Are Christians more accepting of charlatans then we should be?

It sounds awesome that there are that many Hillsong churches. Are they Assemblies of God or do they now operate as nondenominational / Hillsong churches.

"God wants you to give me your money"
- Hillsong's core message

That is so wrong. God wants you to give Him EVERYTHING.

You should definitely work for Hillsong. They would love a message like that, which would of course be twisted to mean
"If you don't give me everything you own, you're robbing God".

Gosh, you should work for Hillsong...

My message would be more like "if you don't give Him everything then quit playing like you Love Him when you really don't"

Ahh you can't work for Hillsong then...

I think Hillsong is doing a great job. I hope Hillsong plants a hundred thousand churches.

I agree.

Romans 14:8 For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's.

That means that the Lord owns our money, also, so we are caretakers of that money. The Lord would not want it to be used incorrectly by a church. The Lord loves and wants abundance for all His children, it is up to us to distribute the money we receive wisely. Each member is a part of a local church, it is part of devotion to the Lord to watch how the church uses the money it receives.

I believe the Lord wants us to take care of our own, first. If we give to distant churches or charities, we don't know how our money is used, and we should watch.

1 Timothy 5:8 But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

God doesnt need money.
Doesnt the bank or caesar need money? As Jesus said when ppl tried to pay him? Give to God what is Gods. Does God make money. Does He need it? I dont recall He did.

I think if was a pastor and got paid a stipend or whatever it was and it was extra to basic living costs, I would buy one of those church vans or trucks or buses and ask a driver to go out and meet the people.

I think a personal jet would be really expensive and unnecessary. I would put the money toward MAF- mission aviation fellowship, or those Mercy ships.

Id just live in the manse right next door to the church because that is where people expect to find pastors. I wouldnt rent it out and live somewhere pricier. If I already owned a place that would be a church guest house for people to stay in when they need refuge.

Hi. I don't think that's a good idea considering the huge amount of negative feedback decent websites state about them. It would wise to investigate first, otherwise you might find yourself wishing for evil to be multiplied.

This is so true, I believe Billy Graham was a rare minister who did not use his success as a means to his personal wealth.

When I visited a friend in an exclusion locked community of wealthy persons, there was a mansion with several Bentley's outside. I asked who lived there, and it was a TV minister. With a chuckle I was told he kept two women they described as bimbos. One day, during my stay, two beautiful blonde women drove by in leather shorts on a golf cart. It was the minister's bimbos.

My wise method of investigating would be listening to any online sermons from that church. That would give me an idea of the doctrine. If I was in agreement with what was being preached I would not care about negative faultfinders on the internet. People that post negative things about others on the internet are notoriously known for being people with serious character problems and that cannot be trusted. Wise people know that.

I also have the Holy Spirit and He reveals things better when you are in the presence of the body of Christ, concerning what is lacking or what is good about that assembly. You have to pray and be mature in your own walk with Jesus and you can make these decisions yourself without paying attention to what might be false accusations and fault finding coming from a bad hearted person on the internet.

From what little I have seen from online preaching or videos concerning HillSong, I hope they keep planting churches. They seem to be a true soulwinning church.

What I cannot tolerate are these churches that pride themselves in their orthodox doctrine and have the same 30 old people year after year and have an opinion about Hillsong. pfffffttt!!!

David Wilkerson was a great example. Millions flowed through his ministry and it all went back out to the work of the ministry as it should. He had a home in Lindale Texas that I have been to and it was very modest. I would not have cared if he had an expensive home. In Texas you can get a lot of home for the money.

A million dollar home in Texas would be very impressive. A million dollar home in another state might be a modest home to most people.
I would not judge a preacher by the house he lives in. There are exclusive homes in Dallas in gated communities that are only 450,000. If a traveler from upstate New York who lived in a $450,000 2500 sq ft wood frame home saw the $450,000 5000 sq ft brick and stone home in the gated community in Dallas they could accuse the preacher of being an evil fleecer of the flock, but they would be ashamed when they found out the price. And probably move to Texas. LOL.

Another reason I would not judge a preacher by the house he lives in or the car he drives is that I would need to have more information than just that. Like did he invest in the stock market for 30 years and get wealthy? Maybe he did. Is he a best selling author of books? Maybe his wife is a neurosurgeon? Too many unknowns for me to pass judgment based on a mans house.

