May 2, 2022
This is the third part of my review of Hillsong: A Megachurch Exposed, in which I discuss my reactions to Episode 3. To start at the beginning of the series and read my reaction to Episode 1, click here. If you missed my coverage of Episode 2, click here.
The third and final installment of Hillsong: A Megachurch Exposed covers the most harmful aspects of the church: the abusive college program and the crimes of Frank Houston, father of Hillsong founder Brian Houston, and their subsequent cover up.
The Hillsong College
I always hate hearing about the “Church colleges” that seem to crop up time and time again. The stories that come out of those programs turn my stomach, but at the same time, they need to be heard so that these church college’s transgressions are exposed. I recently wrote about one such cruel church college in my article: A Baton Rouge Megachurch Leadership Program Accused of Abuse and Being “Cult-Like.”
When churches get large enough and have a recognizable brand (and they don’t even need to be as big as Hillsong to do this) you’ll often see them launch colleges. This is yet another revenue stream for the church business. I’ve written about this before in my article 3 Ways the Church Financially Abuses Its Members.
Hopeful college-age students pay their tuition and attend the college in hopes of ingratiating themselves with the church and prayerfully seeking employment from them later on. However, this hardly ever happens. People who graduate from the church college rarely, if ever, have any kind of accredited degree that’s worth anything in the real world and still get passed up for employment opportunities at the church.
The documentary interviews four former students of the Hillsong college and they recount their experiences. One of the worst things these church colleges do is exploit enthusiastic and talented young people for free labor.
It jumped out at me how the people on the “Refresh Team” likely were the ones who drew the short straw. “Refresh Team” is a very polite way of saying your job is to clean up. These guys were tasked with cleaning up the church after each service at the end of each day. That was it. They spent their entire college “internship” cleaning up the Hillsong campus church.
Another girl in the documentary said she spent her time at the college editing the video footage of Hillsong’s program. All for free. Video editing is very meticulous and time intensive and a well-edited video is worth a lot of money.
One of my friends and fellow youth leaders got caught in the “video editing” trap. He had a camera and a MacBook so the slightly-out-of-touch youth director was not at all hesitant about nominating him to “make a quick video” for youth group on Sunday. As is usually the case, he struggled to say no. So despite attending college classes, studying for tests, and having his own social life, he still had to find time to film some footage and spend hours editing before Sunday came around. I write more about this in my article How the Church Screws Over Creative People.
Also in the documentary we heard from a guy who ran the lights for Hillsong. No small task. Modern church services seem to need a professional-level light show, all in sync with the emotionally manipulative music. When the guy expressed his desire to quit and move on to something else, the church urged him to “train someone up” to take his place. For free.
I heard this phrase used a lot back in the day, even at my moderately-sized church. They also used volunteers, but not to the same scale as Hillsong. Still, when someone wanted to step down or take a break (exhausted from the free labor) they were often told they couldn’t leave until they “trained someone up” to replace them.
Yeah, no. That’s not how jobs work. When you want to leave, you leave. It’s the employer’s problem to replace the person who left, even if they have to train someone up themselves. The fact that churches need a volunteer to stay in the job past the point of them wanting to in order to “train someone up” goes to show why churches should pay for the talents and skills they consume: because they don’t have anyone else. One normal part of doing business (even a church business) is paying for services and skills you yourself do not possess.
One of the people interviewed shared that when these young people got tired, exhausted, and discouraged about all the hard work they were putting in, they’d repeat a mantra to themselves: “Can you believe we get to do this?” They’d ask this out loud to keep motivated no matter how burnt out they were.
This is a perfect example of manipulation. Get to do what, exactly? Edit video footage for free? Do light shows for free? Clean the entire church multiple times a day for free? These kids were right to be burnt out and question why.
I went to the Hillsong College USA branch’s website (which I bet is maintained by an intern working for free). Here was one of the requirements to apply:
Have access to sufficient financial resources to cover your fees, accommodation and living expenses.
This was, funnily enough, listed before this requirement:
Be a committed Christian and a regular and active member of a local church.
Make sense to me. (Source)
International Branches
The documentary briefly features the leaders of Hillsong’s branches in Ukraine. This was very interesting to me because it shows how the Hillsong name is just a franchise to make money in all different regions of the world.
These leaders detailed how they struggled to run the church business (which they thought they were doing for God) because the main campus in Australia would always call them up and tell them they wanted a portion of their income and that they were responsible for paying for the business class flights of the speakers that they were forced to accommodate. The problem was that the funds being demanded by Australia were reflective of Australian dollars, which is a notably stronger currency than Ukraine’s local currency, the Hryvnia. Because of this exchange rate, the leaders of the Hillsong branch in Ukraine struggled to keep up with the financial demands being made of them by Australia.
It saddened me to hear this from these interviewees. You could see the disappointment on their faces. They earnestly wanted to do what they thought was right in the eyes of God, but couldn’t because of the extreme business nature of the Hillsong brand. It didn’t take them long to finally realize that they were merely a money-making operation for Hillsong, not a church plant meant to spread the gospel.
The Crimes of Frank Houston
The final part of the documentary concerns itself with the darkest aspects of the Hillsong story—the crimes of Frank Houston.
If you’re reading this blog, you are likely already familiar with the story. I won’t reiterate it here since the film features a victim giving his very detailed first-hand account. This section of the film contains a viewer discretion warning, and rightfully so.
Toward the end of his life, Frank Houston seemed to start to fear what punishment might befall him in the afterlife for what he did. He confessed to his crimes of molesting underage boys, and Brian Houston subsequently brushed it all under the rug. I don’t know if whoever was taking notes in the meeting that day was super arrogant or super dumb, but he or she literally included in the meeting notes how Frank Houston had confessed to heinous crimes and how Hillsong planned to cover it up.
Well, in Australia, it’s a crime to not report your knowledge of a crime, which makes sense. Brian Houston has been charged with covering up his father’s crimes. I wrote about this when it happened.
As of this writing, Brian Houston has not yet gone to trial for this; it’s scheduled for October 2022. Recently, in late March 2022, Brian Houston has been accused by two women of sexual misconduct and inappropriate behavior. Sounds about right at this point. Interestingly, this was what finally got Houston to step down as head of Hillsong. The man is currently up to his neck in shit, and I for one will be keeping an eye on these proceedings.
Conclusion
All in all, the documentary was very well done and very much worth a watch. Even though I was already familiar with Hillsong and their shenanigans, I still learned some new things.
And, as I always say, it’s better to know something than to not know something. Much of Hillsong’s power (and other churches just like it) come from a knowledge differential, so the best way to see through their bullshit is to become aware of what they’re doing. I elaborate on this concept in my article A Knowledge Differential Creates Power Differential.
My hope is that Christians out there won’t avoid this documentary and actually expose themselves to a little bit of Truth. Since it’s easy to hate on Hillsong—even when you’re a Christian—I hope the Christians who watch it will pause and recognize a similar tactic or pattern in their own church and then connect the dots. There are many different ways to begin a faith deconstruction, and well-made documentaries such as this one are a fine path to take.