Between haughty Hillsong and bounty biltong

Giving thanks but no thanks

It was with great anticipation that we decided to choose Hillsong Church as the place to attend to give thanks and praise for triumphing over situations and circumstances that had befallen us for the last couple of years.

From a natural perspective, many things seemed insurmountable but providence and good fortune even with limited resources gave such an opportunity for celebration and we were excited about it.

We arrived at the church in Century City, just outside Cape Town and followed the crowd into the building. An usher was closing access to the first entrance to the hall we got to until I said we were first-time visitors. We were allowed into the darkish hall with bright lights on the stage as the praise and worship session was about to begin.

We found seats, squeezed between people who appeared to want to be elsewhere as we joined in congregational worship, and we just went with the flow. Once everything was done, we left as we came, unnoticed, unengaged, and quite unwelcome too. We were blessed but did not have the feeling that we would return.

Surely welcoming is standard church practice

Cape Town is an international tourist destination; we usually attend St George’s Cathedral when in Cape Town and we have always felt welcome. One would expect as with church traditions we have witnessed in many places that there is an acknowledgement of visitors to the fellowship with an opportunity provided to meet up with new faces, presenting the church as a welcoming and open community.

We found it quite strange that at no time during the 11:00 AM service we attended at Hillsong that visitors were welcomed or acknowledged. The church was just busy, too busy being church and probably feeling too full to notice anyone attending for the first time. My partner felt that the worship leading had become a self-absorbed performance to entertain us, it was lots of activity accomplishing little.

Maybe it was an oversight as it did bother me, I volunteer as a steward in my local church in Manchester, we welcome people as they come in, the clergy acknowledges visitors during the service, and everyone is invited for refreshments at the end of the service. We are a community regardless of when you come or where you come from.

Writing to the blind and deaf

I decided to write to the church about our visit and the atmosphere we encountered, apart from a boilerplate response, no one acknowledged or replied from the church. Seeing that the pastors of that church had gone on to lead the global fellowship. A few days later, I forwarded my original email to the main church in Australia, another boilerplate response without acknowledgement or reply.

Even for a business, basic standards of professionalism would suggest a basic response for emails sent on the 25^th of June and then on the 3^rd of July, the substantive elements of our experience and observations might be dealt with later.

It is not a scandal, we eventually concluded Hillsong had decided we did not matter, and we could not have been so uniquely affected, we were random worshippers who thought there was a prospect of adding a Pentecostal flair to our Anglican devotion in fellowshipping with the Hillsong community. We can however conclude there are more issues in that family than meets the eye.

Biltong engagement was much better

In comparison to the biltong shop that used to be in the Time Out Market that moved into a vending van at the other side of the Watershed at the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, even after almost 2 years of last patronising them.

The different vendors that manned the van on the separate days that we bought biltong were enterprising, engaging, welcoming, friendly, and inspiring of the desire to return. It is quite bizarre that I am comparing Hillsong to biltong, much was desired of the former, but we found a better relationship with the latter.

Everything is about establishing connections for human relationships, if a church cannot effectively do that, it has by all terms lost its purpose. In my email, I did suggest that we were not trying to change any Hillsong traditions, just highlighting something that could be useful.

My experience with Hillsong London was different, but that was 11 years ago before the scandals happened. I have written a bit about those issues before, my feeling is things have not changed, a window dressing does not a shop make.

Blog - Thought Picnic: Where Everybody Shares Your Pain (August 2013)

Blog - Hillsnog: How the scandals at Hillsong took root (September 2021)

Blog - The Hillsong controversy and resignation (April 2022)