gospel is: the richer you are, the more you can help others.”

It’s getting tiring having to expose the continual lies of Brian Houston. Why the BibleSociety, John Sandeman and other Christians keep putting up with this compulsive liar and blasphemer would escape anyone’s reason.

HILLSONG EX-LEADER: GEOFF BULLOCK

We think it is important to publish Geoff Bullock’s response to the piece below, correcting some of the errors that were reported about him and to also reveal insights into the inner workings of the Hillsong cult (name of recipient withheld):

Hi _________,

I was surprised at how gentle the article was, considering all the things that we all spoke of. A few things to correct, my income comes from CCLI not APRA. CCLI is a worldwide copyright lisence to make sure that copyright law is being adhered to but in a very fair and cost effective way. Brian does not wear Valentino suits as far as I know. He does however have expensive tastes, which of course is his perogative. The issue is simply about being honest about the “blessings” he has recieved from the properity doctrine he preaches. Why preach it, then hide it?
Now to your questions:

I just read the article in the ‘Weekend Australian’ . It is revealing (and I would not be surprised if the author had picked up on some of the information on this site!).

We had several interviews, face to face and over the phone during the last seven months.

The place is obviously strongly controlled, the evidence might suggest (Lance do you like my wording!) that it is a money laundering cult.

No, i truly believe that in their heart of hearts they are doing what they perceive to be the “work” of God. They would se the “blessings” as from God, and the “cursings”, as in the artice, this website, myself and others, as from the Devil.

Thanks for your conviction and courage to speak out. I pray that you will find peace and strength.

Me too. Nervous about the statements they will make and it’s affects on my family. I thought Janine was incredibly brave. She deserves a medal.

I have some questions:

1. Are you attending a Church now?

Are you kidding? No. Jesus finds me wherever I am, and I am learning to recieve him wherever I am. Personally,I find more spirituality outside the church than I found within it. Please, no one take offence. I am endeavouring to be responsible to my cynicism.

2. Can you elaborate on what you meant that they stole your soul’ ?

I was continually challenged to be “the man that God called you to be”, rather than to be “the man that God forgave”. I was forced into a mould that never ever fitted me. In the last year or two,(94-95) I was pounced on almost daily for any diversion from the strict regiman of cold and callous vision driven leadership. It broke my heart to have to be a bastard to maintain the church vision. After I left I sought out many of my ‘victims” and sought forgiveness.

3. When you wrote songs like ‘Power of Your Love’ – where did the muse come from…God? Yourself? or were they just manufactured melodies?

I felt so flawed and I just wanted to crawl into the arms of God and feel accepted, loved and ok. It was a very honest song… it still is, I now wouldf see my perspective on it as being somewhere between the first version and the second. Both are relevant.

4. You obviously had a ‘worldy’ life style, reading occult books etc. before you joined Hills. What do you think is worse/more dangerous to your soul…Your pre HS lifestyle, Your Christian Lifestyle within HS?

Hillsong without a doubt. But only because I was not given the permission to have doubts, to question, to wrestle with my spirituality. God was defined by them and therefore anything outside their teaching was frownes upon, shunned or totally rejected. Part of this has to be seen in the context of my desperate desire to be approved. I was a very willing student.

5. In the midst of the commercialisation – are people truly finding the Gospel within HS?

The Gospel finds us through the work of the Holy Spirit. I wrote one of most successful songs on the toilet… the message of the life of Jesus is not the property of the church. It is the image and nature of God. I believe God can make himself known to us without our grandiose efforts.

I am very keen to hear HS’s reply. I am a little nervous…

Source: Geoff Bullock, Geoff Bullock article take two, Signposts.org, http://web.archive.org/web/20080726145830/http://www.signposts.org.au/2006/04/27/geoff-bullock-article-take-two/comment-page-1/#comment-135646, Published 10:05am 30/04/2006. (Accessed 03/08/2015.)

