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Hillsong’s Brian Houston Preaches First ‘Comeback’ Sermon Since Being Fired from Church

Five months after being ousted from his role as the Global Senior Pastor of Hillsong Church, and four months after releasing an apology to everyone that he hurt, interweaving multiple instances promising he will continue to be active in the ministry in some way, repeatedly stressing that the best is yet to come, the final chapters of his life haven’t been written and that God isn’t finished with him yet, Houston is back in business. He preached a ‘comeback’ sermon at the multicampus Christian Faith Church in Seattle, WA, this weekend, where friend and Pastor Casey Treats holds sway.

As one might expect, he hasn’t become a better preacher in the 5 months he’s been off. Houston’s sermon is about the importance of having a “legacy” (a phrase he uses over 70 times) and explains that Nelson Mandela, though falsely accused and imprisoned with a reputation tarnished (like himself, wink wink), ultimately was vindicated and still left a good legacy:

Legacy is just a commitment that you’re going to live according to God’s purposes. In your life, when purpose and destiny and legacy collide, it’s like a combustible force. When we attach our life to God’s purpose, it creates a legacy. This is the most wonderful way we can live our lives, we can decide my mistakes, my failings, my failures here, my brokenness over there. The fact I got ripped off there, I was offended over there, we cannot let those things decide our legacy. But that’s not what should determine our legacy. There’s so much more than that. So when you learn to create legacy, you somehow determine in your world, how big or small it is, the world you leave behind is going to be a better place than when you arrived here to get actually possible.”

He goes on to explain that unlike a totaled car, God will never write anyone off; no matterhow banged up you get.

You’re never ever written off. When it comes to God. We’re not thinking about people. We’re not thinking about cancel culture. We’re not thinking about those. We’re thinking about what God thinks about you. You’re a legacy-creator, a history-maker, and opportunity-take, a devil-shaker, a chain-breaker.

He concludes that God’s plan is to give everyone an amazing legacy, and no matter how many mistakes you make, it’s never too late to choose to have a legacy for your future.

To recap: the whole sermon is about him. That though his former church did him dirty, he still will come out on top.

Houston is currently for a three-week trial starting this coming November, where he’s been charged with “concealing serious indictable offence of another person” after police say he concealed his father’s child sexual abuse from the 1970’s, after learning about it in 1999.

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Walmart Will Fund Abortion Travel to Kill Employees’ Babies in Abortions

(Lifenews) Walmart apparently supports killing its future customers and future employees in abortions. The corporation announced today that it will fund abortion travel for its employees — using its health care plan to subsidize travel for any employee who has to go more than 100 miles to get an abortion that will end the life of a unique human being.

According to a CNBC report, Walmart’s health care plans will cover abortion “when there is a health risk to the mother, rape or incest, ectopic pregnancy, miscarriage or lack of fetal viability.”

Although it appears Walmart will not cover all requests for abortion travel, the policy is inconsistent with science and medical care as treatment for ectopic pregnancies and miscarriage is not abortion and doctors have confirmed there is not really any medical reason for killing babies in aboritons.

There is some concern that employees could claim that abortions used as birth control are medically necessary to justify Walmart funding the abortion travel, and the company offered no information about how it would monitor such bogus claims.

As CNBC reports:

Employees and their family members who are insured through Walmart will also have travel costs covered, if they cannot access a legal abortion within 100 miles of their location, according to the email, which was sent by Walmart’s Chief People Officer Donna Morris.

Walmart is the nation’s largest employer with about 1.6 million employ…to continue reading, click her

Editor’s Note. This article was written by Steven Ertelt, Micaiah Bilger  and published at Lifenews.

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TobyMac ‘Open’ to Reuniting With Former Bandmate-Turned-Atheist Kevin Max for New DC Talk Album

Christian artist TobyMac (real name Toby McKeehan) has said that he’s open about the possibility of reuniting with his former bandmates for a new DC Talk album, despite one of the members now being a pro-LGBTQ, pro-choice pagan.

Last year ex-‘Jesus Freak’ Kevin Max announced on social media that he has been “deconstructing” his faith for years, for all intents and purposes revealing himself to have become a progressive pagan who has renounced orthodox Christianity and now holds to some weird form of belief in the “Universal Christ”. He would later go all in for abortion rights and tweet out support for his gay daughter, as well for Pride Month. Their other bandmate, Michael Tait, has been the lead singer of the Christian group Newsboys since 2009.

After releasing five albums between 1989 and 1998, including the 1995 banger Jesus Freak, the band announced in 2000 that they were taking a break to pursue individual projects. They’ve come together for a few shows since going on hiatus, notably some cruise line reunion shows in 2017 and 2019, but nothing since Max came out as an ex-vangelical in 2021.

