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Feb. 10, 2023

Why are Hillsong Church's Brian and Bobbie Houston Selling Everything?

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The Former Founders and Pastors of Hillsing Church are selling everything. Brian Houston and his wife Bobbie Houston have been posting personal items for sale online after the sale of their multi-million home. How does this break the church? And what can we do to fix it?

 

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Transcript

this is Brian and Bobby Houston they are selling everything their big expensive house and everything inside of it we're going to talk about how this theater of persecution how it breaks the church and what we can do to fix it this is Church's lame

so the only thing I could think on your intro is you know from the the good RoboCop um you know the first one where like you had the guy like I'll buy that for a dollar right exactly exactly so for those of you who um are watching this show like you're clearly aware of who Hillsong is as a church as a worship money making Powerhouse and the trials and tribulations of the Houston family right Brian uh was asked to step down or forced to step down because of knowledge of his father's indiscretions it also turned out Brian had some indiscretions of his own as we will come to see and uh once but once Brian was out uh Bobby uh his wife became redundant and unnecessary so she was unceremoniously words is hard unceremoniously has to step down as well so it turns out that now they are liquidating their Assets in what they would like us to believe is an emergency need to raise money we recently I don't remember not recently several episodes ago we talked about Patagonia and kind of like the money machinations of the uber wealthy I don't want to pretend to be a money expert right but for the uber wealthy the uber wealthy actually owned very little what they do is they take all their money in the assets and they put it in trusts right and so now there's this legal entity that has all the stuff so that way if you get your butt sued to high heaven the courts and the people suing you can't come for all the money and stuff because you don't have any money and stuff all that money and stuff is in some sort of legal mumbo-jumbo asset right and so that What's Happening Here seems to be Brian and Bobby taking stock of what assets they have that aren't protected by the trust trying to liquidate it so they can take it words is hard take that money and put it into a protection like a trust so that's what's happening here and then they can kind of go on TBN and CBN and and they can go on their guest lecturing Tour all around the us but mostly to all those Bible Belt states that are exactly who you think they are and they can get up in front of a camera and go guys we're hurting so much we need your help if you could just get out your credit card and support us for 20 bucks every month that would be such an incredible blessing and would continue the work of the Kingdom all the while this money is just coming in and it's your money that's paying their legal fees and not you know they are no danger of losing any money or assets on their own yeah it's like when you have people with with wealth that suddenly begin to liquidate assets like that tells me that they're trying to do something shiesty regardless of what's going on that we know about or you know it's like you're suddenly trying to convert everything to liquid assets so you can do something else with it like it tells me you're trying to get rid of it and you're trying to basically do what for like you or me would be considered money laundering but the rich have actual ways of wandering their money yeah um and hiding it yeah it it's it's rich Christian people acting as if they have no concept about the spiritual value of money right all they all they all they're looking at is the the the monetary value of money what was the reason that they gave for this action you know that or did they give one they didn't really they've kind of been leveraging social media and the kind of the fact that you can kind of just kind of put something out that should only take up somebody's attention for five or ten seconds all right so hey here's a cool picture of my husband's uh Gucci uh shirt rack right how would you love to own one of Brian Houston's Gucci shirts and be part of the Hillsong Legacy and that's all you need to know right swipe up to the next interesting bit of dopamine Tick Tock goodness you know yeah I know I personally I'd rather take one of his Gucci shirts and shove them into Brian Houston but you know that's just me being very grumpy at this at this stage in the game absolutely so because quite frankly I'm tired of talking about Brian Houston um and his wife because they just need they need to go away they can sell everything they own give the money to the poor and actually do something useful themselves yes I agree with you and we're gonna get there but at the moment like Brian Houston in in one sense let's be clear here this is YouTube and podcasts and we want people to watch our video and listen to our show right so if we're in the business of eyeballs the Houston family delivers I guess so so but then again like since the topic of the day is how do things break the church the Houstons most definitely break the church over and over again so so we just talked about um how the Houston seem to be Christians who don't seem to be acting very christ-like um but the other thing is that this is all pure theater right they are not suffering they have plenty of money and assets they're gonna be fine their kids are going to be fine their kids kids are going to be fine the dogs and cats of their kids kids are gonna be fine right so nobody is in danger of not being fine but we create this false perception that litigation and the threat of bankruptcy is coming they use this as a means of laser identifying who is their cult following and by having that list that email list that call list that credit card list they can keep going back and milking them and taking advantage of the taking advantage of them and like like that woman who gave her last two pennies and Jesus said what are you people doing building your church off the back of this of this