Tag: phil dooley

Global Senior Pastor Phil Dooley gave a state of the union to Hillsong congregants a few days ago, telling them “At the start of the year, we spoke about how we are believing that this year 2022 would be a year of the Lord’s favor. I don’t think any of us expected to see what we’ve seen in the year so far as a church.”

That’s an understatement if there ever was one. It’s been a dreadful year for the Australian megacorp, on account of firing Brian Houston after some sexual impropriety was discovered, leading to the vast majority of his American church plants jumping ship and shutting down. Yet Dooley shares a few interesting things with the folk there, revealing:

-In the first quarter of the year, “5246, people have made a decision for Jesus (Editor’s note. Whatever that is) just in Australia” with another 19,000 in the rest of the world, bringing their decisions for Jesus to 25,000 people.

-He reveals that he went on a trip and visited Orange County, California, to see a ” potential facility” for a new church and for the college, as they’re moving Hillsong College to California.

-He recounts a visit to Hillsong Church in Monterrey in Mexico. “They have three staff. They don’t they don’t have a location pastor right now, they’ve three staff, and on Sunday, they had almost 1000 people in church, and over 100 decisions for Jesus in the service.” Hillsong chooses the location pastor for each church, functioning as the search committee, and frequently choosing someone who’s not local, but who has put in their dues at other Hillsong locations.

-He shares that next week, they’re launching a new church plant in a new country in Montevideo, in Uruguay

-Even Hillsong has trouble getting volunteers. For their big upcoming conference, they are in a bind, particularly for certain areas. For the KidSong section they need 348 people to volunteer and only have 26. For the Refreshment team, they needed 80 people and only have 2.

-Lastly, they are struggling financially. Though they are entering 2022 debt-free, attendance is down and that has played a major role on several projects, such as the decision to have multiple conferences and their need to freeze hiring, as well as lay off some staff. Hillsong’s last budget was for 2020 and was $83 million dollars, down from $93 million the year before. In 2022, giving overall is down 20%.

“Really, practically, though, our giving his down. You know, attendance is down- you’d notice that on a weekend, and our giving has been affected as well. Tithes and offerings themselves are down 18%, on this time last year, and our foundation is down 22%. And on large budgets, that’s a lot of money. And so, we are looking at that now, and how do we respond to that…but to answer your question, how are we going financially, we’re in a strong position, but we need to react and respond properly to the season we’re in.

A year after Hillsong head honcho Brian Houston fired Pastor Carl Lentz of their New York Branch for having an adulterous relationship, interim Global Senior Pastor Phil Dooley, who took over leadership duties from Brian Houston in January so the founder he could focus on his upcoming court case where he’s been accused of covering up the sexual abuse of a minor, told over 800 staff members at during a Zoom meeting Friday morning that Houston committed several ‘indiscretions’ towards two women, according to Crikey News.

One involved sending a staff member flirtatious messages about a decade ago. “It was along the line of, ‘If I was with you, I’d like to kiss and cuddle you,’ words of that nature,” said Dooley. She felt upset and awkward by the encounter and reported the incident to Hillsong general manager George Aghajanian, and then quit her job. The woman was given several months’ salary as severance, with Dooley explaining “Pastor Brian said, ‘I want to pay that personally because it was my fault,’ because it was a personal indiscretion.”

The second one was more recent, and it involved a visibly intoxicated Houston spending almost an hour in a woman’s hotel room alone with her, after a Hillsong conference at Qudos Bank Arena in 2019. Doley explains:

“It was after one of the conference nights and he was drinking with a group…later that evening he went to go to his room. Didn’t have his room key and ended up knocking on the door of this woman’s room and she opened the door and he went into her room.

 …The truth is we don’t know what happened next. The woman has not said there was any sexual activity. Brian has said there was no sexual activity but he was in the room for 40 minutes.  He doesn’t have much of a recollection because of the mixture of the anxiety tablets and the alcohol. The woman had also been drinking and so her recollection was not completely coherent.”

After the incident, Houston paid for her conference fees and swore he’d take a three-month sabbatical to deal with his issues and stop drinking, after Hillsongs global board appointed 4 long-serving figures to act as an “integrity unit” but as Dooley explains:

It was decided Brian should take three months off from ministry but unfortunately, he didn’t abide by that. He did conduct some ministry, I believe on three separate occasions… and he also did, as he would say, consume some alcohol.”

He concluded by telling them the staffers, who have been rocked by several scandals over the last three years:

“We’re deeply sorry for those victims and for what they’ve had to go through and what they’ve had to endure. We acknowledge Pastor Brian has made significant mistakes here and no one at a senior level wants to cover any of that up, but to come to a place of healing that involves honesty, that involves transparency, that involves repentance and an acknowledgment that mistakes have been made and a desire to make it right.

We also want to pray for Pastor Brian and for Bobbie and the family. Sin is messy and it brings all kinds of pain.”

Hillsong interim Global Senior Pastor Phil Dooley carved out some time during his service to take some shots at the new Discovery+ docuseries about their church, accusing the producers of having the intended goal of hurting them, without appreciating their contributions.

Two weeks ago, the Discovery Channel dropped their trailer for ‘Hillsong: A Megachurch Exposed’ series, the first of two secular produced shows that will document the rise and fall of Hillsong NYC. The church, which counted celebrities and athletes among their members, was rocked by a series of scandals featuring out-of-control behavior by their pastors and elders, culminating in lead pastor Carl Lentz being exposed as having a 5 month-long affair, one of several, that resulted in his firing and the implosion at what was once considered the coolest church in the world.

The 3-part investigatory docuseries, which will be released March 24 and will feature, among other things, never-before-seen footage that the disgraced Lentz that he sent his mistress.

“There are those who don’t like the church. There are those who are against what God’s doing. We have a few Sanballat’s and Tobiah’s (Ed. Note. Two people who opposed Nehemiah rebuilding the wall) to deal with ourselves and we felt the pain of that. Sadly there is a documentary about our church coming out soon, surprise surprise, and that picture it paints is far removed from I believe the truth of who we are as a church. There are people who have been hurt by their experience in our church and that saddens me. For those people, I say ‘we’re deeply sorry and we pray that you’ll find healing’, But there are also producers behind this documentary and their purpose is not the healing of people, but simply to hurt the church.”

It is telling however that he frames it as ‘people who have been hurt by their experience in our church’ rather than ‘people we have hurt through our hypocrisy in the church’. The former is basically no different than apologizing by saying “I’m sorry you were offended.” There is much less culpability there.

Dooley then goes to recount, frequently with voice cracking and sounding on the edge of tears, all the works of their mercy their church does, from helping support disadvantaged and disabled children in schools to partnering with Compassion to sponsor children, to teaching kids digital skills, to welcoming and sponsoring Syrian refugees new to the country, to helping lift children out of poverty who live in dumps in India.

I wish that was the exposé because that’s the church that I know. It’s never claimed to be a perfect church, I’ve been part of this church for over 30 years… I’m taking a little bit of time today but I think it’s important because I know our church is not perfect and it’s never claimed to be. But our church is full of good people doing their best to love Jesus and follow him, who are determined to grow in their faith and raise their family well and do their very best to make a positive contribution to the community they live in. To pursue their dreams and serve and love others and have a little bit of fun along the way, because that’s okay as well guys.

Dooley and his wife Lucinda, who formerly pastored Hillsong Church Cape Town, have taken over the role of head of the Global Hillsong Church from Brian and Bobbie Houston, the former who stepped down while under investigation that he helped cover up the sexual abuse of a minor from his pedophile dad.