2005-01-08 - 9:10 p.m.

Planet Shakers!! warning: long entry

I went to Planet Shakers last night, which was held at Hillsong church. If you haven’t been to a large Pentecostal church before and are in Sydney, I highly recommend it as an educational experience. And if you’re not in a large city, at least rent the movie Saved! when it comes out on DVD. I was invited, and since I had gone to Planet Shakers many years ago and created a problem, I felt it would be good to go back again.

We drove there through the streets of the Hills district, almost every house was two-storied and looking very new, all with perfectly mown lawns, most with more than one car in the driveway(s), many of which were painted metallic gold or silver. Then you get to the big Hillsong sign, with “Senior Pastors: Brian & Bobbie Houston” in big capital letters. We found a spot in the big car park. A late model car full of teenage girls, with Hillsong music playing loud pulled up and parked opposite us. Another late model car full of teenage girls, also playing Hillsong music, pulled up and parked next to us. One of them looked at me and said “Hiii!!!”, and before I could respond, she was giving the same greeting to my friend. O well, no great loss.

We walked up to the grand entrance, and the layout is not unlike a shopping centre. As you walk in, right in front is the information/welcoming desk, also manned by beautiful and enthusiastic young ladies. To its left was a stand selling Planet Shakers and Hillsong music CDs and DVDs. There were Plasma-screens behind the stands advertising the music. Further on is another stand selling Planet Shakers T-shirts, which look just as good as any ‘surfie’ clothes you might buy in Jeans West. There was also a stand where you could sponsor a child through World Vision. Enthusiastic ushers were ubiquitous, saying things like “Hey, how are you going!” (they were identifiable by their black ‘Event Staff ’05’ T-shirts), so I asked one of them where the toilets were, and I was advised to follow the signs. The toilets were the most modern public toilet’s I’ve been to, with tap-less taps (i.e. they work by motion-sensors).

Quickly now into the auditorium. The place is huge! The hillsong.com website says the auditorium (the “Convention Centre”) seats 3500 people. We were guided towards our seats and sat down. Two enormous video screens of about 10 or 15 metres flashed the Planet Shakers’ logo alternating with various messages like “Please turn off all mobile phones”, “No unauthorised video taping is allowed”, “Please refrain from flash photography” and “Check out our Planet Shakers products”. A young man appeared on stage saying “We’re gonna have an awesome time tonight” to deafening cheers, followed by “This place is packed and I’m gonna need everyone to sit down right now” to which few people paid any notice.

A group of young guys on the opposite side started a Mexican wave, just like at the cricket. Also like at the cricket, there were two large beach balls being bounced around the crowd. As the larger of the beach balls floated down towards the ground area of the auditorium, one guy in a baseball cap leapt up to catch it. As he came down, he and about six of his mates formed a rolling maul (they were also trying to catch the ball) and cleaned out about a dozen people lining up to join the ‘praise-pit’ (like a somewhat subdued, Christian version of a mosh-pit). At this point I’m sure someone was thankful for limited public liability in places of worship, and not long after, the guy was back on stage saying “Hey everyone!! If there’s anyone standing in your aisle, I want you all to say ‘Hey, you, siddown!!’”

They cranked up the smoke-machine and the Planet Shakers band appeared on stage to more deafening cheers. They started playing their music to which most of the crowd knew exactly when to say “Ba-da-ba-ba-bam!” and point towards the stage in rhythm. The grunge-style guitar and vocals made them a bit difficult to understand, but fortunately their lyrics were displayed on the big video screen, all with perfect spelling and punctuation (unless you consider ‘wanna’ or ‘gonna’ to be spelling mistakes), and in perfect timing.

Their lyrics are quite similar to Hillsong’s, in that they promote individualist, or ‘experiential’ Christianity, based on feelings, although adapted to a teenage audience. The tunes are very catchy, and as I sang along I remembered how I used to feel singing this type of song, how I used to long to “feel a touch from God” when singing in this way and feeling something of an incomplete Christian if I didn’t have the emotion or the exuberant expression that so many of my peers seemed to have, and was grateful that I don’t feel that obligation any more.

Then the offering began. Not having attended a Pentecostal church of any description for almost 18 months, I had felt slightly uneasy thinking ill of their attitude towards money since I know that when I was in it, I would not have had anyone suggest that to me. But the irony was as thick as butter from as soon as he took the microphone.

“Everybody turn to second Corinthians.” If I had have cynically said that to myself a moment earlier, I would have checked myself for being so judgemental. What followed was sadly predictable. “Generosity is giving beyond what’s expected without any hope of a return.” Should keep that in mind the next time someone mentions Mark 4:8 during an offering-preach.

