How An Unlikely Pastor Started Leading a Megachurch

THE COOL FACTOR
Carl, 38, grew up as a pastor’s kid in Virginia Beach, Virginia.  By the time he entered college, Carl was struggling with his faith.  “I had almost abandoned it completely,” he says.  He started playing basketball at NC State and eventually his teammates saw the Bible in his room and started asking about his faith.  “It’s not my Bible,” Carl told them.  One day in July 1999, Carl came home for a visit and walked into a church where a pastor, named Steve Kelly, was preaching.  He said, “There is someone in here that needs to make a change…You’re afraid to surrender all…”  That day, Carl put his hand up and asked Steve to pray with him.  Carl was afraid and thought,  What if this isn’t real? What if this means I have to give up everything that I love? “But I walked through that fear because what the door offered was too good to pass up,” he says.  Carl credits his parents for planting the right seeds.  “My parents raised me with a really vivid picture of Jesus,” he says.  “I came home that day and my heart was open." Shortly after making that decision, Carl decided to attend Hillsong Bible College in Sydney Australia.  He met his wife, Laura, there.  “My calling, my wife Laura, my church and my passion – all were behind the scariest door of all time,” says Carl. 

Joel Houston, son of renowned Hillsong Church senior pastor Brian Houston, was the first person Carl met when he moved to Sydney.  “We’ve been best friends ever since,” he says.  One day in 2010, Carl and Laura were presented with the opportunity to start a church in New York City with Joel.  “I thought, Let’s do this,” says Carl.  Since then, their church has grown to astounding numbers, somewhere between 8 and 10,000 people each week. The media is perplexed at the growth of Hillsong NYC and intrigued with Carl’s relationships with celebrities, like Justin Bieber and rapper Jay-Z.  CNN describes him as “not your typical Sunday preacher.”  He dresses like a millennial complete with dozens of tattoos, leather jackets and skinny jeans.  Their standing-room only venue is normally used for rock concerts.  Despite the high energy preaching and “cool lights and music,” Carl believes their success is based on preaching the Word of God.  He says the cool factor is never what creates lasting change.  “We don’t believe the Bible needs a remix,” says Carl.  “We don’t deviate.  We may communicate it a little differently, but the Gospel is simple.” the 

Carl met Justin Beiber through hipster pal and pastor Judah Smith from City Church in Seattle.  One night, Carl, Justin and Judah were in NYC talking about faith, choices and surrender.  Justin decided to get baptized so they were looking for a place with a pool, but the paparazzi were following them.  After exhausting their options, Carl called up Miami Heat Tyson Chandler who let them use the bathtub in his apartment to baptize Justin.  “Justin is a man who loves Jesus, who tries to get better day by day,” says Carl.

PARADIGM SHIFTS
Laura is a full-time mom of their three kids and helps Carl with the responsibilities of pastoring their church.  “She is so intentional about helping people that she sends a reminder to herself to make sure it happens,” says Carl.  The text reminder reads: “Did you find the gold in somebody today?”  This is something that is contrary to the culture we live in today.  “To have a daily life goal to help somebody else just might be the gold rush of a paradigm shift we all need,” says Carl.   He reminds us to live generous lives that open people up to God.  One day Carl was walking down 34th Street, thinking and praying.  A woman excitedly hopped off a bench with her camera shouting, “Hey you, are you somebody? Can I take a picture with you? You look like somebody.”  Carl assured her that he was a somebody, but not like she thought and that she should save her camera battery for a real star.  He pointed her to a café where famous people frequented.  “That’s the problem,” says Carl.  “We want to pick and choose.  It’s God who picks and chooses.  We’re supposed to do what we’re called to do.”  When asked about living in the spotlight, Carl is clear.  “We don’t have control over the spotlight,” he says.  “But we do have control over the shadows, which is every day life.  If God shines a light on you, you want to be caught doing the same thing in the light as you were doing in the shadow.”  

“We are literally in a race to reach more people, help more people, educate more people quicker than ever before, so we can see more change than we have seen,” says Carl, who says many of his friends are black.  “I will never know what it’s like to be a minority in this country,” he says.  “I can honestly try to keep my eyes and ears open to see and hear challenges from others’ lives.”  One day in church, Carl said from the pulpit to his extremely diverse congregation, “Black lives matter.”  His goal: “To bring attention to the simple fact that we need to rally together and stand with those we love,” he says. “People found it very difficult to separate a sentence from a movement,” says Carl.  “I support people.  Statements are not owned by movements.  People are missing the statement because people are mad at the movement. BLM is not the problem. Are there aspects of the movement that bother people?  Yes, but so does the local church.  It shouldn’t have been a deal.  Let’s fight for something better,” he says.  “People in our black community feel so strongly that much of America feels they do not, so that statement became a rallying cry.” Carl challenged his congregation to not counter the BLM rallying cry with “All Lives Matter.”  “Because, of course, we all believe this.  Right now? It would appear by any account that on our streets black lives matter less.”  One person talked to Carl about BLM.  Carl told him, “Imagine you’re running a fundraising marathon for the fight against cancer.  Imagine on every corner somebody running up to you saying, “Diabetes kills people, too!”  Both causes are worthy but the focus at the moment was on the cancer.  He believes this fight in our country is winnable.  “If you and I can take a moment and consider others, genuinely, and choose to put our own views down for a little while, we can slowly but surely find answers for so many things,” he says.

OWNING THE MOMENT
Carl says the problems we face in our world are huge, but the steps and moments we need to take to fix them are small.  “They are available for anybody who is willing to take small steps that will lead to major significance someday,” he says.  “What will be the one thing you will do today that could make a huge difference in the life of another?  If you woke up tomorrow and decided to own a moment, literally a single act of kindness and thoughtfulness toward another, I believe the impact on your life will be significant,” he says.  “We don’t get a second shot at this life.  My prayer for you is that you would never underestimate the power of the moments you can control.”

COMMENTS ON THE VIEW
Carl appeared on The View in early November.  When host Joy Behar asked him, “So, it’s not a sin in your church to have an abortion?” Carl responded with, “That’s the kind of conversation we would have finding out your story, where you’re from, what you believe, I mean. God’s the judge.  People have to live to their own convictions. That’s such a broad question, to me, I’m going higher.  I want to sit with somebody and say, What do you believe?” Joy asked, “So it’s not an open and shut case to you?” to which Carl said, “Some people would say it is.  To me, I’m trying to teach people who Jesus is first, and find out their story.  Before I start picking and choosing what I think is sin in your life, I’d like to know your name.”  Carl’s answers started a social media firestorm to which he replied via Twitter: “….I do believe abortion is sinful.  Our prayer is that we can continue to help and love those that deal with the pain of regret from personal choices, rather than cast further shame and guilt on those already carrying so much and create a church that can teach people how to form convictions based on God’s word, that will be the driving force in all their decisions.  I will continue to point people to Jesus, above all else, every opportunity I get.”