Hillsong Church ‘Clarifies’ Charging Compassion $1,000,000.00… In the Worst Way Possible
We previously reported that Hillsong Church charged Compassion International $1,000,000 a year for the privilege of being at their events, signing a multi-year contract worth millions to promote the children’s charity.
Like World Vision, Compassion is a “child-advocacy ministry pairing compassionate people with children living in extreme poverty to release the children from spiritual, economic, social, and physical poverty.” The idea is that people can ‘sponsor’ a child in a third-world country living in crushing poverty for around 30 or 40$ a month, helping fund them and their community and writing letters back and forth. These children will be actively involved in churches and will be ministered to and receive the gospel.
Rather than allowing Compassion to attend their events for free to do this good work, or even for a small nominal fee to cover any expenses, Compassion pays Hillsong a million dollars a year, along with their own costs, to attend these events and partner with them.
According to agreements, both ministries agreed to enter into a “strategic ministry alliance” to “serve the local church in reaching its redemptive purpose” and to “rescue children living in the developing world nations from extreme poverty, in Jesus’ name.” They also agreed to “work together to see the maximum possible number of children sponsored in the future.” See more about that contract here,
Amid criticism of their practice, Hillsong leaders addressed this charge during a recent in-house meeting and offered some ‘clarifying remarks.’ Rather than illuminating, they instead only served to sow more confusion.
There is another matter addressed in the disclosure statement that is worth clarifying. And that is the relationship between Compassion and the church. The focus of the disclosure maker has been the payment of $1 million per year, which I can confirm was made for three years by Compassionate International. These payments are no longer being made.
I would also like to clarify that it does not reflect the 20 years prior to the agreement, where the church partnered with Compassion. Our 25-year relationship with Compassion has resulted in over 118,000 children being supported and connected with a loving sponsor….
Now, this collaboration was purposed to give Compassion the ability to bring awareness about the work that they do to many thousands of faith-aligned supporters. Compassion’s contribution helped Hillsong expand its efforts. Both Hillsong and Compassion wanted to ensure more children could experience Jesus’s love for them.
Now I am a sponsor of multiple children through Compassion program, incidentally introduced to Compassion at a conference. Now I’m not an accountant. But if I do the math, what I pay for sponsorship, the return of investment on this mutually beneficial collaboration has been astronomical.
If Hillsong partnered with Compassion for 25 years successfully, then why the need to charge them $1M a year for the next three years? Why did they decide to demand that much money in the first place? Would they have dropped Compassion if it wasn’t paid? Why impose such one-sided contract negotiations on this children’s charity? Why are they no longer being paid- was it Compassion’s idea or theirs?
They didn’t clarify anything at all, which was par for the course for most of this night.
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