People in Glass Houses Read online

  Which was just as well. The new Pentecostal church was full of these things called tongues, people were doing it all over the place. Without being warned, an outburst of tongues can be scary to anyone, let alone a little kid, so I was glad that I was fi nally in the know.

  The next step was to be baptised. Pentecostals believe in full water immersion baptism, like Jesus did with John the Baptist. Just like the church itself, there were no icons attached; no holy water or special baptismal font. People were often baptised at a moment’s notice in the ocean, not long after they got saved.

  Who knows if I was saved or baptised in the Holy Spirit? All I remember is that one Sunday lunchtime after church, we went to the handsome pastor’s house and I stood in his suburban backyard pool in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt while I was lowered into the water and brought back up again. They say that when I came out I was praising God and speaking in tongues. I can’t recall. I know that lunch that day was extra special and that the pastors seemed like nice people.

  I also became an Australian when I was eight. It took three years for immigrants to gain citizenship and, like all good South Africans, we arrived punctually to throw our useless passports away and pledge allegiance to the Queen all over again, something as a budding republican I had no say in either. Settlers we weren’t. Fred and Elaine had started from scratch as New Australians, and Fred’s banking forte had paid off. He was offered the position of senior vice-president for the New York branch of the bank, and he accepted. When they told me it was for three years, I was shocked. That equalled a third of my life. Yet at nine years of age, I could feel the pull towards America myself. It was 1981, and life was good.

  We spent three years living in Westchester County, New York, about forty-five minutes out of Manhattan. My mother was twice as indignant now that she’d had to leave Durban and its placebo replacement. She reeled at the number of TV channels that were available in America, and my father worked harder and commuted. My brother, who since leaving school had taken a temporary job in the Sydney bank with my dad, had also become enmeshed in commerce and was relocated to the New York bank, and they commuted together. After hanging around the dealing room a couple of times, his natural talents exploded and he became a foreign exchange dealer from that time on.

  We didn’t go to church much. No special reason. I seem to remember some boring ones we tried, and none of them felt right. Finding a good church is like finding a good therapist. It’s not always easy to feel comfortable and if you don’t, chances are you’re not going to stay for long. I didn’t mind. I liked being home on Sundays, if the truth be known.

  In the middle of 1984 we came back to Sydney short one family member (my brother had fallen in love with an American and America and chose to stay), again living in the bank’s apartment for a year. Manly was not too far from the Christian City Church in Dee Why. Run by a husky-voiced New Zealander, Phil Pringle, it had a casual surfie feel, but since we weren’t staying in the area we didn’t commit. Nice church, though, nice people. A little bit loud, but very down-to-earth.

  Though the trip to America had been a prosperous one to the best of my knowledge, we still didn’t make it to St Ives or Bondi and ended up in a new northern suburb called Cherrybrook, which had all the character and excitement that its name implies.

  The housing estates had not shot up like bamboo then. It was made up of big brick houses in a slightly fancier version of Baulkham Hills, from what I could make out. I liked the one we picked. It was lovely, and I had a cat and room to play more Bruce Springsteen, my adolescent evolutionary step from ABBA, even if there seemed no reason on God’s earth why my parents couldn’t pick a place to live that had something to do or somewhere to go.

  Fred was ready to settle into a church. We went to a couple before we landed at the Hills Christian Life Centre. It was a relief. I didn’t want to spend months going from church to church for no reason, smiling at people I would never see again. It was too much like starting a new school.

  The people at Hills seemed as nice as any other. By that time it was important to my parents that I was happy with the church we attended, and I liked it. They had never let me hang out with kids my age at church, since kids that talk during the service are universally known to be plotting with Satan. So, it didn’t really matter where we went, in some ways; I was going to be stuck sitting next to them. The Hills place seemed as good as any. And so, in September of 1985, my diary reads: ‘Went to a church called Hills Christian Life Centre. Liked it, will probably go back.’

  Chapter 3

  THE JUSTICE LEAGUE

  The church was very exciting. It took a long time for me to disengage myself from this excitement, and on the blindest, most visceral level, I never really have, and never will. There is no music like that music, no drama like the drama of the saints rejoicing, the sinners moaning, the tambourines racing, and all those voices coming together and crying holy unto the Lord. There is still, for me, no pathos quite like the pathos of those multi-colored, worn, somehow triumphant and transfigured faces, speaking from the depths of a visible, tangible, continuing despair of the goodness of the Lord. I have never seen anything to equal the fire and excitement that sometimes, without warning, fill a church, causing the church to ‘rock’.

  —James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time (1963)

  Even today, when I hear Brian Houston’s voice, I feel better. I still like it, even if it’s just on TV, when the singing is over and Brian comes on stage, gives his approval to the choir, greets the congregation and takes command of the auditorium. There is something to him—his history, his heritage—that instils security, ultimate trust. Daddy’s home. Finally, we can relax: Brian’s here.

