Hillsong Safe for Children, Founder Says
By Megan Neil
The head of the global Hillsong Church says it has done everything it can to ensure it is safe for children. Hillsong founder and senior pastor Brian Houston says new child protection policies and procedures have been rolled out across the whole church, including setting up a safe church office. "We have really I think done everything we can to set the framework within the culture of our whole church where everybody, especially obviously those in any form of leadership, understand the processes/procedures that would be rolled out," Mr Houston told the child abuse royal commission. "We have been very very supportive of the goal to make sure our church is as safe a church as it could possibly be." The Australian Christian Churches, which is Australia's largest Pentecostal movement, and affiliate Hillsong Church, have strengthened their child protection policies since the royal commission criticised their handling of abuse complaints. The commission found Mr Houston had a conflict of interest in 1999 and 2000 in assuming responsibility for dealing with abuse allegations against his father Frank Houston because he was both the Assemblies of God in Australia national president and the son of the alleged perpetrator. It also said Mr Houston and the national executives of the Assemblies of God in Australia - as the Australian Christian Churches was known until 2007 - failed to tell police about the allegations. Hillsong general manager George Aghajanian said the church has now implemented a strong conflict of interest procedure. Both Hillsong and the Australian Christian Churches require mandatory reporting of child abuse, the inquiry heard on Friday. Eight reports of child-related sexual assault were made to an independent hotline for the Australian Christian Churches in one quarter of 2016, but the commission heard five related to family members. Hotline operator Safe Ministry Resources director Peter Barnett said it included a serious case where a pastor admitted child abuse, which was not a regular notification to the hotline. "The senior pastor took his credentialed pastor straight to the police, where the pastor actually made admissions which led to his credential being immediately taken away from him," he said. Mr Barnett said another case involved a historical matter against a lay volunteer leader and one involved teenagers where one was a volunteer. Australian Christian Churches national president Wayne Alcorn says the lessons of the royal commission have had a domino effect across the entire Pentecostal movement, and the organisation accepted it had needed to enhance its culture of responsibility. It now requires, rather than simply recommends, its more than 1000 autonomous affiliated churches adopt and adhere to child protection policies and that pastors also follow the policies and receive training. "It is no longer optional. There are minimum standards and we require them," Mr Alcorn said. A person is now required to have a certain level of credentials and training before they can call themselves a pastor of the Australian Christian Churches. "We quickly moved to change the culture and practice of our movement," Mr Alcorn said. "I don't know of churches where people who don't have at least a probationary minister's certificate are now called pastor."
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