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For other persons named Houston, see Houston (disambiguation).
Brian Houston (born 17 February 1954 in Auckland, New Zealand) is a Pentecostal Christian pastor in the Australian Christian Churches. He is currently the senior pastor of Hillsong Church in Sydney, Australia, Australia's largest congregation[citation needed] with a current membership of over 21,000 people.[citation needed] He was also the National President of Australian Christian Churches, the largest Pentecostal denomination in Australia, from 1997 to 2009. The denomination is the Australian organisation of the Assemblies of God.
[edit] Biography[edit] Early lifeHouston was born in Auckland, New Zealand, on 17 February 1954. His parents, Frank and Hazel, were then Salvation Army officers. When Houston was three his parents joined the Assemblies of God in New Zealand and began pastoring a church in Lower Hutt, near Wellington. Here Houston and his brother and three sisters spent their childhood. After completing school he went to a Bible college for three years. Shortly after completing college he met his future wife, Bobbie, on Papamoa Beach in New Zealand during a Christian convention. They were married in 1977. [edit] MinistryAfter moving to Sydney, Australia in 1978, Houston served at the Sydney Christian Life Centre in Darlinghurst, where he became the assistant pastor to his father, Frank Houston. In 1980 he started a church on the Central Coast and revived a church in Liverpool in 1981. In 1983 Houston saw a need in Sydney's north-western suburbs and hired the Baulkham Hills Public School hall to start a new church, the Hills Christian Life Centre. The first service was held on Sunday, 14 August 1983. From an initial congregation of 45 people it is today the 21,000 member Hillsong Church. In May 1997 Houston was elected the President of the Assemblies of God in Australia (now called Australian Christian Churches) after Andrew Evans' retirement. He is a regular speaker at Christian conferences and churches across the world. He helped to create the Australian Christian Churches network of Pentecostal churches in February 2000. This alliance represents over 200,000 members in affiliate churches[1] and was its inaugural president.[2] He is also a member of the Australian Pentecostal Ministers Fellowship (APMF)[3] and a pastor for Leadership Ministries Incorporated. At the 2009 National Conference of Australian Christian Churches, Wayne Alcorn was voted in to replace Houston after he chose not to run again for the position. On 5 April 2009, it was announced that the board of Garden City Christian Church in Brisbane had nominated Houston and his wife Bobbie to become their new senior pastors. Garden City had been searching for a new senior pastor after the resignation of Bruce Hills in December 2008. On 26 April 2009, a majority of registered members of Garden City Christian Church voted to support the board's nomination. [edit] FamilyThe Houstons live in Sydney, Australia. Their three grown children, Joel, Ben and Laura, also live in Sydney. Joel is a musician, a songwriter and Hillsong Church's creative director. Ben is married to Lucille and are pastors at Hillsong's Northern Beaches extension service. Laura, who married Peter Toganivalu in 2008, also works for the church in the areas of graphic design and marketing. [edit] BooksHouston has authored 12 books, of which his most recent, For This I Was Born, was released in 2008. His other books include For This Cause, Selah (2006), Selah 2 (2007), How To Build Great Relationships, How To Live In Health & Wholeness, How To Make Wise Decisions, How To Flourish In Life, and How To Live A Blessed Life. Books no longer in print include Get A Life (1996), You Can Change The Future, and You Need More Money (1999)[4]. The last publication has caused Houston to be labelled a prosperity theologian.[citation needed] [edit] References
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Categories: 1954 births | Hillsong Church | New Zealand Pentecostals | Australians of New Zealand descent | Australian Pentecostals | People from Sydney | Living people | Assemblies of God in Australia | Assemblies of God clergy | Television evangelists | New Zealand evangelical leaders | Pentecostal writers | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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