Hush, In Jesus’ Name: When a Pastor Said No to Crying Out in Church (2024)

Next month, thousands of faithful Christ-followers will flock to Houston’s George R. Brown Convention Center for an event that bills itself as “an international movement of spiritual transformation through empowerment and a personal breakthrough in your relationship with God.” The Lighthouse Church of Houston, led by celebrity minister Keion Henderson, senior pastor, hosts the event and calls it The Cry Out Experience. Over the past week, the church has received less attention for its conference, though, than for last Sunday’s service when Pastor Henderson muzzled one of his choir members as she cried out during service.

The moment, captured on video, spread like wildfire across social media in posts where seemingly everybody and their cousin took a position on whether Henderson overstepped his bounds. In the video, viewers see Henderson abruptly stop singing the song “Total Praise” to turn and admonish the choir member whose emotional shouting and wailing had become an apparent distraction. Henderson pivots stepping toward her with “Shh. Hey!” Moving purposefully, he snaps his fingers the first of three times and directs surrounding choir members to, “Stop her!” With his finger pointed at the worshiper and standing before her, Henderson sternly directs her to “Hush! Silence in the name of Jesus,” before returning to the front of the stage to resume singing himself.

The viral moment ignited a firestorm of opinions from a cross-section of Christians and non-Christians alike who took sides on whether Henderson went too far in restoring order, which is what he later claimed was his mandate to do as the pastor.

In a perfect world, the preacher at the center of it all would embrace this as a teachable moment and a chance to reach the hundreds of thousands of viewers who watched, especially the many who seized upon it as yet another reason to dissociate themselves from the church. But, Henderson has chosen instead to assume a defensive position and defend his actions publicly in a manner that much more resembles man-of-the-streets than man-of-God. By any other name that’s hubris.

While the incident presents a fertile opportunity to model humility and demonstrate how Christians resolve conflict, Henderson instead digs in with a display of bold arrogance and a pronounced lack of compassion. Appearing on Tamron Hall’s show this week, Henderson notably doesn’t apologize. Rather, he asserts unrelentingly, “I’d do it again if I needed to.”

No, sir, you didn’t need to snap your fingers at a grown woman and order her like a child to “hush.” You didn’t need to bully her publicly on stage in front of a congregation and a television audience. And, you didn’t need to assume a sexist posture stepping to her in a manner that you likely wouldn’t have approached a man. Even if you felt led to interrupt her praise, you didn’t need to do it that way.

There were a dozen other ways to handle that matter than what Henderson chose that would have maintained the sanctity of the service, preserved the dignity of the worshiper and restored the order that he desired. Instead, Henderson chose to flex. And now he says given the same circ*mstances, knowing what he knows, he’d do it all again, which is an admission that not only hasn’t he learned anything, but that he hasn’t sought to do so.

Personally, if I’d been at the center of a controversial viral video that trains anger on me, potentially shames one of my flock and makes the house of God a laughingstock, I would not want to do the same doggone thing again, especially not if I expected it might produce the same unwelcomed outcomes. I’d consider instead how might I have handled things differently in a less divisive way, one that doesn’t harm the church’s reputation nor alienate seekers of truth?

That is what they call wisdom. Arrogance and wisdom can’t co-exist.

In an interview appearing online ahead of last year’s Cry Out conference, Henderson promotes the conference as a place to “collectively express the unresolved pain, obstacles and challenges we face.” He says, “We believe the future belongs to those who cry out. There’s a scripture in the Bible that says, when they cried out the Lord heard them.” In the same article, Henderson’s wife Shaunie Henderson adds, “Culturally, we’re taught to hold things…This is one of those times we say it’s okay to cry out…People think crying out is coming in and falling out at the altar and I don’t think that’s what it is at all and being allowed a safe space.”

What safe space did Pastor Henderson provide that worshiper? Where can she now go?

If only for its public relations value, Henderson could’ve released a statement promising to reflect and discover what he could learn and how he could grow. He could’ve said that he plans to meet with the worshipper to reach an understanding. He could’ve admitted his own imperfections and those of the church. If he wanted to go ol’ skool churchy, he could’ve said something about the devil taking delight in these distractions and not wanting to prolong this episode.

Instead, since then he’s been fueling the discussion at the worshiper’s expense, rationalizing his point of view. Hear him calling the choir member’s outburst the latest in a 4-year “battle.” Why are you battling with a member over their praise in the first place – for FOUR YEARS? That seems to reflect poorly on his leadership making a far louder statement about him than the worshiper and her backstory.

And if she’s been doing this that long and it has troubled you, why invite her to share the stage with you, knowing the potential for an outburst — unless flexing and making a public spectacle of her was the end game all along?