JUSTICE HAS A FRONT SEAT AT HILLSONG CONFERENCE

July 10, 2007

With themes of unity, courage, justice and freedom, this year’s Hillsong conference held last week in Sydney, which each year is the largest single gathering of Christians in Australia, had the ring of a United Nations convention rather than a church gathering. Criticized in the past for its deemed emphasis on prosperity as a blessing from God, this years Conference featured at its opening session, Gary Skinner, leader of the Kampala Pentecostal Church and Founder of Watoto Child Care Ministries, who told delegates how to spend their money and exercise their faith tackling poverty and AIDS in Africa.

He said it was not the responsibility of celebrities, pop idols or governments to mitigate poverty, but that of individual believers and the church as a whole. “God was not impressed by church doctrine or the number of times people attended church, but by the way his followers practised and lived their faith” Mr Skinner went on to say.”The world is on an accumulation binge. God is not a grabber; he is a giver.”

Some 26,000 Christians from 68 nations representing 19 denominations attended the Conference which provided delegates with a blend of practical workshops on congregation-building, worship, evangelism, and high-energy preaching, at Acer Arena, an auditorium built for the Olympics that serves nicely as a modern house of God.

The word “justice” and the responsibility it infers was a key message of the conference, said the senior pastor Brian Houston. Stressing its record of helping the poor, Hillsong is keen to end criticism that Pentecostal churches are more interested in entertainment than religion and more worried about personal enlightenment and spiritual and material abundance than social justice. “God tells us that standing against injustice and speaking up for the disenfranchised is the responsibility of every Christian,” Mr Houston said. Mr Skinner did not go away empty-handed. Hillsong handed over a cheque for more than $700,000 to build a village in Gulu, northern Uganda, for rescued child soldiers.

Source: Compiled by APN from various media reports http://www.ausprayernet.org.au/ —

Shalom/Salaam! Rowland Croucher

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