There are huge churches that seem to be full of power and revival. They attract people: their music is plays often, and when you are in their meetings your emotions are engaged as much as your spirit. We see them as alive, and having power.

But most of the time, the churches that I go to are not like that. There is less overt power. The congregation is counted in tens, or hundreds, not thousands. There is no need for three services a day or a bigger meeting hall. We are faithful — and the local congregation I belong to and the one I visit when the first has breaks are both growing — but it is quiet.

Now, one may say this is because we are churchian: we are apostate. But that is not the case. Generally, the larger churches have a tendency to instability and heresy and scandal. They preach that which is soothing — and yes, I know there are exceptions, such as Calvary Chapel. But the local mega church system is Hillsong, and it is under pressure to go full liberal.

The question that resulted in Houston’s remarks on homosexuality centered on how his church tries to remain relevant. In his response, the Hillsong pastor offered homosexual marriage as an issue that is a challenge for some churches. Traditional Christian teachings define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

“I think with the church, the message is sacred but the methods have to change for the church to stay relevant,” said Houston. “And it’s challenging. It’s challenging to stay relevant. I mean, if we go to the one big hot topic maybe for churches … now with homosexual marriage legalized, and churches for generations, they hold a set of beliefs around what they believe the Word of God, the Bible says. All of a sudden in many circles the church can look like a pariah, because to many people it’s so irrelevant now … So staying relevant is a big challenge. I think it’s more than just singing more contemporary songs and the colors you paint your walls or whatever.”

As CP noted in a previous report, Hillsong Church has among its 12 global campuses two operating in Los Angeles and New York City, both diverse and progressive cities where same-sex marriage is legal.

Houston, prompted by The New York Times’ question for clarification, went on to emphasize that, for him, questions about his position on homosexuality were “too important for us to reduce” down to a “yes or no answer in a media outlet.” His remarks were similar to those previously made by Hillsong NYC pastor Carl Lentz, who has declined to take a public “yea or nay” position on homosexuality.

Hillsong is under pressure, and it has had its fair share of scandals. But it does a fair amount of Good. The error they are falling into is one of the classic churchian ones; They are trying to be relevant, and to do that the elite demand that you accept their lies.

When Christ tells us that we must not this do. Let us be irrelevant. Let us be faithful.

“And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: ‘The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens.

“‘I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. Behold, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie—behold, I will make them come and bow down before your feet, and they will learn that I have loved you. Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth. I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown. The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’

(Revelation 3:7-13 ESV)

Hillsong is a good example, for it is where modern evangelism is, and why many of us are fleeing for the safer harbours of Calvinism. Or Orthodoxy: the Papists, unfortunately, have swallowed the same leaven.

We are not to be relevant.

We are to be faithful. Either we are faithful and we change society, and we become living pillars in the temple of God, for the worship that we have here is but a pale imitation of that to come, or we become relevant, fall, lose our effectiveness and become boring.

Just more apostates going to perdition. For Hades always hungers for souls. Far better remain faithful, than be spectacular. I pray that the Houstons (and the other elders at Hillsong) continue to aim for fidelity over growth. For if they fall, beauty will be struck from the world.