Transcript from Hillsong’s March 18 Event, Announcing Houston’s Indiscretions:
Editor’s Note. Though Brian Houston has since resigned and is no longer a pastor at Hillsong after it was revealed that he’d had a couple of indiscretions ove the last decade, we wanted to memorialize the event by putting up the full transcript of that tumultuous and consequential meeting, for posterity’s sake. From Crickey, who posted it, with it further saved to the Wayback Machine, if it ever goes behind a paywall or disappears.
Pastor Phil Dooley, Hillsong’s interim global pastor:
“At the start of this year, there was an announcement made by Pastor Brian that he would be stepping aside for 12 months, for the reason of his own personal health and emotional well-being and because of the court case that he is going to be dealing with at the end of the year. And Lucinda and I were asked to step into this interim role. And the reason why he took that step is absolutely the truth. That is why he took that step.
Prior to that, there are two incidents involving Pastor Brian that, as a board, we have had to deal with. And those incidents, firstly, involved something that happened approximately 10 years ago. [There are] two complaints against Pastor Brian and these allegations were treated very seriously. And I believe real significant steps were taken to investigate and resolve them.
The first incident involved Pastor Brian text-messaging with a female member of staff, which ended in an inappropriate text message along the lines of “If I was with you, I’d like to give you a kiss and a cuddle, or a hug”, words of that nature. That particular staff member was obviously upset by that and felt awkward and I think responded to that. [She] went to George Aghajanian and decided that she would like to leave staff because of that. And so she did. Brian was very apologetic for that. And I think, Pastor Brian, it was dealt with by George Aghajanian and Nabi Saleh.
I personally was not aware of that, as was the majority of the global board, until the end of last year, 2021. That was the first incident.
Along with that, this particular staff member came back because she couldn’t get work. Came back a few months later and said: “I’m really struggling to get a job. I feel it’s unfair that I had to leave my job the way I did, and I would like some compensation for that.”
And so it was decided that she would be paid a couple of months’ salary for what…
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Editor’s note. This transcript was written by David Hardaker and published at Crickey. Titled changed by Protestia.
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