  There is no feeling like the feeling of Brian looking down upon us early on a Sunday morning, beaming, and telling us how great we look, how great it is to be in the Lord’s house this fine day, and to know he is pleased with us—Brian, that is, like a father, pleased with his children. And there is nothing like the feeling on a hot summer’s night in church, Brian pleased with the numbers who have turned out in support of the celebration of God. And we are pleased, pleased we did turn the TV off and make it to the church that a man like Brian leads. You know you are in the right place at the right time in history.

  Brian’s history had indeed begun. His father, Frank Houston, launched Christian Life Centre Sydney in March of 1977, hiring Sherbrook Hall in Sydney’s Double Bay. As it grew, it moved into the Koala Motor Inn in Darlinghurst, then into Dainford House in Goulburn Street.

  In February of 1978, 24-year-old Brian and his wife of one year, Bobbie, made the pilgrimage to Australia from New Zealand. Brian became associate pastor to his father and was in charge of home fellowships, known before that as home bible study and these days as cell groups.

  In 1983, Brian and Bobbie rented a school hall in an industrial area northwest of Sydney’s centre. With a headcount of forty-five, the stage was set. In the beginning, there were six pastors at Hills: Brian was senior pastor, Michael Smith was 2IC, Geoff Bullock was in charge of music, Pat Mesiti and Donna Quinn were associates, and Mike Murphy was on the team too. But it was Brian’s show. It never crossed anyone’s mind that it could be different.

  When I was a teenager and people asked me what religion I was, I said I was a Christian. For those who enquired as to the denomination, I would say that I went to a Pentecostal church, but that it wasn’t really a denomination. I was just a regular Christian. I was grateful that only a small percentage of people asked the third question—‘What is Pentecostal?’—because it seemed to take some hours to explain. We were all just Christians, I would say, if I could get away with it.

  At Hills, we had no idea that there was anything special about this church or this denomination that wasn’t really one, since we all just loved Jesus together. My impressions in September of 1985 were of a bunch of nice people. Having changed schools all those times, I was always scared of a new set of kids and had to get some bearings first.
I almost didn’t see the young people for a while because there was too much going on. It wasn’t important in the beginning. I had all the kids at school to deal with; I couldn’t take on another community of teenagers, no matter how much they loved God. And at fourteen, I didn’t need any extra rejection. So I started off just going to church. And watching.

  There can be no simpler way to run a church than the warehouse Hills Christian Life Centre had moved into and that’s exactly how it appeared. What seemed so generic had not, however, fallen off the back of an Acme truck.

  Frank Houston’s Christian Life Centre in Sydney was started in the same vein as the Haight-Ashbury Jesus People Movement in San Francisco. The Jesus People had rejected their formal, generally Methodist upbringings and, while not wanting to leave Jesus, had mounted a rebellion. They rejected a church that was high on rhetoric and low on substance and that insisted leaders adhere to strict codes and go through years of seminary training.

  The Haight-Ashbury idea was to have a level playing field. This new church was going to be free of the cumbersome overcoats of formality. It was going to be a meeting of Christians. At Hills, the pastors were just regular guys with jobs, except for Brian the senior pastor, who was like a full-time hall monitor who helped out in church on the weekends. They were people like us. Some of them had been to bible college and some hadn’t. Who needed creden tials to pastor? It’s not brain surgery, it’s tending the flock. We knew God took care of the rest.

  Up until I remember, or had any right to know, many of the pastors at Hills were still struggling to make ends meet. They were working full-time elsewhere, had several children, wives who didn’t work, and huge commitments on the weekends that exploded as the church grew. Every new family that joined the church came with a new set of problems. They all needed pastoring and they didn’t always keep reasonable hours. Pastors were battlers like everyone else and the stress they were under was apparent. They managed, but it was easy to feel sorry for their sacrifices, and admiration for their hard-won convictions.

  The leadership were regular folk and, apart from the odd rich one, generally the congregation was a working-class, family-oriented group of a few hundred people. The rich stood out in those days, a time when having a politician attend sincerely was an honour, not a badge of honour.

  And what would a member of parliament be doing in these humble premises? Truly, they were humble. At the back of suburbia in Baulkham Hills, the houses stopped and the farming began along with factories, some office areas and warehouses. Hills Christian Life Centre rented a warehouse. When I began going, there were about 300 people. It was still a small space, until they knocked down a wall, rented next door and expanded to accommodate the growing children’s church.

  This was the new church; it had none of the symbols of old. No stained-glass windows. No hard wooden pews. Plastic chairs were set up, the sort you sit on in conferences. Comfy. Informal.

  A photocopied church newsletter, occasionally printed on coloured paper, was handed out at the entrance. There were no hymnbooks. All the words to songs were displayed on a screen with an overhead projector. It was usually a youth’s job to keep the piece of plastic straight, and move it along in time for the chorus. Sometimes the words were handwritten and had been smudged. The typed ones were easy to see, but it didn’t really matter. It was only for new people. We already knew all the words.

  The ‘altar’ in a tangible form did not exist in my childhood. Anything representing formality of any kind was gone. The pulpit had been eliminated and replaced by a lectern. This was a church to learn in, not a place to atone in humble silence. It was a place to find out more about Jesus than just the idea that you were saved. Being with God was a happy time, not an uncomfortable, painful time. We were celebrating, weren’t we?