Now, in a new interview, when pressed over whether or not DC Talk would ever get back together to launch a new full-length DC Talk studio album, McKeehan told Billboard that he was not opposed to the prospect and that it’s not a “closed door.”

“I don’t know. Sometimes I’ll write a song that sounds more like DC Talk than it sounds like me and I’ll just kind of hold it. So there are a few of those sitting there. Our friend Ryan Tedder sent us a song that he felt like sounded like DC Talk, which we still have sitting there — and it’s amazing, because he wrote it. I don’t know the answer to that [reunion] question. I know that I’m not opposed to it; obviously I asked Michael and Kevin to be on this song, so it’s not a closed door for me.”

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Former Hillsong Pastor ‘Lawyers Up’, Threatens to Sue Discernment Ministry

Disgraced former Hillsong pastor Pat Mesiti has contacted his lawyers has sent a letter to discernment ministry site Hillsong Accountability, threatening to sue them for defamation over some posts they made criticizing him.

By way of brief background, Pastor Pat Mesiti taught at Hillsong in Australia for over 20 years, co-founded Hillsong Music and Hillsong College and, describes himself as an “influential father figure” to Darlene Zschech, Christine Caine, and Carl Lentz. In 2020 he joined a long pedigree of biblically illiterate preachers who restored themselves back to ministry after being kicked out of the church.

In Mesiti’s case, not content to the usual boring “extra-marital affair,” he was given the left dropkick of fellowship in 2001 after being an admitted sex-addict who was picking up hookers at an unprecedented rate – that’s when he wasn’t pleading guilty to beating up his wife, whom he later divorced.

Naturally, this made him a prime candidate for getting back on that ministry horse. With spurs in tow, Mesiti launched Reborn Ministries with his new wife, Catherine. According to his website bio

One of the world’s most celebrated speakers. He is a highly effective communicator. His passion is to EQUIP and EMPOWER individuals to reach their fullest potential. His expertise is to SHIFT MINDSETS AND TO BUILD BIGGER PEOPLE to produce results. Pat has spoken globally to some of the largest events, and his books and materials have sold over 2 million copies.” [Editorial side note: One of those he wrote was called Staying Together Without Falling Apart. He describes it as ‘the definitive guide to helping men and women “thrive together in a modern-day relationship.”‘]

As far as what this ministry actually does, Mesiti travels the world teaching people about prosperity and “how to attract it.” One of the endorsements on the site says that he has “dedicated his life to unlocking the potential inside of people, and opening up their minds to a more rewarding, fulfilling, and prosperous future.”

He’s also very litigious. Hillsong Accountability explains in a Facebook post:

Here at Hillsong Accountability, we know our defamation law. Truth is a durable defence, as are honest opinion and public interest.

When Pat Mesiti threatened to lawyer up, we referred him to the response given in the libel case of Arkell vs Pressdram.

He had become incensed that, and we’re quoting here, that we imputed variously that:

• Pat Mesiti has a similar appearance to an animated emu,

• Pat Mesiti is of poor financial means and at least recently, he lived in a caravan;

• Pat Mesiti was a bankrupt;

• Pat Mesiti is a liar;

• Pat Mesiti has stolen money from people;

• Pat Mesiti does not keep promises;

• Pat Mesiti acts on impulse; and

• Pat Mesiti is a racist, bigot and a fear monger.

Confining ourselves purely to the facts, we are able to say that

• Pat Mesiti is a defrocked Hillsong minister. He carries no ordained credential from the Australian Christian Churches, C3 Churches or Hillsong.

• In 2001 the church leadership at Hillsong discovered he had been sleeping with prostitutes, and had used his Hillsong-paid phone, car and credit card to facilitate his assignations. He was sacked, and his marriage fell apart.

• Mesiti admitted in an interview in 2006 that he suffered from a sexual addiction.

• In September 2014, Mesiti had returned to the fold at Hillsong enough to holiday with Brian Houston and Hillsong identities on the Amalfi coast in southern Italy. Birds of a feather…

• In 2016, he was arrested for domestic violence against his second partner. Media reports at the time quoted police saying “The accused was heavily intoxicated and in a fit of rage over a family issue”. He pleaded guilty when the matter came to court.

• In 2021, News Limited media warned Mesiti was running what were little more than “Get rich quick” schemes full of motivational psychobabble and little else.

• Pat has tried to re-invent himself over and over. His “Prayer and Pushback” forum during Covid became a conga-line of anti-vax and anti-lockdown conspiracy theorists like George Christensen, Craig Kelly and Malcolm Roberts. Pat now styles himself as a culture warrior intermixed with dangerous Christian dominionism.

Hillsong Accountability do not resile from our views, and will continue to warn, offer factual commentary and honest opinion in the public interest.

On his Facebook page, Mesiti levelled some threats against the site, demanding they take it down lest they face further action.

