While I wanted to explain these events, I also wanted to thank you for being such a wonderful and supportive church.
We do not allow any person with convictions or findings against them of child sexual abuse to attend any Hillsong activity and we are continually reviewing and updating our procedures so that children across our campuses are protected. Hillsong Church has zero tolerance for abuse. It had nothing to do with me or Hillsong Church.īe assured that we did not tolerate sexual abuse when we heard of these allegation in 1999 – and we don’t now. Again for clarification, this was between my father and the victim. There have been reports of money being paid to the victim. The investigation and subsequent actions were then handled by the AOG without my interference. I then consulted the elders of what was then Sydney Christian Life Centre and we referred the matter to the national executive of the Assembly of God. There was no delay in action – from the moment we knew and he confessed, his ministry stopped.
I have shared that when I first found out about this, I immediately confronted my father and ensured he never preached or served in any ministry capacity again. It’s important this point is clarified.Īs most of you know, I have spoken about the crimes of my father many times over many years. There was no allegation of abuse against anyone at Hillsong Church and no one was on trial. This was a Royal Commission to examine the way institutions – like the church – handle complaints of sexual abuse. Hillsong was asked to appear not because of anything that happened here but because of the abuse suffered by children at the hands of my father around 40 years ago when he was based in New Zealand – many years before Hillsong Church existed and when I was a teenager myself. This commission allows survivors to share their traumatic experiences, and my prayer is that this will help them to heal. In my eyes, attempting to cover up child abuse is pure evil. As we’ve seen over many years, parts of the Christian church have failed our children by turning a blind eye to abuse and even covering it up.
Hillsong church pastor brian houston full#
The media only have a few minutes or a few lines to report so they can’t give you the full story and sometimes the headlines can be misleading.įirst let me make the most important point – We fully support the commission. I wanted to take a moment today to help you understand what this is about, because it’s difficult to get a true picture from media reports. I’m sure you have seen media coverage around my appearance at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. This past week was a challenging time for me personally and for our church.
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