Hillsong Church

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Hillsong Church (formerly Hills Christian Life Centre) is a Pentecostal Christian church. Its primary location is in Australia, where it is headquartered at its "Hills" campus near Castle Hill, to the north-west of Sydney in Baulkham Hills' Norwest Business Park. It also has a congregation denominated the "City" campus which is located in Waterloo, near Sydney's central business district. Hillsong recently announced its intentions to develop a significant area of land on Rothschild Avenue, Rosebery into a new City campus. The Church intends to move from the Waterloo campus when this development is complete.

Hillsong's international off-shoots include Hillsong London, in the United Kingdom, Hillsong Kiev in Ukraine, and Hillsong Paris in France. Established by Pastors Brian Houston and Bobbie Houston, it is a member of the Assemblies of God movement. A new 3500-seat convention centre at its main site was opened on October 19, 2002, by John Howard, Prime Minister of Australia.

History

Brian and Bobbie Houston moved from New Zealand in 1978 and joined the Sydney Christian Life Centre at Darlinghurst, pastored by Frank Houston, Brian's father. They started Hillsong Church, which was then known as "Hills Christian Life Centre", in August 1983 with an initial congregation of 45. Within four years it had grown to 900 people.

As the music ministry of the church developed, an annual conference called the Hillsong Conference was created to teach and train Christian musicians.^{[citation needed]}

In the early 1990s, Praise and Worship recordings from Hills Christian Life Centre were released in Australia and internationally under the name "Hillsong". This raised the profile of the church. This name is also used for a television show featuring clips from the videos of the recordings, and a message from Brian Houston.

In the late 1990s the church realised that the name "Hillsong" was more well-known than "Hills Christian Life Centre" due to the branding of its recordings. The church was renamed "Hillsong Church" in 1999, about the time its mother church, Sydney CLC, was merged into Hillsong Church. ^[1] This followed the exposure of Frank Houston's sexual abuse of a boy in New Zealand some thirty years before, which led to his resignation. ^[2]

Current operations

The Hillsong Church has spearheaded the growth of the Pentecostal churches in Australia, which are the fastest growing group of Christian denominations in Australia.^{[citation needed]} The Hillsong Church has a number of associated operations including:

• the annual Hillsong Conference, which 30,000 people attended at the Acer Arena on 4-8 July in 2005 (see also Hillsong Conference 2006);
• the Colour Your World Women's Conference;
• the Hillsong Men's Conference;
• the Hillsong International Leadership College which trains aspiring Assembly of God ministers and lay leaders from around the world.
• Fuel (yr 6-8), Wildlife (yr 9-12) and PowerHouse(18-25 yrs old) youth group services.

At the start of 2006 Hillsong claimed that over 19,000 people attended their services each week.^[3]

Political influence

The Hillsong Church has attracted support from high profile politicians especially in the Liberal Party of Australia. Prime Minister John Howard opened its Baulkham Hills campus and Treasurer Peter Costello spoke at its annual conference in July 2004 and 2005. Former Opposition Leader Mark Latham declined Hillsong's invitation to the annual 2004 conference,^[4] although Bob Carr, the then Premier of New South Wales, (from the Australian Labor Party), did attend the 2005 conference.

The former New South Wales Liberal Party state director Scott Morrison (to November 2004) is a prominent member of Hillsong Church.

The Church also attracts a large number of aspirational voters from seats in the west of Sydney such as Mitchell (where the church is located), Lindsay, Macquarie and Greenway. Louise Markus who ran the Hillsong Emerge Ltd, the church's drug and alcohol outreach service in Blacktown, was preselected as the Liberal Party candidate for Greenway in the 2004 federal election and was elected to the House of Representatives. Labor had held the seat since it was proclaimed in 1984 until she beat the ALP candidate Ed Husic as well as twelve other candidates, with a two party preferred swing of 3.7%.

Subsequent to the election accusations were made in the NSW State Parliament that Mrs Markus's campaign had exploited the Muslim background of her chief opponent.^[5][6]

Liberal MP for Mitchell, Alan Cadman, and two Family First Party Senate candidates, Joan Woods and Ivan Herald, who failed to win Senate seats, were featured in a Hillsong circular during the election, with members being asked to pray for them.

Publicly, however, the church has distanced itself from advocating certain political groups and parties, including the fledgling Family First party:

One thing we are not is a political movement... The Assemblies of God in Australia does not have a political vision and we don't have a political agenda. I think people need to understand the difference between the church being very involved in politics and individual Christians being involved in politics. There is a big difference. (Brian Houston) ^[7]

Music

"Mighty To Save" album cover. Hillsong's latest album release (Album was released in July 2006).