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A Gallery Of The Faithful Gathering For Church. Album 3

The third album in this year’s series showing our brothers and sisters in Christ gathering for church service as faithful believers.

While going to church does not make one a believer, refusing to faithfully attend a local church should seriously call that faith into question. This is a glimpse of what the global church is up to, and will feature images in chronological order, week to week, of the men and women being obedient to the scriptures. As always, click pictures to enlarge.

Album #1, Album #2

For our multi-volume series showing the progression of the Church worldwide experiencing the lockdown and pandemic, from March 2020- July 2021, click here.

For our August 2021-August 2022, click here

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TobyMac New Song Reunites DC Talk Despite Kevin Max Renouncing Christianity

Toby Mac has released a new album, Life after Death, his first since his 21-year-old son Truett, who for years battled substance abuse, passed away from an accidental drug overdose of fentanyl and amphetamines in early 2020.

TobyMac once said of the opportunity to attract secular fans and have his music appeal to larger, mainstream audiences, “If I ever cross over, I’m taking the cross over,” and this album is no different, with most songs having a call out or references to his faith and trust in God. 

The album, written as a cathartic release for the pain he experienced at his son’s passing, has multiple tracks lamenting his loss and his belief that his son is in heaven now. In Rest he sings, “Rest, take a breath/ Push aside the noise and feel the air inside your chest/ Blessed, my child, you’re blessed/ Fall into the arms of God and rest your weary head.” In The Goodness he likewise enjoins, “Everywhere that I go/ You keep showin’ up/ Lord, You make me wanna shout it, oh/ You’re the goodness in my life.” In Faithfully, he shares, “I may never be the same man/ But I’m a man who still believes/ When I cried out to You, JesusYou were there faithfully.”

Typically viewed as a Contemporary Christian Musician who produces ‘Christian albums, some fans are up in arms over the singer and record producer reuniting with his old DC Talk bandmates for the song Space, on account that the song features former bandmate Kevin Max, who has completely abandoned the faith and is now a pro-choice, pro-LGBTQ atheist.

The song reads:

Space.
Tony Mac Ft. Michael Tait, Kevin Max

I’ve replayed it like a thousand times, I rewind it in my head
I can tell you that I lost my mind, or what I should’ve done instead
‘Cause the way that I felt when we parted ways
Got me all in my head, got me countin’ the days
Got me hopin’, got me prayin’
You are in my heart

But what do we do with this space
What do we do with this space between us
How can we start to erase
How can we start to erase this space between us

Would you step across a party line?
Would you walk into my cold cell?
Can you see me in a different light?
Would you meet me at the well?

‘Cause the way that I feel when you look my way
Got me all in my head, got me starting to think
Is it too far? Are we too scarred?
Yeah the heart is there, but what do we do with this space

CHORUS

I got nothing but love for you
(Nothing but my love for you)
And I know you feel the same way too
But this space, what do we do with this space between us

What do we do with this space
This space

It keeps no record, it keeps no record of wrong
It keeps no record, record, record

Love keeps no record
Love keeps no record
Love keeps no record of wrong
Love keeps no record
We’re never too far gone

About the inclusion of Max, he told Billboard:

“The second I wrote the first lines [of ‘Space,’] it was definitely something I wanted to do with DC Talk. It feels very personal because it is. I wrote it about friends that struggle and friends that feel warm toward each other, but don’t know what to do with the space that’s come between them. I climbed a mountain with those two brothers. Those are my dear friends, and they always will be. We experienced things together that I’ll never experience with another person — so I wanted to honor that. I was so glad that they both agreed to be on it, and so grateful that they would honor what we did, and the friendships that remain.”

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In New Interview, Beth Moore Talks SBC Racism, Sexism, and Whether or Not Women Can Preach

Beth More joined Preston Sprinkle for episode #1000 of Theology in the Raw, where they touched on her life story, the infamous “go home” statement from John MacArthur, her views on complementarianism, and the direction the SBC is heading, which she says is very, very bad.

Explaining her growing misgivings about her former denomination, she shares that because right-wing fundamentals are taking it over, soon what she was mostly doing, women preaching and teaching other women, would soon no longer be tolerated.

“I was watching a severe pull to the far conservative, what I would say beyond conservatism into fundamentalism, in a part of our denomination where I was beginning to watch…and see, oh my word, women are not even going to be allowed to do what I did.”

She says that those pulling the denomination to the right were not the “old guard” but instead coming out of Southern Baptist seminaries. With many churches not having Sunday school anymore, she asked, “Where exactly do you want our women teachers to teach now?” while lamenting the church “has made no place for us.” She explains:

“It just to me, it was a train wreck. And it was like, You know what, I’m old. I’m old. I’m almost done. You can’t now go take it all away from me because it’s all done.

