Westserve

Hillsong coughs up

It seems at last, Hillsong has submitted it’s years-overdue financial returns on one of it’s offshoots ‘Leadership Ministries Incorporated’
See today’s SMH

This is an area that concerns me greatly: Churches and Christian organisations need to be absolutely transparent in our financial dealings. It’s all too easy to hide behind ‘shell’ organisations and fudge the books. Not necessarily for illegal purposes, but perhaps to the advantage of shuffling money around to suit those in charge, or something similar.
Indeed, our own church could benefit from a higher level of fiscal transparency.

I’m not saying LMI have done anything illegal, but there are some pretty big unanswered questions in the Herald article. And it’s a worry that the Houston’s refuse to reveal what they are paid, either by LMI or Hillsong.
In Anglican circles (in Sydney, at least), all paid staff in churches have their wages and allowances made public every year. Even the Archbishop is paid the same as a parish church senior minister – although his house and allowance packages is somewhat above average!

There are some big questions about LMI and Hillsong finances. Here are some articles detailing some of the issues:
The Australian
News.com.au

Some of this came out indirectly on the episode of “Australian Story” on ABC-TV In July 2005. Here’s a transcript of Australian Story on Brian and Bobbie

Come clean Hillsong. Spill the beans on the multi-million dollar enterprise. What have you got to hide?