See main articles: Hillsong Music, List of Hillsong albums, List of Hillsong musicians and List of Hillsong songs.

Hillsong's music has become internationally well-known amongst Christian groups. Songs such as "Power of Your Love" by Geoff Bullock and "Shout to the Lord" by Darlene Zschech have become popular and are sung throughout churches world-wide. Hillsong have released over 40 albums since 1992, many of them achieving gold status in Australia. Their 2004 live praise and worship album For All You've Done reached #1 in the mainstream Australian album charts (ARIA) when many copies were sold during Hillsong's annual conference.^[8]

Controversies

Some journalists and religious leaders have expressed concerns about the church's political stance and use of donated funds for its ministries.^[9] The church's Prosperity Teaching had been criticised by Tim Costello and Archbishop George Pell.

Anglican Bishop of Western Sydney, Ivan Lee, expressed concern that the extreme emotion of Hillsong services could be manipulative saying "and their worship is in danger of being experience-centred rather than Bible-teaching-centred"^[10]

Senator Andrew Bartlett criticised Hillsong on his blog for blaming clinical depression on the influence of the devil.^[11] The article was removed from their website and replaced with a statement stating that the claim was made as part of a contributed guest article^[12] and taken out of context.

In 2006, Hillsong's plans to build a 3000-seat auditorium and a 900-space car park ran into community opposition with more than 300 signatures collected in a few days. The site was a former Roads and Traffic Authority depot and had been rezoned to allow 66 townhouses, but Hillsong Church bought it for $28 million and propose to build a new auditorium in Rosebery to replace their Waterloo site.^[13]

See also

• Charismatic Movement
• Megachurch
• Transformationalism
• Assemblies of God

References

1. ^ Andrew Clark. "Interview with HILLSONG Founder Brian Houston", Christian Today, Christian Today Limited, 2004-08-11. Retrieved on 2006-06-30.
2. ^ Stephen Gibbs. "Hillsong farewells a lost sheep pioneer", Sydney Morning Herald, John Fairfax Holdings, 2004-11-13. Retrieved on 2006-06-21.
3. ^ The Story So Far. Hillsong Church website. Hillsong Church. Retrieved on 2006-06-27.
4. ^ Gerard Henderson. "Mock Christians at your peril, lefties", Sydney Morning Herald, John Fairfax Holdings, 2004-10-19. Retrieved on 2006-06-27.
5. ^ The Hon. Eric Roozendaal, Extract from Transcript of Hansard: Religious Freedom (Article No.43), page 12087, NSW Legislative Council Hansard, 27th October 2004
6. ^ The Hon. David Clarke, Extract from Transcript of Hansard: Religious Freedom (Article No.38), NSW Legislative Council Hansard, 10:28pm, 10th November 2004
7. ^ Linda Morris. "Church expands horizons", Sydney Morning Herald, John Fairfax Holdings, 2005-05-04. Retrieved on 2006-06-27.
8. ^ Australian Recording Industry Association (2004-08-03). Australian Recording Artists Make ARIA Chart History. Press release. Retrieved on 2006-06-21.
9. ^ Greg Bearup. "Praise the Lord and pass the chequebook", Sydney Morning Herald, 2005-02-18. Retrieved on 2006-06-27.
10. ^ "Hillsong's true believers", Sydney Morning Herald, John Fairfax Holdings, 2004-11-07. Retrieved on 2006-08-10.
11. ^ Andrew Bartlett (2006-04-30). Hillsong diagnoses depression - UPDATED. The Bartlett Diaries. Retrieved on 2006-10-21.
12. ^ Brian Houston. Depression - A Serious & Very Real Issue. Hillsong Church. Retrieved on 2006-10-21.
13. ^ Alex Mitchell. "3000-seat Hillsong bid fires chorus of discord", Sydney Morning Herald, 2006-10-15. Retrieved on 2006-10-21.

External links

• Hillsong Church web page
• Hillsong London Church web page
• Hillsong Rosebery Project web page
• ABC TV Lateline story about political influence of the Hillsong church
• Hillsong & response to Media (The Australian, BRW, AAP and Marie Claire responses)
• A triple j feature on Hillsong, including discussion about some of the controversy surrounding Hillsong (MP3)
• Hillsong Information and Discography
• Geoff Bullock discusses Brian Houston's leadership style
• The Chaser's War on Everything's Skit on Hillsongs "Money Matters" (Video:2.1)

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