Brian Houston media hillsong

THE REPORT

News Limited reports,

The High Cost of Faith

As crowds – and their cash – flood into Hillsong Church, former members tell Jennifer Sexton about the heavy price they paid for leaving the flock.

Whoa! I wanna know you, I wanna know you today.” With that catchy lyric, the lead singer rips into a punky-pop riff on his electric guitar as the band and side-stage choir spring to life. Over a sea of raised arms, five cameras capture the action as the audience, in time with the lanky, tousle-haired lead singer, belts out a thundering chorus: “You’re the best thing that has happened to me.”

No, this isn’t MTV live. It’s Hillsong Church, part religious service, part rock concert, part multi-media conglomerate. Every weekend at Hillsong churches in Sydney 19,000 people sing, clap and jump through a two-hour tribute to a God who rocks. As traditional religious congregations shrink, Hillsong attendance expanded more than 13 per cent in 2004.

There are no images of Jesus being tortured on the cross at Hillsong headquarters in Sydney’s Baulkham Hills, no vaulted ceilings. The audience sits not on wooden pews but on 3500 cushioned theatre seats. Under each one is an envelope and credit card form for believers to donate their pre-tax 10 per cent salary tithe. Ushers flood the aisles and pass black buckets down each row. The buckets have holes in the bottom, presumably to discourage parish-ioners from giving coins. And the rivers of cash keep flowing: donations and salary tithes to Hillsong were $15.3 million in 2004; merchandise, CDs, books and DVDs, returned a further $6.93 million, while total church revenue has now passed the $50 million mark – all tax-free thanks to Hillsong’s charitable status. And then there are the donations – it’s anybody’s guess how much – from the owners of the $40 million Gloria Jean’s coffee empire, Nabi Saleh and Peter Irvine, who are both senior members of Hillsong, the former as treasurer. The message of Hillsong’s prosperity gospel is: the richer you are, the more you can help others.

But along with the expanding congregation and profit margins have come the ugly rumours that won’t go away – of underhanded treatment of disaffected church members, of attempts to silence critics, of profiteering from the faithful. Only last month, the Labor Mayor of Blacktown in Sydney’s west, Leo Kelly, accused Hillsong of attempting to pressure him, via an ALP state official, to dampen his criticism of their use of public funds.

Hillsong’s main benevolent arm, Hillsong Emerge Ltd, has been accused in federal and NSW parliament of misappropriating commonwealth grants worth millions of dollars. And a former member, Robert John Orehek, was charged with fraud after allegedly fleecing believers of up to $20 million, which he sank into failed and fraudulent property investments.

The king of Hillsong evangelism, Brian Houston, bounds onto the stage, clad in a dapper suit. “The faithful are in church tonight,” he declares, surveying the auditorium. “Awesome!” The background music fades away and the house lights brighten. People reach into their bags for Bibles and notebooks. Houston savours a silent pause. He’s been thinking about the seven deadly sins. “What would be my deadly sins, destructive in the lives of people?” Avarice, gluttony and wrath are apparently old hat. Houston instead says the sins are negativity, regret, complacency. Just a few weeks later, Hillsong’s formidable marketing arm has swung into action, releasing a four-CD set of Houston’s teaching on the sins that undermine potential in people, retailing for $35 in the church shop.

Houston has become the most influential pastor in the Pentecostal movement, and is a household name to born-again Australians. He also has political pulling power: Prime Minister John Howard, Treasurer Peter Costello and former NSW premier Bob Carr have all addressed the Hillsong congregation in recent years. In the last federal election, Hillsong member Liberal Louise Markus narrowly snatched from Labor the seat of Greenway, next to Hillsong’s Baulkham Hills church.