This, just minutes after the singer emotionally said “pressed down, shaken together, running over”, the Pentecostal catch-phrase referring to their belief that every Christian has the right to every tangible blessing, in this life, since it was part of the atonement. He then went on to mention that “Australia is known as the most generous country in the world” and spoke about John Howard’s decision to give a billion dollars to Indonesia (further affirming my suspicions of links between Hillsong and the Liberal party).

He then retold a story about the day he was in a petrol station, waiting to pay for his fuel, when the woman in front of him in the queue could not pay because the transaction on her EFTPOS-card kept on being declined. After realising that she was in a bit of trouble (and presumably that she was holding him and everybody else in the queue up) he offered to pay for his and her petrol, while the woman was attending to her car. He thus encouraged us to have a “generous spirit” too, just like him.

Then he pulled a wallet out of his pocket and said “but this is not expected”, and pulled a $50 note out of the wallet. He then handed it to a girl in the third row, sitting right behind the leaders of the various churches in attendance, including Jurgen, my old youth pastor. He continues “This is not just a stunt… this is an act of generosity. She doesn’t have to put it (the $50) in the offering…”

The offering-preach went for about 25 minutes in total, after which he prayed out loud, asking that if there were any “stingy” people in the audience, that God would “free” them allowing them to “be blessed”. What was that about not expecting anything in return?

Then the offering proper was underway, and the sense of greed was almost tangible. There were two ushers for each aisle of each section of the auditorium. In stark contrast to the other black-shirt ‘Event Staff’, these ushers were adults in both appearance and demeanour, and each were equipped with Men-In-Black-style earpieces. They kept an eagle eye on the black plastic buckets which went around and which, when stacked up, required both arms and hands and chest to carry for the amount of contents in them.

When I looked back up the band was back on stage, and they played a few more songs. Then it was time to give a stirring introduction to the guest preacher, an obese African-American named ‘Reggie’ and I forget his last name except that it rhymed with ‘Reg’.

Preacher, in fact, is not quite the right word. He was actually a stand-up comedian whose material is drawn loosely from Bible-stories, his experiences in church and his childhood. He began with a lot of funny, if predictable, jokes and anecdotes about Australian culture from an African-American perspective and vice-versa, at one point prompting a hearty “Aussie Aussie Aussie, oi oi oi!!” from a few guys in the crowd.

His lack of theological training was sorely evident (although probably not to the vast majority in the crowd), for example, saying (in all seriousness) that “Jesus was arrogant”, citing the fact that Jesus was “led by the Spirit into the desert”, meaning to him that Jesus “went looking for the devil to go give him a beatin’.” On another occasion he said “When I see Adam in heaven”, as in Adam and Eve.

Worst of all was the story he told about his encounter with a child who was “demon-possessed”. How did he know the child was demon-possessed? Because the boy swore at him as loud as he could. And what was this man of God’s response to this situation? To shout back at the kid, at the top of his voice, “Shut up!!” His justification? He had gotten up early that morning to “die” (as in the concept of dying-to-self), and that it wasn’t actually him screaming at the boy, it was Jesus (or him in Jesus’ ‘authority’ which they believe all Christians have) shouting at the demon in the boy.

A mobile phone began to ring and Reggie instinctively said “turn that off”, and I thought for a moment, Hillsong could invest in a scrambler, but then I remembered that all through the service many of the young girls around me had spent more time SMSing on their phones than paying attention to the service, and in one chilling moment I realised what impact it would have on Hillsong’s income from offerings if these young people suddenly found that their phones no longer had reception within the building.

The jokes dried up abruptly and he gave an emotional account of his childhood, being raised by foster parents, and the day he met his real ‘mom’. There was little more theological pretense and it was now a candid appeal to the emotions. He showed a video on the big screens of the inspiring story of Rick and Dick Hoyt (although its connection to the rest of his preach escaped me), and encouraged the crowd to give all our pain over to God, which, during the time of worship that followed, I did my best to do, sitting in my seat while many of the people around me were concerned with appearing as expressive as possible. It was a good opportunity to talk to God and seek to feel his love but also acknowledge my responsibility and that he loves me the same amount regardless of how I feel.

The whole experience reminded me of my time as an Arminianist. In the end I am very glad I went. There is certainly a place for exuberant worship and a time for seeking God with the emotions only from time to time. I am also glad I no longer feel an obligation to do so every week.

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