  There were no deacons or overseers. There were volunteers who helped people find a place to sit. The new ushers tuned stereos instead of fl uffing cushions on pews. The organ had been replaced by a piano which competed with guitars.

  Along with the new culture came a new language. This New-Speak was devoid of thous and thines. Completely. No ministers, just pastors, and no hierarchy, none needed. There weren’t formal sermons, only conversational ‘messages’ a leader had received from God during the week that he wanted to share with the others. The only reason the guy speaking was standing higher up than anyone else was in order to be seen. Microphones later allowed preachers to roam around and still be heard, getting down to the people’s level.

  Brian often used to talk to people in the congregation. He’d make them stand up and show their baby, or wave for whatever good reason there was to share. He might wander around and chat with people for five minutes, have a laugh, make everyone feel comfortable.

  People in the congregation often used to talk to Brian, too, or whoever was preaching. If a preacher became passionate, or if he said something people agreed with, someone might yell out an ‘Amen’ or a ‘Hallelujah’. Every so often a cheeky young man might chuck in a wisecrack from the front rows and we all had a laugh.

  Sunday mornings were traditionally the more formal services.

  We still started with the fast songs, the clapping songs. I liked them. Their 4/4 beat made me who I am today. With the introduction of the simple chorus in church, everybody could sing along and feel comfortable since the PA system covered a multitude of bad singers. It was equality all around.

  Communion was taken in the warehouse days, after passing around an oval silver platter with shreds of white bread in the centre and a multitude of tiny plastic goblets filled with grape juice. We took the time, some moments of silence—which in the Pentecostal church is always a feat—and examined our hearts, albeit briefly, then we ate and drank. Not a tangibly profitable exercise, but still peculiarly Christian. Communion is no longer taken at Hillsong.

  Following this, there was the awkward ‘go and greet the people around you’ instruction. I didn’t want to greet the people around me. I didn’t know what I was supposed to say to them. Mostly I pretended to be engrossed in the newsletter.

  Then the faithful reassembled for church news and the giving of tithes and offerings. Church news was not about building projects but who had got engaged or had a baby. The cash, cheque or envelope could be placed into the milkshake cups that were at the end of each row, passed down and the ushers took them away. No more was generally said about money, not then.

  Morning church would always go for at least two hours. Singing, fast songs then slow songs, went for a good forty-five minutes all up, if you include the excruciatingly long ten minutes of free singing, where you could sing your own song, particularly in tongues if you felt led by the Spirit. I never knew what to do with that time either, and if a day is like a thousand years with the Lord and a thousand years is like a day, I was sure that bit was never going to end. Singing is not my strong point, and making up my own song to Jesus proved very hard for me, since Jesus and I rarely sang to each other when we were alone. I didn’t know if God wanted me to try to be as spiritual-looking as the other people lost in song with their Creator, or to once again appear difficult by not conforming. Usually I found a happy medium by closing my eyes and swaying, occasionally thrusting out a palm heavenward, which I still find these days helps to keep people away.

  With a bit of luck, or if one of the lead singers didn’t end it with an ad-lib gospel solo, many of these eternally long sessions would be rounded off with an outburst of tongues or a prophecy. The only thing is, bible rules say that if someone yells out in tongues through some sudden movement of the Spirit, it’s a prophecy that must be interpreted. People’s eyes would snap open and I would know that we could sit down soon and stop being so publicly exposed.

  So, after the minute or so of commands in this unknown language, the room would wait. I am yet to hear an interpretation that I couldn’t have read in Athena Starwoman. But someone had to do something. If someone didn’t, the leader might have to. The standard revelation went a litt
le like this: ‘Yea, though you are travelling through a difficult time, you will emerge. The Lord would say that he is here today and that he will never leave you or forsake you. For I am the Lord.’ Did anybody else wonder how it was that the tongues might go for a long while but the interpretation was short? I thought it would run a bit like a foreign movie, a little out of sync but still roughly syllable for syllable. If someone’s going to pour out tongues for two minutes straight, it’s a hefty statement. Sounded like God was really saying something and I would’ve thought the interpretation needed to last for more than thirty seconds. It was brave, too, because only nerds had that gift. I never saw one leggy blonde yell out in tongues right before the sermon.

  Tongues is spooky and I think it’s supposed to be. My personal preference was for a straight prophecy in English which would run more like this: ‘The Lord would say that he is here today in this place amongst you and he knows the troubles of your heart and he has promised that you ALREADY have the victory! You have had it for 2000 years. He will never leave you or forsake you because he is the Lord.’ The straight prophecy eliminates the uncomfortable waiting following tongues, and also provides a lovely drumroll effect for the main act. The congregation can then give heavenly applause after the prophecy out of thankfulness to God. I was just as thankful that the unstructured part was over and lunch might come soon. I was always starving after church. Like swimming, it seemed to really take it out of me.

  So the speaker of the day gets to walk on after a fairly intense build-up and agrees with the crowd that there’s no doubt that God is here with us now. There are some pretty amazing things going on, are there not? God is in the House, all right. You can feel him, and he’s giving us miracles. And all the believers said: