Brian and Bobbie Houston Starting New "Church"

Houston we have a problem I'm sorry I'm super sorry it's Houston we've had a problem see everybody misquotes that we keep having problems how's that Brian and Bobby Houston added again they couldn't give it up they've announced that they are starting a new church okay I think Brian Adams wrote a song about this the lyrics are na na N na na n nah nah something like that yes ah I'm so okay so for those of you um who have been living uh in a Christian with their Christian head in the sand Brian and Bobby Houston are the former pastors of Hill song Church in Australia that Hillsong Church uh a worship space transforming Church mega church lots of money Hillsong University campuses all all over the world that siphon money all over the place under the table so that your money goes to God knows where without you ever knowing that hillon church so I guess um I don't know if the money's run out or if um there's no such thing is enough money um I'm gonna go with that one but apparently they are tired of being in retirement so they're going to start off um I I believe it's going to start off as an online only Ministry and then perhaps a move into the real world at some point um of course uh Brian Houston was forced to resign as the senior pastor of philong Church after allegations of inappropriate contact with two women as well as allegations of covering up his father's crimes as well as allegations of misusing church funds for multiple multiple uh plane trips and uh personal expenses and such um Bobby Houston uh had some similar Financial allegations put against her as well this is not a new thing um several not several years ago yeah well a while ago Pastor Mark Driscoll from the famously um reformed Mars Hill Church had to step down in disgrace because of spiritual abuse in his case I don't think he had to plan a church there was actually a little church in the middle of nowhere that said hey Mark uh even though you're a jerk we love your kind of jerkiness so come on over and be our pastor see that's sad um and like I mean like Mark Driscoll least I mean I think he had like the chops of personality to get away with that kind of nonsense I don't know that Brian Houston has has anything to really recommend him in terms of Personality um I I don't know that anybody's GNA like people aren't G to like leave Hill song to go to Brian Houston's new church because it's Brian Houston the there's no discounting Legacy right and so Brian Houston will always be the guy who transformed modern worship and brought a whole different style of church to like the old hymns and Campfire Song style church and so regardless of what it his former followers MH are going to do there is always going to be the the more generally thinking crowd that is always kind of like you and I just kind of keeping our fingers on the pulse of what's Happening across the broader spectrum of christiandom you know I think there's a multitude of people who would like to think of themselves as hey I could hang out a shingle and transform the face of the modern church let me learn how this guy did it you know kind of thing yeah and I think that's where he's going to succeed that's where Mark Driscoll also succeeded Mark Driscoll was Jordan Peterson before Jordan Peterson was the big thing on the internet you know I'm a man and men should be men and men should be rightfully angry about the feminization of the church and blah and blah blah blah right and that was Mart Driscoll's whole Spiel you know until he decided to start abusing women you know behind closed doors you know as as is is written by The Bard you know me thinks she does protest too much you know and the thing about this that annoys me is because like what Brian Houston did to transform modern worship was to turn the church into a or turn Jesus into a candy bar and then and sell it and to figure out all these great ways of marketing Jesus as a product um not like just by actually building like the church as it's described in scripture um and it's not to say that like the way Hill song does worship is necessarily bad you know like the whole slow music never resolving to the root chord of the key you're in you know that pisses me off as a musician but some people really enjoy it and I don't want to say that you're wrong for enjoying that but they are you're you're definitely wrong right my my big thing with with Hill song as as the transform as a transform words is hard transformative entity is that they made the worship music portion of service the only part that matters right yeah like yeah we're going to have this awesome 30 minute 40 minute 2hour long worship music session and then we're just going to kind of sprinkle in 20 minutes of rhetorical nonsense like Joel ostein like uh like crlo dollar like um name your Prosperity preacher of choice God wants you to be happy God wants you to be rich you don't have enough faith is the only reason you're not financially prosperous so take 2 hours of music music sprinkle in 20 minutes of nonsense and you have yourself a formula for a growing church and if you don't believe it just look at all the mega churches that have popped up in America in the last 30 years that followed the exact same recipe yeah cuz it like that kind of thing it it turns worship not into an act of devotion but into an emotional experience right um and the problem with making it an emotional experience to me is that emotions are a thing f not done right so it like like that kind of thing it turns worship into a passive action you just have to receive what these what these people