After the service – there are 30 every week in the two main Sydney venues, Baulkham Hills and Waterloo – people pour into the Hillsong shop. Half of the back display is devoted to the CDs and books by Houston and his perky wife of 28 years, Bobbie. Their bright white teeth and perfect hair seem to shine down from dozens of book and CD covers. In Bobbie’s CD set She Loves and Values her Sexuality she proclaims, “You might be happy with your weight but is your husband happy with your weight? … How are you going to do anything that might surprise your man when you need a hydraulic crane just to turn over in bed?” Boob jobs and face lifts get the thumbs up, as do good sex and a husband who says sorry with an impromptu spending spree at the jewellers. It’s a feel-good message, and when it doesn’t feel good, money makes it better.

Geoff Bullock knows all about Hillsong’s brand power and merchandising. He helped build it, even coming up with the name Hillsong more than 17 years ago. He launched the church on the international Christian music scene when he wrote most of the original songs, such as Power of Your Love, Refresh My Heart and Have Faith in God. For the church’s first decade he was Brian Houston’s best friend. For eight years, until a messy split in 1995, he ran the music department, nerve centre of “the brand”. Although his songs are now rarely played at Hillsong, they are popular on the international Christian music scene and Bullock lives off composition royalties paid through APRA (the Australasian Performing Rights Association).

When I meet Bullock at a sunny, beachside terrace cafe he is edgy and constantly apologises – for knocking the table as he crosses his legs, for being unable to eat much of his salad. A short, tidy man with intense blue eyes, he is approaching his 50th birthday. He hasn’t slept much in anticipation of revealing the backstage story behind the “miles of smiles” at Hillsong. “It was very nice being at the top of the tree but it just … ” He pauses, swallows. “This is going to sound dramatic. They stole my soul.”

Bullock’s moment of religious revelation struck in 1978 at Sydney’s Koala Motor Inn, where Houston’s father, Frank, was preaching. Bullock was 23 and had been touring the east coast in a rock’n’roll band, smoking dope and reading Carlos Castaneda’s stories of magic and sorcery. “It was wild,” he recalls of that November night. They sang hymns to a funked-up polka tune played with live piano, drums and bass. In the latest fashion blue safari suit, at the centre of the throng was the bespectacled 56-year-old preacher, Frank Houston, who declared that he used to smoke cigarettes before Jesus saved him. “People were trying to put cigarettes in his mouth,” says Bullock. “He lay down and he spat them out. It was a show of great confidence and charisma.”

Bullock was a needy, naive Sydney North Shore lad, schooled at the Presbyterian Knox Grammar. He believed in a higher being and was willing to try anything to reach Him, including cannabis. “I was absolutely ready for brainwashing. I was absolutely ripe for ‘love bombing’.” So, just two hours after walking into his first evangelical experience, Bullock answered God’s call, and his 21-year-old Anglican girlfriend from Lithgow in country NSW, Janine, followed. Individually, in back rooms, they were counselled. They had been born again and were now committed to Jesus. Satan would fight to get them back, they were warned. “I went in with a confident world view and I came out quite rattled. My whole belief structure had been turned on its head.”

He said goodbye to his rock’n’roll band, Arnhem, and to smoking, drinking and playing the occasional gig in topless bars in Sydney. A church leader came to his house and threw out his extensive collection of music – Joni Mitchell, Pink Floyd, The Beatles. “I had this wonderful group of friends, a great lifestyle, going listening to bands. All of that was viewed as being ‘of the devil’ … I didn’t lose some friends, I lost all my friends.”

Five years later, when 29-year-old Brian Houston set up his own church, Hills Christian Life Centre, in the newly suburban northern hills of outer Sydney, Bullock was a founding member. Young Houston was inspired by Tony Packard, who established a high–profile Holden car dealership in the area at Baulkham Hills with the catchcry “Let me do it right for you.”

Bullock was among the 70 believers at Pastor Brian Houston’s first service on Sunday, August 14, 1983, at Baulkham Hills Public School. From here a Pentecostal phenomenon called Hillsong was born. Bullock sang, played piano and was music frontman on stage for at least three services every Sunday. He recorded the church’s first six albums, three of which went gold, one platinum. He also ran the Bible college curriculum. For this he earned no more than $45,000 a year from the church and gave back a pre-tax tithe of 10 per cent, even when he couldn’t pay his growing family’s bills. Now he is being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder after being expunged from the church he helped build.

