5 Lessons from Hillsong: A MegaChurch Exposed

I just watched the Hillsong documentary on Discovery Plus, Brian Houston, Hillsong and the music brand,

Carl Lentz, and scandal after scandal after scandal, and I've had a few days to think about it, and I thought, you know what?

We need to talk about this, so let's do it. Welcome back to another video.

My name is Nate Sala. I'm the president of Wise Disciple. We are a Christian nonprofit organization dedicated to giving you the tools you need to live effectively as Christians in today's culture.

I'm also a pastor and discipleship specialist at my local church in Las Vegas, and it's really from that position as a pastor that I want to chat about Hillsong.

There's a lot to look into with regard to Hillsong and its origins. The documentary really goes through it pretty thoroughly.

Hillsong started out as a kind of brainchild of Frank Houston back in Australia in the 70s, and Brian Houston, his son, branched out and started expanding the church.

In the late 80s, Brian became friendly with prosperity preachers and the prosperity gospel philosophy, and Hillsong kind of took off from there.

The music brand, the Hillsong church plants, and then the rise of Carl Lentz and the sex scandals and the abuse scandals that became exposed after that,

I think you should definitely watch the documentary, because at the very least, you'll be a little more informed.

I'm going to share with you five lessons that come out of the Hillsong documentary. That is, I watched the documentary and I just stood on it for a little bit and just realized, you know what?

There's some things here that we can say about this. There's some lessons to learn. So I'm going to share with you five of those lessons, but I will say this.

The reason why I'm doing this video is not to bash people. It's not. It's to preserve the holiness of God's Word and the fellowship and discipleship that God's people should experience in His church.

Okay? So having said that, here are five lessons from the Hillsong documentary in no particular order.

There was an allegation made in the documentary about Carl Lentz. Now, Carl Lentz is the celebrity pastor that made friends with lots of celebrities, lots of people, including

Justin Bieber. Lentz was also forced to resign as a pastor of Hillsong, New York, because he cheated on his wife and the affair became public.

Related to that, there was an allegation made, and it was really implicitly suggested in the documentary, that this was not the first time

Carl Lentz had cheated on his wife or done something inappropriate as a leader of the church.

But what made this particular time different was, and this is the allegation, Carl Lentz was becoming so very popular, he was actually outshining

Brian Houston, who was the head of Hillsong and the original Hillsong Church over in Australia, because Carl Lentz was based out of New York at the time.

And it was suggested that Carl Lentz was about to leave Hillsong, and so there would have been a lot of people that would have gone with Carl Lentz and left

Hillsong with all of that in whatever new ministry he was going to create. And so a few people in the documentary suggested that Brian Houston allowed

Carl Lentz's adultery to be exposed to the public so that Lentz would be shamed and not take a lot of Hillsong's people with him when he left.

That's a pretty big allegation to make, so I'm not commenting on whether every single element of that is actually true, but I will say this.

I've seen the underpinning principle here kind of play out in other churches, where it's like, oh, this is so -and -so's church.

This is Pastor Brian's church. This is Pastor Carl's church. Oh, he's a great teacher.

I like him. Okay? And then all of a sudden, when that person steps away from leadership, church attendance goes way down.

And you think to yourself, well, why is that the case? Well, it's because a lot of those churchgoers were not there primarily for Jesus.

They were there for the pastor. And it's real subtle how that works, but that happens a lot. Alright?

Folks come for the cool stories and great illustrations and the awesome charisma and authenticity and the particular style of teaching.

You got to think, a pastor's job, like especially on a Sunday morning in front of the congregation, is to handle the

Word of God rightly. Alright? 2 Timothy 2 .15 says, do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the

Word of Truth. Right? And why should a pastor do that? What's that all about? It's to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.

So when pastors preach, their first job is to, first and foremost, be sufficient.

To teach the Word correctly. Alright? But their second job is to help the congregation really answer two questions.

What does this mean? And how do I live this out in my life today? Alright? And when it comes to that second job, there are all kinds of different styles and different ways to do that kind of a thing.

You can tell stories, you can give illustrations, that's what I do, by the way, and also,

Jesus did these things. Okay? But what that means is, Matt Chandler is going to be different than Tim Keller, and both of those guys are going to be different than John MacArthur, or John Piper, or Votie Bauckham, or Charles Stanley, or Tony Evans, or whoever you can think of.

Okay? But here's what I'm getting at. The primary emphasis on whether or not you should go to church is, are they handling the

Word of God rightly? Is Jesus the central focus of this church? Okay?

It's not, do I like the pastor's stories, or do I think he's funny? There is only one room for celebrity in Christianity, and it's

Jesus Christ. The moment that we, as Christians, make it about something or someone else, we are already setting ourselves up for failure, in some form or fashion.