on stage are are kicking at you um you don't actually have to do anything and and that's and and maybe it's because like you know I i' I've gone to a lurgical church and I really enjoyed that process you know um the church I go to now I'm like there's there's some elements of that but it's like like there is something that you have to bring the table this this particular formula for church growth inverts the mission right yeah it turns it turns the mission into we need to get butts in the door so that people can throw money in the offering so that we can make the Beast bigger you know we can make this machine bigger that's not the model right the the what Jesus taught us by actually living his life is that the point is to go out the point is to get get your sandals on and get the stepping and Reach people out there and figure out what's going on in their lives are they sick are they dead do they need Resurrection do they need physical Resurrection do they need spiritual Resurrection figure out what's going on in their life and meet the gothar need and and so so my problem with the mega church movement is it fundamentally turned the church into the opposite of what it was supposed to be with Brian Houston I mean like we we look at church sizes at least in the the northern hemisphere um we see you know Church attendance as a declining thing my question for Brian Houston is like okay so your little new ministry this going to be online only like what are you trying to accomplish what Niche are you trying to fill that's a legitimate Ministry need that cannot be done well maybe by hilsong already or Willow Greek or any of those big churches with resources or perhaps you know medium churches that have resources to do these things online I'm like what can you possibly do on your own that's going to fulfill that need cuz like you don't have a church around you anymore it's like if he really wanted this to be his mission he would go to a church that's trying to do something like this and do it through them but that's not what he's trying to do he's trying to do it for himself I see this as nothing more than like that that continuation of that selfishness like I just like this isn't I don't think where we need to be going exactly this is definitely taking us in the wrong Direction at the very least like you said at the very least if he's going to throw his hat into the ring again it should be with the intent of I see some area and I don't care what that area is I see an area that's not being serviced by the current church I'm going to go look I'm going to go serve that missing piece but that's not it online Ministry is saturated just seems so under like understating it like if you go to iTunes you go to Apple no it's not iTunes anymore it's Apple podcast everybody who's anybody in the Christian world like if you've sold five books you have a podcast you're reaching out to some sort of online Niche there isn't a niche out there on the web that there isn't some pastor with a 20-minute meaningless message of to be how to be your best version of you and have your purpose driv in life not only is the pastor given that message but the hundreds of people who've been inspired by that Pastor have a podcast giving that same message or a YouTube channel or a blog or a pamphlet you can buy an Amazon or an online course you can take you know there's nothing new that Brian Houston is going to offer that isn't already out there in abundance yeah and I'm heavily dubious of online Ministry um you know to begin with because I think a fundamental aspect of you know humans being creatures um is that we need physically other humans to be around um we need to learn how to live in community with people that yes we don't like uh that we violently disagree with that's a skill that needs to be learned going online for church is it's it can only ever be that secr sensitive thing because it never challenges you to be part of the church to do the church to be the church right it never challenges you because you're never held accountable plus it it turns it into more or less a consumer commodity and I you know and I'm kind of with like Jesus flipping the tables you it's like this should be a House of Prayer you know but house is the first thing it should be a house for us all to be in and listen to me Watcher or listener in in YouTube or P podcast world I can hear your your your objection already but Mark but Scott what about your YouTube Ministry people this is not a Ministry this is markk and I getting online trying to perform a service for churches trying to answer the question why are churches less and less relevant over time Mark goes to church he leads in a church I go to church we have real relationship with real people where we lock arm in-arm with each other to go do some real world good right to go feed hungry people and house homeless people and bring the gospel to people who don't know Jesus this it may be like in some quasi perah form weird abstraction form be Ministry but I don't think of it that way I don't think Mark you think of it that way no like this is just you know my place to be an idiot on a soap box exactly right and we think there are people who who think similarly to us who want to know they're not on a Lonely Island somewhere and we think there are people who think differently than us who are ready to pounce on us and we're okay with all of that uh because ultimately this is not where we're trying to do the work of the Cross this is what we're trying to get a message through to others who think that they are Star Spangled awesome in doing the work of the