Bullock and Janine married in 1980 and had five children within a decade. At the height of his Christian stardom in the late 1980s to mid-1990s, Bullock toured the United States, Britain, Asia and New Zealand with an expanding repertoire of songs. For Sydney Sunday services they rose at 6am to set up the band and audio equipment and then rehearse ahead of morning, afternoon and evening church services. He was too busy to notice he was failing as a husband and father. “We had to put our parenting on hold,” he says.

Bullock began to feel like a real estate agent selling a manufactured ideal of God rather than one he really believed in. “I think Hillsong’s still got it, this feeling that God smiles a bit more when we’re singing our songs, and we’ve got good hairdressers, dentists, cosmetic surgeons. I came to think that the patron saint of Hillsong was Gianni Versace.”

Christmas Eve 1994 was the end for Bullock. He had rehearsed the choir and band to play the standard church repertoire for three Christmas services. Just hours before the first service, Houston discovered Bullock had not rehearsed traditional Christmas carols. “He just tore me to shreds and then left me to do three services,” Bullock says. Houston got his Christmas carols that night, but it finished his partnership with Bullock.

Once Bullock departed, a campaign of whispering about his morality and sexuality filtered throughout the church. When he broke up with Janine a few months later, his subsequent relationship with a married woman (whom he later married) was, he says, twisted to become the reason he had been forced out. At the same time, Houston preached about dark forces intent on undermining the church. “They ran a huge campaign to discredit me,” fumes Bullock.

Janine says she changed her phone number to stop friends from the church calling to tell her Bullock’s departure and their marriage break-up was against God’s will. She once hid in the wardrobe when a woman visited her house a second time. “I couldn’t bear her preaching at me again, telling me that this wasn’t of God.”

Janine still goes to Hillsong once a month, but says she can’t help but be cynical about the facade of spirituality compared with the lack of compassion and understanding she experienced. But, she adds, “there’s some beautiful Christian people who attend there”.

Geoff Bullock isn’t the only founding member of Hillsong to question its methods and ethics. For a decade until 1991, Stephen Grant was paid $100 a week to preach at Hillsong and was dean of the church’s Bible college. He admits that, as an eccentric, he was a strange fit for a fundamentalist church.

Still, Grant came from a wealthy family – he now runs a successful art gallery in Sydney’s Redfern – and had pledged (but never paid) $150,000 to the church’s building fund. He had a beautiful wife and was entertaining at the pulpit. He wore loud, colourful suits and sometimes a red leotard. When he blew on the congregation, the entire room of people would fall over.

But he realised his views diverged from Houston’s when they travelled together to the US in 1988. “In the US, I saw the wholesale commercialisation of born-again Christianity. I went, ‘Nah, truth is becoming a commodity here. It’s not a question of internal search, it’s a question of external commodification.’” But Houston liked what he saw and soon Hillsong’s fundraising became increasingly glitzy.

“I started to question what the bloody hell I was doing,” Grant, 46, reflects. “I was preaching all over the world. But I was getting really depressed.” He had lost both his parents and his marriage was under pressure. Grant subsequently discovered that, in the inner sanctum of the church, his wife was being encouraged to recognise that he did not belong.

His clinical depression was seen by the church as a sign of faltering faith. “I knew there was nothing wrong with my faith, and yet I was told: ‘You are not believing in Jesus enough.’” The Hillsong website backs up Grant’s claim. “Depression,” it declares, “is a supernatural spirit straight from the devil.”

When Grant broke up with his wife and left the church, like Bullock, he had to start life all over again, outside the Hillsong fortress. “People find a lot of healing in the church. I don’t have a problem with that. But … if you are kicked out, you are f—ed.”