And that's what it appears happened at Hillsong, and unfortunately, that's happening in a lot of churches today.

I heard it said, and I think it's absolutely true, the number one problem that all pastors face is pride.

If you are a pastor, and you're watching this video, or you're sensing God's call, and thinking about becoming a pastor, you have to acknowledge this reality every single day.

The number one issue that all pastors face is pride. Why is that the case? Because accolades naturally follow from good leadership.

If you lead people, and you don't screw it up in some royal fashion, okay?

You have a few good days, you have a few good ideas, things work out on some of the things that you're trying.

Well, likely people, they come up to you and they say things like, well, boy, what you did was awesome.

That was really great. Thank you for that. And as soon as that happens, pride starts to rear its ugly head.

And pride is a very dangerous sin. That's why a lot of people say pride is the root of all evil.

The Bible says pride leads to destruction, it leads to disgrace, it leads to deception, and ultimately, it will be punished by God.

And those of us who are teachers will be judged with greater strictness. That's why I think it's D. Martin Lloyd -Jones that says, if you can convince guys who think that they should be pastors, convince them to do anything else.

To be a pastor and to lead and to teach, it's a holy enterprise to step into that kind of dynamic.

And everyone should fear it with a holy fear. And I still do. And so what this means for those of us who desire to serve

God is, if we're not careful to remember what the scripture says and remain obedient to it, we can fall into a very subtle and dangerous problem.

Sure, things start out fine. We begin to serve God because we love Him and we desire to obey

Him. But then along the way, we can start doing things for God to serve ourselves. There is no question to me that pride is a humongous problem in Hillsong.

I knew that before I saw the documentary. But the documentary fleshes this out more clearly.

Hillsong's reach is massive. The music brand is a juggernaut. The organization is bringing in like a hundred million dollars every year.

And that's from the music label alone. They're known for being the celebrity church.

They're selling out stadium venues. I mean, in terms of business strategy, they're doing a lot of things successfully.

But as one other pastor in the documentary said, as pastors, we have to watch out for the girls, the gold, and the glory.

When I was coming up, I heard it another way. You got to watch out for sex, money, and power. That's how my friend

Jay Warner Wallace characterizes it. And then all of a sudden, which really shouldn't come as a surprise, stories come out that Carl Lentz is taking limos to church.

One of his former volunteers calls him untouchable. At one point, Lentz is wearing like a sweatshirt that costs $10 ,000 to buy.

Hillsong starts seating celebrities in the church, like right up front, in the front row. In other words, there is a

VIP section. To what? Hear the word of God? One former volunteer usher said he accidentally set a regular person in the celebrity section, and then he got scolded for it.

And all of this reveals that churches and folks in positions of leadership at those churches, they can lose sight of the

God they serve. They can become more interested in their ministry for Jesus than the

Jesus of their ministry. There was one thing that was blatantly missing.

Well, actually, there were a lot of things that were missing. Come on now. But one thing that I did not see at all was an accountability structure, especially for the leaders at the very top.

Nothing appeared to be in place there to hold Brian Houston, Carl Lentz, and other leaders to account for their actions.

Paul David Tripp wrote a book called Dangerous Calling, and this is what he said in the book, um, in your ministry, you can faithfully call people to submit their lives to the

Lordship of Jesus Christ, and in that very same ministry, surrender your heart to a whole catalog of pastoral idolatries.

It's actually a sly and easy problem to slip into. Therefore, one of the fundamental ways to combat this particular problem is for the pastor to be pastored himself.

There needs to be some kind of accountability structure where the leaders have to give an account for the teachings and the actions and the decisions that they make.

On a regular, consistent basis, they have to. It's a necessity. One of the other reasons why

I'm making this video is because I had to leave a church because of the abuse that my wife and I saw at that church that we were at.

I'm not comparing where I was to Hillsong at all. What I'm saying is, my wife and I saw leaders at the top, with no accountability, making decisions to glorify their ministry for Jesus instead of the

Jesus of their ministry. And it came to a point where I looked my senior pastor in the eye, and I asked him some tough questions.

One Sunday night, I sat him down, and one of those questions was, who can fire you? In other words, who do you answer to?

Who are you accountable to? And he looked at me and he said, God. And I knew right then and there that we needed to leave.

Every leader must submit to another leader. If they don't, they are playing a dangerous game, because ultimately, pastoral ministry is a tug of war between the kingdom of self and the kingdom of God.

Again, Tripp points this out in his book, which, by the way, I wonder if anybody at Hillsong has read Dangerous Calling.

They really should. It's a really good book. But the point is, the subtle trick of ministry is that you can build both kingdoms, the kingdom of the self and the kingdom of God, at the same time.