But I will fight to the death for my little sisters to have a place to serve in the Gospel witness. There is no possible way that the Holy Spirit was poured out on sons and daughters to prophesy, that women are not also gifted to proclaim the gospel. It is a lie to think otherwise.“

When pressed whether she is a complementarianism (she’s not, because she’s been preaching everywhere), she says that she doesn’t like labels but that:

“I’m comfortable where I am right now. Because where I am, the only thing that women can’t do in my region and where I go to church is that they can’t be the senior pastor or priest.”

She concludes that she’s glad she left the SBC because there’s a a lot of “weirdness” found in Southern Baptist Churches not found in her current denomination, and that while there are some salt of the earth Southern Baptists who are decent folk, those who were sexist toward her were also likely racists as well.

“I was in so far that I saw things that were so objectionable, and to me in regard not only to sexism but racism, which I believe almost always- that body and just a physical body, the body that holds on to sexism, I mean, we got two arms and two hands, almost always in the other hand, is racism.

Because its power, its power. It’s the fists, that’s the fists, and I have been in so far and seen so much that it to me was, I no longer felt that I belonged. I no longer felt welcome. I no longer felt wanted, but also, it was an act in some ways of protest, of saying no, no, I will not be part of this.

And if bringing a lot of attention to it, in a very public divorce, very public, very public, nasty divorce. If that somehow does something to change the climate for the young women coming up behind us, then I promise you, my pain will not be in vain.”


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Planned Parenthood Pledges to Spend a Record $____ Million Dollars on Midterm Elections

The apex predator of the baby-killing world, Planned Parenthood, plans to spend a record-breaking $50 Million dollars on the 2022 midterm elections, in a desperate bid to stave the bleeding after enduring months of punishing losses on account of the overturing of Roe v Wade.

The abortion giant announced in a press release that their biggest political investment of all time will “help elect champions for sexual and reproductive health care and rights, including abortion, up and down the ballot and all across the country”

They say that it will target up to 6 million voters across nine states: “Georgia, Nevada, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Arizona, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Michigan, and Wisconsin.”

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Megachurch to Pay $13.1 Million to Leave the Denomination

(Christian Headlines) A Georgia megachurch with at least 10,000 members will pay $13.1 million to leave the United Methodist Church (UMC) denomination and become independent.

Mt. Bethel Church in Marietta will keep its property and assets after an agreement ended litigation between the church and the UMC North Georgia Conference. The agreement was approved in Cobb County Superior Court on June 3.

“God has moved mightily on behalf of Mt. Bethel,” Mt. Bethel Church leaders said in a statement.

“We are thankful that we have reached a settlement with the Trustees of the North Georgia Conference that puts an end to the litigation and enables us to move forward in faith as an independent church. We praise God for His provision and offer gratitude for all the parties involved in reaching this peaceful resolution,” they added.

“We extend abundant thanks to our members, faith community, and partners who have been praying for a God-honoring outcome.”

The settlement agreement states that the church will “cease all use” of the terms “United” and “United Methodist.” The church will also no longer use the Cross & Flame insignia or “any intellectual property of the United Methodist Church.” Any signs containing…to continue reading click here.

Editor’s Note. This article was written by Christopher Eyte and published at Christian Headlines.

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Want to Hear RUSHING MIGHTY WINDS as Angels Break Up a Prayer Meeting to Blow a Shofar? Of Course You Do!

A charismatic worship leader is claiming that angels appeared in the form of rushing mighty winds during their April 11, 2022 prayer and worship service, blowing a shofar in a miraculous event that was witnessed by 250 attendees.

We last wrote about Jenny Weaver, the former homeless drug addict, and self-cutting Wiccan-turned worship leader, after she led a charismatic children’s conference that had kids as young as four years old being encouraged to speak in tongues, prophecy, and get slain in the spirit. 

When talking to the gathered folk, Weaver says in a video posted on social media as proof of the good tidings, that she hears a shofar and asks who is blowing it. When no one responds, she declares, “the angel of the Lord is here! the angel of the Lord is here,” and flops around on stage for several minutes, overcome by something, while the crowd shouts and screams. She describes it like this:

ANGEL COMES INTO THE MEETING!! You can literally hear RUSHING MIGHTY WINDS!! . All the musicians got off the instruments and we have at least 250 witnesses to having actual winds blowing on them, and heard the shofar blown! LISTEN at the end to the tongue and the interpretation of the tongue which was a message sent by GOD!!

THIS IS HOLY!!!!!!!THIS IS TO BE REVERENCED!!

I’ve never in all of my life experience anything like it, even the temperature and atmosphere changed, we all felt it!!!!! God is real!!!!!!

It is a certainty that the ‘wind blowing on them’ and the ‘rushing might winds’ she heard from the angels was in fact the HVAC unit kicking it.

Sadly, like the time Kat Kerr took a picture of God the Father’s hand in the sky, we’re not convinced.