Houston, Brian

Brian Charles Houston ( HEW-stən; born 17 February 1954) is a New Zealand-Australian former pastor and evangelist. He was the founder and senior pastor at Hillsong Church, based in Sydney with locations around the world. He was the national president of Australian Christian Churches, the Australian branch of the Assemblies of God, from 1997 to 2009. In January 2022, Houston stepped aside from his roles within the church, after being criminally charged in Australia for allegedly concealing sexual abuse of a child by his father, of which he became aware in the 1990s. In March 2022, he stepped down as the global senior pastor of the church, after he was found to have breached the moral code of the church in his behaviour towards two women. In August 2023, he was found not guilty of concealing a serious indictable offence.