When you do the work of ministry, you can accomplish both at the same time. And if you don't have somebody to call you out and to correct your drift, so to speak, you'll find yourself right in a spiritual ditch as a pastor.

And nobody needs a crystal ball to say that. It's just human nature. So here's something controversial to say for a lot of people, but it's really not at all.

Evangelism is not the goal of the Great Commission. You remember the Great Commission? Jesus, before he ascends to heaven, gives his disciples a very important job.

It's actually every single Christian's job, and it's the only job that Jesus gives Christians. Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the

Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. That's Matthew 28.

You know what the Great Commission is not? Go and proclaim the gospel and then leave.

Or even, you know, go and bring someone you know to hear the gospel from someone else and then leave.

And yet, how many churches do that every single Sunday? Again, this is one of those subtle things that are not easily recognized, okay?

But somewhere along the way, a pastor says to you from the pulpit, you know what? Make sure to invite a friend to church next

Sunday, right? You ever heard this one before? Heck, I've said this from the pulpit before, okay?

It's a very common thing to say, and I totally get the heart behind it. And don't get me wrong,

I'm not saying nobody should say it, but when this kind of thing happens in particular kinds of churches where the culture of that church does not value discipleship, it does not truly grasp the structure and dynamic of the

Great Commission as Jesus communicated it, well then two things can happen within this kind of a church.

The attendance will grow, and the pastor will become a celebrity. And that's what

I think happened at Hillsong. There is no doubt in my mind that Hillsong provides people an amazing experience, the end result of which is more people show up next time, okay?

But you have to ask yourself, as a church, what is the goal? Is the goal greater attendance, broader reach, famous people starting to attend, in which case more people become aware of the church, or is the goal creating disciples that makes more disciples?

I guarantee you anybody could beat Hillsong's numbers in their own living room if they meet regularly with a core group and disciple them biblically and properly, and then every one of those people go out and get another core group and do the same thing.

That's exactly how the church started in the first century. And guess what? The first century church, they didn't need a popular music label.

They didn't need Carl Lentz and his really cool eyeglasses, you know? They just had Jesus' command to go and make disciples.

Again, there's nothing wrong with inviting people to church, but what can happen a lot is that folks often think, well, you know what,

I can't articulate the Bible the way that the pastor can, I'm not as knowledgeable of theology,

I can't preach the word or share the gospel the way that the pastor can, so I'll just invite my friend to church, and then they'll hear it from my pastor.

Friends, inviting someone to church is not what Jesus commanded us to do. Our job is to make disciples, and God has placed people around us for a reason, okay?

Wherever you are, you have divine opportunities to fulfill the Great Commission. And I'll say it again so we're all clear on this, grabbing your co -worker's hand and leading them to your church building on a

Sunday is not fulfilling the Great Commission. It's not. It may be the beginning of the

Great Commission, but it doesn't travel the full distance. And all that does, if that's all we do, is it places the emphasis and the focus on the pastor on stage at the pulpit.

And if he's funny and has good illustrations and he's got tons of charisma, it makes him a celebrity. It makes him the central focus.

The only celebrity in Christianity is Jesus Christ. On this last point,

I don't really need to say a whole lot here, okay, but the bottom line is, if you're a pastor or a leader of a church or an organization, and you look at Hillsong and go, what a bunch of maroons, that'll never happen to me.

You're setting yourself up for failure. My mentor knew people that performed pastoral restoration ministry, and what that is, it's basically pastors who fall morally and who need restoration and healing after the fact.

And so brothers and sisters come around them and help them to heal and to be restored, because moral failings are basically falling out of the gospel narrative for your life, and so it takes the gospel to reorient you to live your life as a repentant sinner saved by the grace of God.

Anyway, my mentor used to remind me, the number one thing that pastors who fall morally say is,

I never thought that would happen to me. Your natural self has a tendency to lean toward sin.

Even as a pastor who gets all these accolades and encouragement for being a good teacher? Yes, even as a pastor who preaches the word.

You realize there is no place for duplicity in the Bible. That is, you don't get to, as a pastor, preach to others, but not to yourself.

That's not how it works at all. This is why the Bible says, die daily. Pick up your cross every single day and follow

Jesus. It's cross over comfort. That's what the Christian life looks like. That's not an experience that gives space for self -aggrandizement and self -glorification.

What happened at Hillsong can absolutely happen to you and your church, which is why

I encourage you, go back and rewatch this video, because the lessons here keep this from happening.

Lots here, lots to think about. You know what? Let's pray for Hillsong. Let's pray for the people who have been a part of Hillsong and are still affected by it.

And then let's pray for each other, that we stay close and clean to the Lord every single day.

Thanks for watching this video. Brand new Debate Teacher Reacts coming up. Don't miss it. In the meantime, I will say, bye for now.