Godly with a chance of arancini balls: what goes down at a City on a Hill pub sermon

Much of City on a Hill founder Guy Mason’s Sunday night sermon is unusual. It’s held in a pub, for one, with arancini balls, hot wings and chicken tenders served. It comes off the back of a week of intense media scrutiny following the church’s chairman, Andrew Thorburn, stepping down as CEO of Essendon Football Club after just 30 hours in the role. And it includes an apology — Mason regrets comments he made in a 2013 sermon that compared “legal murder through medicine” to concentration camps. 

“That particular reference to the Holocaust was not helpful,” Mason said on Sunday evening. “I didn’t intend it to be inflammatory. I was wrong. And I’m sorry for that. And 10 years on, I would use different words.” The sermon remains online but now includes an editor’s note. 

City on a Hill is a conservative church that enlists progressive trappings. It was founded just 15 years ago in a pub — so people could “have a beer while we look at the Bible”. A band opens and closes the service, playing songs that discuss kneeling to, submitting to, and most of all loving Jesus. The vast majority of its 80-odd attendees are under 40, with many young and diverse faces in the crowd. 

I end up chatting with Mason and director of ministry Stephanie Judd for an hour following the service. They’re generous with their time and are happy to debate topics like sin (though he wouldn’t tell me what his worst one was), the point of conception and the harmfulness of condemning same-sex attraction — responding thoughtfully to my questions about how these views can be cherrypicked to spout hate. The church is incredibly open and welcoming — even to a journalist.

The church is part of the Anglican Church and the US-led Acts 29 church planting network, which holds values including that “God has given to the man primary responsibility to lead his wife and family in accordance with the servant leadership and sacrificial love characterised by Jesus Christ”. Only qualified men can be elders or pastors, with eight white men holding that role at City on a Hill.

Recent sermons include controversial quotes on abortion (it’s “murder”), being transgender (it’s “destructive” and a fault of people’s “comprehension of reality”), and same-sex attraction (it’s “outside God’s intention”).

The church has sought to rectify some of these viewpoints, adding an update to its website advising people its content is being reviewed, with an explainer about the church’s beliefs using vague terminology about love, support and acceptance. 

Sermons are picked via an online vote, with churchgoers rating what they’re most interested in. This one was supposed to be about abortion. Mason decided to leave that topic for another day. 

He’s media savvy, coming from a background in public relations, and takes a keen interest in what’s being said about him online. A huge proportion of Sunday night’s sermon consists of him quoting what’s been said about the church in the media. He jokes about “framing” Victorian Premier Dan Andrews’ condemnation of the church’s views as “absolutely appalling”, “bigotry” and “intolerant”. 

“I think I might frame these words and put them straight in the poolroom,” Mason said.

The church admits that many of its views are now considered counterculture and “minority” viewpoints, but while it will update sermons to discuss things not included in the Bible, such as climate change, its damaging beliefs about the “sinfulness” of gay sex remain unchanged. 

Mason is also quick to pivot to victimhood. “I … lament that we’re now living in a culture that suggests that you could be cancelled because of your faith. To be cancelled because of your faith is a very dangerous idea,” he said. 

“Blessed are you when people insult you … persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you”.

While it’s clear the church believes it can be compassionate while condemning people as sinners, the sermon is all about “loving Jesus”, with attendees urged to “pick up a Bible” to learn what that means, but there’s little discussion about what living a good Christian life means.

The only example of doing good revolves around praying with a severely depressed man. There are no details about helping him cope with the loss of his wife, rising inflation or solitude, but around converting him to Jesus, which Mason admits was difficult because the man was bent on his “frustration and anger at the health and legal systems that allowed” his wife to pass away. 

Many members are quick to point to their gay friends who are also members of the church. They don’t discuss the rate of suicide among the LGBTQIA+ community, particularly for young people coming to terms with their sexuality within the confines of the church. 

They also don’t discuss the fact that celibacy and excluding women from religious leadership roles were found to be key drivers of child sex abuse by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

While the church is attempting to rebrand itself as more accepting than previous sermons indicated, I don’t believe any of those sipping beer, wine and water walked away fully understanding how condemning those for their lifestyles is compatible with being accepting and compassionate to those their religion tells them are sinful.