woman the Houstons are doing the same exact thing it doesn't matter how much money you don't have as long as you have some credit cards with a little bit of money there we're happy to take that money from you there is like this this need for church leaders in general yeah um when they start to fall from the grace of you know millionaireship and that's not to say that like they're not going to be millionaires it's just like like things are going downhill a little bit for them right like they freak out and they want to like be like oh like well like we're gonna trust in God to get us through this like no you're you're trusting in your mutual funds right to get you through it I have no pity I have no mercy for somebody who is going to go through bankruptcy when you begin with that kind of wealth and you're just a like a terrible hypocrite yeah it's like you know it's if you were like a really wonderful and highly moral person and you know your money was going away you wouldn't care right you would just be like well hey the money is drying up I guess you know I need to like you know stop eating you know 800 Donuts or whatever you spend your money on it's your kindness Lord that leads us to repentance right and it is the repentant heart that endears mercifulness right when you find the person who acknowledges their wrongdoing who turns away from it and is committed to doing right that is the person where you can find your way easily to Mercy yeah whereas the journey to Morsi to the person who is unrepented to the person who believes that they've done no wrong who believes they have nothing to make right that's where you have to lean on Justice because they could care less about Mercy yeah and I think like like the reason like I use the word unmerciful is just because like sometimes somebody needs to suffer just the natural consequences of their actions yeah absolutely um sometimes it's like it's you know it's perfectly fine to like say hey look I'm gonna you're not gonna suffer the consequences of your actions I'm going to stop that but other times it's like yeah they need to this is one of those cases in which you had two people um you know which were removed from their positions of power in a in a large Church yeah a functionally denomination of its own right that wasn't enough of a clue to them and you know rather than like taking time to see like well what have I done wrong in life I don't I I really have no idea Brian he just knows the kind of person that would like look at like you know like Hurricane Katrina and be like well that was God's judgment against you know New Orleans for being too licentious or whatever right but there are a lot of people like that yeah and those are the exact kind of people that will look at what's going on with the Houstons right now and look at them with pity right like oh look at how bad things are going for them it's like no like you call a hurricane judgment but like you you won't call what's actual judgment judgment right yeah um it's I find it frustrating because I want Ryan Houston um maybe Bobby Houston you know needs a tube like I want him to learn and grow from this but he hasn't right clearly so it's like I don't like so it frustrates me yeah and I want to see him actually learn that lesson and I don't want to wish every kind of evil in the world upon him except that which is actually necessary to get him to to wake up one day and be like you know actually I have been kind of a crap head on hey as long as we're talking about learning lessons if you're interested we just put out an episode about having a teachable heart where we listed like six or seven Bible verses that have to do just with that so by all means like go back an episode or two and you'll find that the last thing I want to say about how this breaks the church is that um it flies in this Behavior flies in the face of what Jesus clearly teaches us you cannot carry your cross if you refuse to let go of your bags of gold right you've got to make a decision right and I'm not this guy I'm not the guy who says faith being a faithful Christian means being poor being a faithful Christian means not having any money saved up not planning for the future not having retirement I'm not that guy okay I'm not the guy telling you that you have to live in poverty to live a spiritual life right but I am telling you I believe Jesus that when he says it's easier to thread the eye of a needle for a camel to thread the eye of a needle than it is for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God there's something about money and the way money makes us feel safe and secure and the way that money handles all of our perceived needs that gives us confidence to step back from the provision and from the blessing of God and I'm not a Prosperity Gospel person right I'm not the person that says oh if you just kind of give it all to God God will give you all the desires of your heart because clearly there are people who love the Lord and who live in incredible poverty who live in the worst conditions imaginable right so all I'm saying is that from a spiritual perspective there is always this tension between money and faith and you and I need to make sure that we are always mindful of that and our faith is always preeminent over our money the way I my brain was kind of thinking of it it's like you're you're either you know you're either a minister or a marketer when when the success of your church when the growth of your church and when when like like I like I want to call Hillsong just a denomination they really are at this point like they are a global Church network is what they would call themselves Network that would be like I think that's yeah like so like my point is you know as it when if that's succeeding makes you more wealthy then there's no way for me to trust that what you're doing is in any way shape or form done for the glory of the Kingdom but rather it seems like you like uh I forget where but like Paul uh the Apostle Paul in the New Testament you know he's writing it's like yeah I know that there's some people out there that are like complete you know complete just evil Wicked people and they're preaching the gospel um but I am thankful that at least that message is still getting out somehow right um which makes Paul a better person than me