Are they giving him everything? or are they just taking financial gain from others?

The Love of money is the root of evil. Seems this is the main and first love for most in the Mega Church. Not just the greedy leaders who are trying to take advantage of the congregation, but also the congregation who think that if they give, then they are going to get more back in return. All of that is just plain greed, if you ask me.

Where in the Bible are we instructed to worry about becoming rich in this world? Scripture teaches the exact opposite...Lay not up treasures for yourself on this earth...but lay up treasures in heaven.

Agree.

It doesn't take much research to conclude that money is the main love of Hillsong as well as their leadership team.

Yes, people have became too accepting of Charlatans, false preachers, teachers, and false prophets etc. Nowhere in the scriptures are Charlatans entertained and allowed to preach or teach a false gospel. Paul even turned them over to satan so that hopefully they might repent and be truly saved.

Nowadays, folks would rather sit and entertain a false spirit rather than rebuke it.

This is just part of the whole Hillsong Ministry. Isn't there a Preaching portion and Church connected to this worship group? Do they handle money differently, other than tithing? I've read several people complaining about this brand Hillsong. Is God there?

I am not convinced that Hillsong is preaching that we are to seek riches. And I believe in mega churches because I believe in soulwinning and I believe in revival. (3000 were saved on the day of Pentecost and continued meeting in the temple area=Megachurch)

I am not convinced that they are doing anything out of the ordinary when asking people to be faithful to give to support the ministry.

Many people are blessed with financial success and can support the work of ministry if they believe that it is a worthy cause and they will indeed be rewarded in heaven for their faith when they give to support the ministry of the Gospel and the local church. To give for the motivation that you want to see people get saved and to ALSO know that you will be rewarded in heaven for giving to that work instead of spending it on your own lusts is a sound doctrine and true. Preaching that on a Sunday before the offering is taken up is fine with me.

If someone at Hillsong went a little too long for your liking when expressing the scriptures on the fact that they do teach that one will be rewarded for giving is not sufficient to call them teachers of covetousness. It is a subjective opinion on your part. You must produce proof of your accusations in order to be taken seriously. Now you don't HAVE to produce proof for your own opinion, that you can possess without proof, but in order to get other people on an internet chat site to see why you think Hillsong is guilty of error in their request for giving from the congregation you would have to produce some sort of transcript from the appeal or a video we could watch where you were offended and then we could judge whether the problem is with you or the speaker.

You brought it up, therefore it is up to you to support your claims. Until then I can only go by what I have seen. I have not seen them do these things you claim that they do. So how do I know if you are just being critical. You might have a problem with my church too.
And we rarely say more than two sentences about giving. It is usually something like "There will be ushers at each door when you leave if you would like to give" Now the critical people love that but I am not very pleased with it. I think they need a little more encouragement. They need to be made aware of the fact that only a small percentage of them are faithfully giving but it is not my place to say it. So I trust that the leadership knows what they are doing and I don't let it get me too upset.

I appreciate the fact that my church does not give 10 minute sermonettes on giving before every regular sermon on Sunday, that would be overkill and drive people away, however I think they would do well to remind the people more often that it is God's method for the members to support the local assembly and if they are not doing that they should step out in faith and decide on a proportion each week as God has prospered them (1 Cor 16) That would not offend the antithithers and educate the ignorant at the same time.

Now if a church does give 5 minute sermons on giving before the regular sermon each Sunday it would be a bit annoying but I would not accuse them of being covetous. I would be more likely to accuse them of being stressed. And more likely of accusing the people of being stingy. I know for a fact that less than 10% of most churches actually give a regular proportion out of their income on a weekly basis. This is why you are hearing the constant appeals.

There are covetous preachers and God warned us about it in the New Testament for a reason. Have nothing to do with them. Maybe you were dealing with one. I would not be able to know without proof. I do think that the majority of criticism that I hear is a problem in the heart of the critic.

I have not researched it but as I understand it right now it was a mega church in Australia that was part of the Australia Assemblies of God. Decades ago their worship team became famous and helped usher in the kind of worship teams you see becoming popular world wide today. I don't know if the original Hillsong separated from the AOG but I think I did hear that they did. So my guess is that these Hillsong churches would be just planting more churches that operate like them and are under their leadership. Like a nondenominational denomination. LOL