Brian Houston, former global senior pastor of Hillsong Church, asked his 691,000 followers on Instagram for prayer yesterday (Sept. 27) in regards to his upcoming court case.
Houston also shared that he and his wife, Bobbie, have spent the last six weeks in the United States where he has preached in eight different cities.
“Well we are still here and mostly smiling,” Houston said in his post. “We’ve had a wonderful last 6 weeks in USA and I’ve preached in 8 cities in that time. We’ve had so much wonderful time with pastor couples and we are feeling the love.”
Hillsong Church’s founder shared that he and his wife miss the Hillsong Church congregation enormously and said that “hopefully we’ll have the chance to tell our story sometime soon.” 2022 marked 50 years that Houston had pastored Hillsong Church.
RELATED: Brian Houston Resigns as Global Senior Pastor of Hillsong Church
“The body of Christ at large have proved themselves to be just that. Grace-filled, loving and overwhelmingly supportive. Pray for me with a court case looming. Love and grace to you all,” Houston’s message concluded.
Before Houston resigned earlier this year, Hillsong Church had campuses in over 20 countries, including locations in nine states in America. Hillsong Church’s estimated weekly attendance was just over 150,000 in-person attendees throughout all their physical locations. If they included their online attendance, their weekly attendance would be over 444,000 per weekend.
RELATED: Hillsong’s Brian Houston Pleads Not Guilty to Covering Up Father’s Abuse
Phil and Lucinda Dooley, who pastored Hillsong South Africa, have remained Hillsong Church’s global senior interim pastors after stepping in for Houston when he made the announcement in January 2022 that he was stepping aside from Hillsong Church leadership until court proceedings were completed.
In March 2022, Houston announced he was resigning as Hillsong Church’s global senior pastor on the grounds he “breached the Hillsong Pastor’s Code of Conduct” that involved inappropriate behavior towards women on two separate occasions.
The upcoming court case Houston is asking prayer for is regarding the charges brought against him by the New South Wales Police Force in August 2021 for allegedly concealing child sex offenses involving his late father, Frank Houston. Brian Houston pleaded “not guilty” to the charges in October 2021.
