Pastor Brian Houston, Senior Pastor of the Hillsong Church Franchise ( I think they are Pentecostal originally) hooked up all 100 (or so) churches in his franchise on Sunday August 18, 2013 and preached a sermon to his true believers:
My friend sent me some information about this sermon. This image was associated with details. Not sure whether Houston is up the end of this church somewhere in teh increasing (new??) light, but I guess that its typical of the gatherings, anyway.
For some reason ( not really explained) Houston and his church has woken up to the fact that gay people exist and are increasingly being seen as "respectable" enough to be considered as candidates for their congregations. (which is praiseworthy, although slightly snobbish). My GAY XJW friend and his partner are likely more respectable than most members of Houston's congregations and indeed even of my friend's former JW congegation).
On Sunday 18 August 2013, a sermon, 'Scandal of Grace' was broadcast to all Hillsong church campuses around the world. Below is the relevant extract.
"The one elephant in the room for churches around the world at the moment is the gay situation. What would Jesus do? What would Jesus do? You need to pray for church pastors and leaders around the world because whichever way you turn the scandal is there. You can turn one way and you can tell there would be a great scandal amongst the Christian Church. You can turn another way and you would just cut off so many people. There's lots of hatred out there but in the middle of it all you know there are three things: the world of the times we live in; the weight we live with; and the word we live by.
Think about that! The world has changed quickly. The world has changed and so I'm not saying that the church ever should be ruled by the way of the world but the reality is we are in a world which is changing fast. Here in Great Britain the laws have passed. The world is changing. We've got the world we live in to consider.
We've got the weight we live with. You say what's that? Well it's the weight when a young person growing up in a church feels like they are confused in their sexuality. They feel like "maybe I'm gay" and they go to a youth leader and they are rejected. At that moment a great hatred comes in. At that moment some of them have gone so far with the rejection and gone to parents who didn't understand and ended up committing suicide - That's the weight we live with.
There's the world we live in. There's the weight we live with and there's the word we live by. And they don't all necessary align. With the word we live by, many people have various convictions. In the middle of it all know that Jesus when it comes to people would let nothing stop Him from breaking through a divide to help hurting, broken, everyday normal people like you and I.