The Christian message of the shepherd seeking lambs lost from the flock doesn’t apply at Hillsong, says Grant. “It was forbidden for me to be visited by the members of the church. Damn the lost lambs.” His recovery took five years.

The sentiment is echoed by theology student Penny Davis, who took years to rebuild her self-esteem after a shattering experience at Hillsong, which began in 1995 when she was just 20. Women who don’t fit Bobbie Houston’s mould at Hillsong, or those brave enough to challenge the male hierarchy, are swiftly brought into line, she says. With ambitions to become a pastor, Davis quickly realised she needed to change her wardrobe. “To get anywhere, you had to become a clone,” she quips. “I grew my hair, started wearing make-up and doing all the nice girly things.”

Life became very full, and it was all about church. She moved into a share house with four other young women from Hillsong, volunteered two days a week at church and did paid work with the Hillsong community youth centre three days a week, earning a weekly income of $600, less the 10 per cent salary tithe. “The pressure at Hills to be glamorous and have everything as well – it’s quite difficult on a low income.”

Just months after joining, she slept with a woman from the church – one who later confided about the liaison to a youth leader. Davis was immediately counselled that homosexuality was a sin. “I was just so vulnerable,” Davis says simply. She was assigned a mentor, who claimed she had successfully corrected her own “dysfunctional” sexuality. They spoke at least once a week, when Davis had to confess any lesbian fantasies. The mentor also read Davis’s diaries. After the “problem” persisted, she was put into an 18-week “ex-gay” program called Living Waters, then conducted at Hillsong. Once a week she attended the Living Waters group sessions, where she was told to focus on problems in her past which may have triggered her sexual “dysfunction”. “I was committed to getting these things fixed,” Davis says.

Three years of counselling, sessions with a psychiatrist and group therapies failed, however. Davis resorted to grabbing joyful glances at a video of Sydney’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras while her flatmates were out, she laughs. “I started to subconsciously realise that this was not going to change … the shame and guilt were eating me up inside.”

Davis decided her sexuality and spirituality could never be reconciled at Hillsong and made the momentous decision to leave. In response, her Hillsong friends sent a barrage of text messages quoting the Bible on the “sin” of homosexuality. She was kicked out of her house and then her friends froze her out, ignoring her emails and phone calls. “She’s gone, we have restructured, there’s no need to continue communicating with her” was the message sent to her Hillsong friends by church leaders, claims Davis.

Social worker Tanya Levin, who spent her teenage years at Hillsong, says that those who question church policy are first shouted down and later ostracised if they persist. Levin has been commissioned to write a book about growing up in an evangelical church. For research, Levin attended the annual Hillsong women’s conference Colour Your World last March and took offence when poor children in Africa were being marketed for sponsors in the audience on the basis of being cute. “They are actually for life, not just for Christmas,” Levin shouted before walking out of the auditorium.

When she wrote an email the next month to the Houstons asking to meet them on a regular basis in order to gather material for her book, she got this curt response from the general manager, George Aghajanian: “We are aware that during your attendance at our recent Colour Your World Women’s Conference you caused a significant disruption. It is for this reason that we ask you to refrain from attending any future Hillsong church services or events; including accessing Hillsong’s land and premises at any time.” Aghajanian closed by saying the church’s leadership and staff were unable to provide assistance for the book.

When Levin subsequently attended a Sunday evening service, a pastor asked to speak to her outside. When she attempted to get back in to retrieve her bag, two security guards blocked her path, picked her up by the elbows and escorted her off the premises.

Brian Houston refused numerous opportunities to comment for this story, except to say: “More than 19,000 people come to Hillsong Church every weekend and I know that the overwhelming majority of them would testify to a healthy experience for both themselves and their families. They would also speak of the constant positive impact they see on others who are being helped through Hillsong Church and its many community programs.”

There is no doubt that Hillsong – or, closer to the mark, its loyal parishioners – perform many good deeds. The church has a number of charitable arms, including Mercy Ministries, a residence for girls dealing with unplanned pregnancies and eating disorders established five years ago by Hillsong’s Darlene Zschech, the country’s most popular and successful Christian singer. Although recently mired in controversy, the church’s main benevolent arm, Hillsong Emerge, has helped people find jobs and recover from addictions. Hillsong attendees sponsor about 2600 children in Uganda, and generously gave $500,000 to victims of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.

But the criticism seems likely to persist as long as Hillsong makes $50 million in revenue, pays no tax and yet spends just $2.67 million on “welfare services”. It is not clear how much Mercy Ministries gets from Hillsong, but its total donations were just $304,840 in 2004. And Hillsong Emerge’s 2004 accounts show it got only $646,666 from the Hillsong Foundation Trust and about that again in government grants.

And Houston has been less than transparent about his own income. Until last year he had failed to declare that he and Bobbie had sold their own personal property holdings to a Hillsong-related entity of which he is a director, Leadership Ministries Incorporated. Bobbie sold a Bondi beachfront apartment on the same block as Jamie Packer’s pad to the not-for-profit LMI for $650,000 in February 2002. The couple also sold a waterfront property on the Hawkesbury River in October 2004 to LMI for $780,000, making $535,000 on their 1998 purchase price. They continue to use both these properties.

LMI is the tax-free entity Hillsong set up as a vehicle to pay the couple’s income. In breach of Office of Fair Trading reporting rules, no financial statements had been lodged since its inception in October 2001. Only after the property deals were uncovered by The Australian were the accounts filed in August last year. When the numbers came in they revealed the golden couple got a measly net income, after donations, of just $21,658 in the year to December 2002, $12,739 in 2003 and $69,041 in 2004.

If this is all there is, then how do the couple and two of their three children pull off a property buying spree worth $1.738 million over 12 months in exclusive beachside Bondi? On August 26, 2003, son Joel, who is a lead singer in the Hillsong band and earns song-writing royalties, bought a $676,000 apartment a few minutes’ walk from the LMI-owned apartment, paying $276,000 up front. That same day Brian and Bobbie paid $650,000 with a collateral mortgage for the apartment next door to Joel’s. Exactly a year later, son Ben borrowed just $90,000 to buy a $412,000 apartment a few streets from the other family holdings.

And questions persist about why it took 30 years for Brian Houston’s father, Frank, to be exposed over a complaint of sexual abuse of a boy in his homeland of New Zealand. Houston says his father was banned from preaching in 2000, when he confessed. But Frank continued to live on the Hillsong account, in church digs, until his death in November 2004.

Houston has hiring and firing rights over the board, and has appointed some influential and rich men to control the church’s empire (there are no women, he says, because one of the board members won’t allow it). The general manager of Hillsong – psychologist George Aghajanian – now oversees a $100 million property portfolio. And Hillsong has its sights on lucrative new markets in Europe – it opened a church in Paris last year and already has churches in London and Kiev.

Geoff Bullock says he can’t help but admire Houston. “He works hard and is gifted. He deserves to be a wealthy man.” But when told how little Houston is claiming as net income Bullock is incredulous – especially knowing the charismatic pastor’s fondness for Valentino suits and first-class plane tickets. And then there are the thousands of dollars in “love offerings” Houston regularly personally pockets for every talk he gives on the international Pentecostal speaking circuit. “Why not just be open about it?” Bullock asks.

As Bullock watches the church lurch from one controversy to the next, he has a sense of foreboding. He muses there is a valid expectation that the church should pour more money into helping others and less into promoting itself and amassing wealth. “In the end, it’s just sad,” he says, looking into his coffee cup. “It does look like it’s approaching a train wreck.”

Source: By Jennifer Sexton (Senior writer of ‘The Australian’), The High Cost of Faith, News Limited, Published 29/04/2006.

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