Report: Hillsong Church Spent 10% of Their Budget on ‘Corporate Services’
As more and more revelations continue to pour forth regarding the astonishing ways Hillsong church spent and squandered their congregants tithes, seen vividly in these posts Top 10 Weirdest Things Hillsong Leaders Expensed to the Church ,Top 10 Most Expensive Meals Brian and Bobbie Houston Expensed to the Church and Top 10 Luxury Hotels Hillsong Leaders Expensed to the Church (Spoiler: The Cheapest is $8457.42) the Australian church’s inability to be good stewards of the sacrifices of the saints continues to come more into view. The Hillsong Kerfuffle reports:
In 2021, the Trust for Hillsong Church Australia received a total of $60,718,418
The majority, $47,602,479, came from general tithes and offerings. $4,187,906 came from other donations. And the rest came from a combination of conference registration income, hospitality income, government grant income and other revenue.
Here is how Hillsong spent that $60,718,418.
$40,855,017 on ‘Cost of Church and other Benevolent Activities’
This includes things like $40k on flowers and $171k spent on ‘gifts’. $14.5k was spent on the Colour Conference VIP ‘Lounge.’ Giveaways for Father’s and Mother’s Day totalled over $50k, Easter giveaways cost $115k and Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services cost $14.6k.
Conversely, the amount spent on helping ‘people in need’ included just $2.9k for pastoral care direct costs, and $1.5k on pastoral care visitations. The ‘Welcome to church party’ for visitors and new people to church received an investment of just $420. (This disparity was also seen after they gave one of their advertised charities only 42$, despite calling it something they were ‘passionate’ about.
$12,210,361 on ‘Campus Facilities and Maintenance Expenses.’
$2,150,123 on ‘Conference Expenses’
(This is $1M more than the income from conference registrations in 2021, which was $1,150,775).$2,977,202 on Mission and overseas aid expenses
$197,483 on Training and Resources
$547,754 on Other.
Out of the $60,718,418 income of Hillsong Church Australia, $6,069,440 (9.9%) was spent on Corporate Services.
According to the Hillsong Trove executive summary:
“The above table shows that in 2021 the costs of running the ‘church’ (church and benevolent activities plus campus facilities and maintenance expenses) outweighed the income Hillsong received from tithes by $5.5M.
The table also shows that a deficit of approximately $1M resulted from Hillsong holding its annual Colour Conference and Worship and Creative Conference in 2021. It is not uncommon for Hillsong’s conferences to make a loss, even in years not affected by Covid-19 when the conference is held in person.
Donations are sought from the conference attendees to help cover the cost of the conference, but what the attendees do not know is that the reason the conferences make a loss is due to the excessive amounts of honorariums Hillsong pays to the celebrity pastors they invite to speak at the conference, the excessive travel costs of these guests and other entitlements such as green room catering and gifts for guests. (such as Hillsong Church Gives T.D. Jakes, Joyce Meyer $150K for One Sermon and Hillsong Gives Ann Voskamp $107,000 in Honorariums for One Appearance)
What the people who donate also do not know is that the money they contribute to Hillsong in the form of their weekly tithes is being used to back-fill the conference budget deficit. So, essentially, Hillsong congregation members are sacrificing things in their personal lives to pay for designer gifts and large cash honorariums for celebrity pastors who are already mega-rich.’
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