cross in all forms okay but let's move on because I did want to make one important point before before we're done here there's a thing that happens with celebrity Christians that doesn't happen with the rest of us nobody does this for you and I Mark we don't rate okay y when when the Brian Houston and Bobby Houston and the Mark Driscoll of the world and the Franklin Grahams when they do something wrong the instinct is for everybody to go well let's take all that they've done wrong and all they've done right and let's put them on the scales and see where this balances out and every time that happens it always balances out the same way well look at all the people they've affected over their lives of course the the the net positive far outweighs the net negative and we should give them a pass but the UN Mees of the world we never get that like the minute we admit to sin there is Judgment I'm LGB btq judgment I've gotten divorced judgment um I was caught lying or cheating judgment there is judgment and there's usually the left foot of Fellowship as my friend calls it right the left foot of Fellowship awesome yeah and so like there's this hypocrisy that happens that is on on display for the world to see that that celebrity Christians people with influence and money and power who do it in the Name of Christ uh get get a free pass that nobody else gets yeah and I I mean the the the Apostle Paul was talking at one of his books that he wrote um or I should say letters uh but he was saying is like look yeah you you might have somebody you know preaching you know for completely selfish means but at least Christ is being preached if they're doing it right yeah um and that's just like that's a like I'm going to choose to look at the one good that's come out of this and it's not excusing any of the bad um when we do that whole like calculus or head like well if I take all the good done and all the bad you've done and I kind of weigh it it's like well no that's that's called utilitarianism and it's a bad philosophy because as long as you can eek out a net positive you can use it to justify any number of Horrors done and and that that's not good I mean that's just that is that is not the way Christians should be thinking period all right so like Mark and I have have like we've really tried to turn a corner and and really at the end of this talk about fixes in a new way each time we talk about fixes so I'd like to to kind of give you this world word picture this week so we just talked about kind of like these these unfair scales right celebrities Christian celebrities get one kind of scale and then the rest of us don't even get a scale and I think the fix is this we need to either burn the scales right on the one hand we can just burn the scales and say nobody gets a scale everybody just gets judgment Jesus died on the cross in propitiation look that word up but Jesus died on the cross to take our judgment right The Great Exchange right so that's one option we can go there like we can burn the scales and just say judgment to everybody uh what is it like the dragon from uh Mulan he he kind of gets mad he's like dishonor on you and dishonor on you we can go that way or we can believe what the Bible has to say already that we're all Sinners we're all Sinners every single one of us we all have something in the closet that we don't like to show each other on Sunday morning anger in our hearts or whether we look lustfully at a woman or whether we have a gambling addiction we are all sinners maybe simpling something as simple as you know every time we wrong somebody we refuse to say we're sorry and that we're wrong you know that's Pride that is the you know that is the sin that pretty much explains all other sins we're all Sinners can we just agree together that we all need the same Grace like instead of instead of accepting that everybody gets judgment can we just accept that everybody gets Grace Brian and Bobby and Mark uh we don't have to judge them in Oblivion right we don't have to judge them into the point where where they are living homeless in the streets and we also don't need to raise them up to be icons again right we can just say hey you've done your thing and you've changed the Christian world and that's great you've made your mistakes and no nobody has thrown you in jail nobody's thrown you on the under the bus but it would be really nice if you would no longer tarnish the good name of Jesus and just move along I think it's about all we can really ask for out of these people that's all I'm saying is there's nothing to see here Brian and Bobby Houston move along all right we're church is lame uh for those of you watching this you may have thought wow like Mark and Scott really have it in for the church and we don't we love the church we serve in church we want to see churches do great but we have no doubt that things like B Brian and Bobby Houston trying to come back from from their um Hiatus let's call it creates more negative press than it creates positive press and it's it's part of what makes people go if these are the people that are allowed to lead churches then I'd rather have no part of that and so we think it's important to collect these kind of stories so that when church leaders ask the question why isn't the church relevant anymore here you go so if you have something to say by all means uh go to YouTube and leave a comment or uh go to your favorite podcast player leave us a rating and a review or if you really want to have it out in long form or shoot an email over to us at churches lame podcast gmail.com how that go in peace serve the Lord amen