it comes on the district of money scale you tend to kind of you're at one of the one extreme I'm not going to deny that at all um but you know at the same time it's like you know growing one's Ministry should not come with it a Financial uh motivation and unfortunately like with something like Hillsong you know where Brian Houston becomes wealthy off of the growth of it you know the question is not you know to me like well you know how much is God blessing him it's how much is he blessing himself um and with him being removed from his position at his own you know Church um you know that's telling me that he was doing it more for himself than for the kingdom if you if you didn't know before you can look at his behavior now and know for certain that it was about the money and not about the ministry yeah yeah right I think that's a fair way to say it

so how do we fix this mess and heal what's broken um I've got a couple of ideas here first like I know I am a proponent of when you see a problem fix a problem right so he'll song like they saw the problem and they they expelled the Houstons right and on the one hand that seems like obvious and good to do the hindsight being 20 20. like we can't have this conversation about the Houstons without also dragging Hillsong through the mud right and so it might have been wisdom on their part not to have expelled him but simply to say we are benching you until this all gets sorted out the reason being um they they get to keep some sort of control of the narrative a little bit you know what I mean like now every time Brian Houston kind of goes off his crazy path Hillsong gets struck through the mud and now that I feel bad for them because once again more money than the Seas have water right but part of that stewardship yes of Christ's name is is how do we handle these crises right and if you're like they're basically not handling it at this point right this is just the circus come to town and nobody's in charge anymore you know what I mean when I think about like what can we do to fix this I'm like I'm not really sure because um you know Brian Houston and Bobby Houston are no longer hillsong's responsibility right but because of you know the Hilton the Houston family having founded Hillsong um it is impossible for Brian Houston to do anything bad without it making Hillsong look like a bunch of jerks yeah so you know otherwise like I'd be like yeah like you know accountability you know transparency all that good stuff that I would normally say but but like and now I I feel like maybe the solution would be Hillsong kind of stepping up and maybe trying to kind of re-establish that relationship and kind of bring the Houstons kind of back into like a more of us in a more sane place in their life yeah Christians need to find something better to think about and consume their time with than reading stories if you if you have money in search of goods and services do not send that money to Brian Houston and Bobby Houston you know what I mean there are plenty of great Ministries and great non-profits and heck chances are if you find the part of your town that nobody wants to go into chances are you'll find a few homeless people in need of a meal you know so why not go to Burger King or something and like buy them a meal so if you have money in search of something to spend it on don't spend it on the Houstons if you have time in search of something to occupy it don't occupy on the Houstons right it's time to kind of take the air out of the balloon that is the Houston family and just kind of let them wither away into um into the history books anything that works and then finally um let me also say this in the spirit of compassion and in the spirit of Mercy withdrawal is a serious kick in the teeth um if you've ever been um out you know if you're an alcoholic if you're a drug addict if you've ever been through a 12-step program if you've ever been a supporter of somebody who's been a druggie an alcoholic or through drug drug 12-step program you know that withdrawal is the worst process it's the worst right but just like that person who's addicted to drugs or alcohol the best thing that we can do for the Houstons is withhold from them the things they feel like they need the most to get their fix which is money and attention right if you're really kind of doing that whole well we follow the headlines because we care and because we're praying for them because we want what's best for them well if you want what's best with them then it's time to start withholding those things that they want the most that works for me all right so I think we've beaten this horse enough um although hey I'm always happy to beat a Hillsong Horse let's be clear like when it comes to beating horses there's few that I enjoy beating more than Hillsong but uh Mark and I we love God's church we love God's people we love this vehicle that God has created to bring healing and Redemption to the world but there is no doubt that churches and church leaders do the unfathomably stupid stuff that makes the whole Kingdom look unfathomably stupid right so we just can't hear we talk about it we talk about how it breaks the church and how to fix it if you've got something you want to say about Brian Houston or this kind of weird Obsession we have with Christian celebrity and how we keep feeding it we would love to hear what you have to say um by all means if you're watching on YouTube leave us a comment hit that like button and subscribe and do all the clicky clicky things and if you're listening to the podcast shoot us an email at churcheslanepodcast.com and by all means don't forget to leave us a rating and a review on Apple podcast do it now do it now and with that go in peace and serve the Lord amen hey if you got something out of this episode would you please consider hitting that super thanks button and if you want to see more content just like this click on this playlist that says financial failure thanks a lot bye