The first thing that many people notice about Hillsong is that it operates within the framework of a business. It makes no secret of this and has adopted of large corporations governance structure with a board and a CEO.
Hillsong promotes a culture of financial entrepreneurialism and Senior Pastor Brian Houston release a book in 1999 entitled, You Need More Money: Discovering God's Financial Plan for Your Life.
It has also borrowed heavily from the world of corporate management to promote models of success-based leadership.
What God has given us is great, and great means big, great is powerful. I tell you, the devil likes to contain and give the church a small mentality ... I want you to buckle up your seat-belt and get ready for a big year. (Hillsong Senior Pastor Brian Houston)
Typical of large corporations Hillsong has a marketing vision at its heart. When asked about the birth of the church in an interview on ABC's Australian Story last year, Hillsong Senior Pastor Brian Houston reached for marketing imagery.
"[I]n those days there used to be a guy who was famous or infamous, whatever, on TV, who many people might remember who used to be on the TV and sell Holdens, sell General Motors, and apparently he was the biggest Holden dealer in Australia.
"And I thought to myself, if you can build a Holden dealer like that, the largest Holden dealership in Australia, surely it must be somewhere where you could build a church. Between those things and me sensing a spiritual pull, we went and started in a little school hall."
Hillsong has been very successful in its endeavour. It is the biggest church in Australia, with over 20 000 people attending each weekend and its presence runs deeper than weekend congregations with a host of conferences, special events, school programs, business networks, welfare, and counselling services.
Financially it is also thriving, with a total annual income that has now reached $60 million, $16 million of which comes through sales of books, CDs, DVDs, t-shirts and other merchandise.
It has become part of the national psyche and, as one of the largest megachurches in the Western world, it has a big international profile that surpasses all but the top American megachurches.
Hillsong is not unique. Many other 'megachurches' around the country shares a similar business model – including the Christian Outreach Centre in Brisbane, Christian City Church in Sydney, Paradise in Adelaide, CityLife, Crossways and Careforce in Melbourne, and Christian Life Centre in Perth.
Although there are many differences between megachurches and traditional churches in terms of size, music, culture, theology, style and evangelical focus, the fundamental difference is that megachurches are built around a business model.
Monday, June 30, 2008
A Megachurch in the Sydney Suburbs
Religious belief and practice, especially Pentecostalism, are increasingly suburban phenomena in an otherwise more secular society. The megachurch of Hillsong in Sydney's north-western suburbs has recently grown rapidly, offering a distinct architecture, institutional structure and informal service format Protestantism generally, distinguished by its stadium show, prosperity preaching, overt materialist orientation and egalitarian populism. Diverse church social groups have partly replaced the civic social institutions never vibrant in suburbia, creating social capital and a new, more fluid sense of place. Hillsong exemplifies the globalisation of religion, while simultaneously stressing local ties, with contemporary media technology in a traditional theological and modern social context.
Hillsong United Lyrics-All I Do
Hillsong United Lyrics-All I Do
I wanted to find
Where I was going
Everything I tried
It took me nowhere
I was so tired of just living my life
Waiting for a sign
You came to my side
Gave me direction
Strong on the inside
I shine for You Lord
Now it's my time
Now I've made up my mind
To be all You want for me
All I do
Is live my life for You
I know it's true
I'll never let You go
All I do
I'd anything for You
Everything is in Your Hands
So I get up
Get up and praise You
And I know where I'm going
I know where I'm going
I wanted to find
Where I was going
Everything I tried
It took me nowhere
I was so tired of just living my life
Waiting for a sign
You came to my side
Gave me direction
Strong on the inside
I shine for You Lord
Now it's my time
Now I've made up my mind
To be all You want for me
All I do
Is live my life for You
I know it's true
I'll never let You go
All I do
I'd anything for You
Everything is in Your Hands
So I get up
Get up and praise You
And I know where I'm going
I know where I'm going
Monday, June 23, 2008
The Art of Revolution
For United, the music is only part of the vision. "The way we see it is the songs and the music are an overflow of the heart of what's going on in our church and our ministry," United front man Joel Houston tells CCM. "Really our greatest desire is to see young people really take their gifts and use them for God. If it's through music, that's great. If it's business, that's great. Whatever they love and are passionate about, we want to see them use that to love God and to serve and love others."
United's new album, All of the Above (Hillsong/ Integrity), is the band's first studio record, and simultaneously, its first No. 1 on SoundScan's Christian Album sales chart—both clearly a different dynamic for this known-for-their-live-sound band. Recounting the recording process, Joel says, "It was a whole new experience for sure. We just thought that we would get in the studio and basically do what we always do. We just grabbed a song and played it front to back, back to front and just worshipped."
In recent years Christians—and modern worship fans in particular—have heard countless artists and pastors remark that "worship is a lifestyle." And the members of United? They believe a life of worship means action.
"We can sing the songs and have a lot of great corporate times of worship, but it's really worship when it's at work in our lives and when we put action to our songs," explains Joel. "When we worship God it's about loving God and loving people. We have to be about reaching our community and serving others and helping those in our world who need help."
The youth at Hillsong Church have begun to live out their worship in the form of social justice projects and community outreaches. They have annual conferences with themes of worship and social justice going hand-in-hand, as the kids participate in hands-on projects together and end the time with a worship service. "It's amazing what happens when you put those two things at work together. That's worship in spirit and in truth. It's being the hands and feet," Joel says.
So a life of worship should emphasize social justice and community outreach? Granted such concepts may seem obvious given Jesus' two greatest commandments: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." (Matthew 22:37-40, NIV). Why, then, is the correlation foreign in so many churches, especially in the United States?
"I think that the potential of the church here in America is unfathomable," Joel responds. "It's a sleeping giant, you know?" After a recent trip to Europe, he recounted all of the magnificent churches there—that at one time were thriving—and now sit empty. "We can't afford for that to happen in the States," he says. "People live a self-centered life, and when our faith becomes about ourselves, then the church isn't going to thrive. It doesn't matter how disillusioned you are by the church—the fact is that the church is the bride of Christ, and it's God's plan for the salvation of the earth."
Joel and his bandmates are encouraged that worldwide there seems to be a "revolution" of sorts, as young people are taking their faith seriously and beginning to step up and use their gifts for God's kingdom.
United's uniqueness can be found not only in their vision, but also in their organic grassroots approach to the music business. Over the span of their career, they've stayed largely on the fringe, gaining momentum through youth events and word-of-mouth. A few years ago, record execs told them that in order to be successful in America, they would have to do huge tours with festival and radio promotions. Instead, United charted their own course. In staying true to their ministry, the group has seen many incredible opportunities unfold for them. Joel says, "I think it's a real testimony to anybody no matter what they do. You set out with great ideals. You have desires and dreams. It's really easy to kind of be told what you need to be. I think it's a great testimony of staying true to what's in your heart and what God's called you to do."
United's new album, All of the Above (Hillsong/ Integrity), is the band's first studio record, and simultaneously, its first No. 1 on SoundScan's Christian Album sales chart—both clearly a different dynamic for this known-for-their-live-sound band. Recounting the recording process, Joel says, "It was a whole new experience for sure. We just thought that we would get in the studio and basically do what we always do. We just grabbed a song and played it front to back, back to front and just worshipped."
In recent years Christians—and modern worship fans in particular—have heard countless artists and pastors remark that "worship is a lifestyle." And the members of United? They believe a life of worship means action.
"We can sing the songs and have a lot of great corporate times of worship, but it's really worship when it's at work in our lives and when we put action to our songs," explains Joel. "When we worship God it's about loving God and loving people. We have to be about reaching our community and serving others and helping those in our world who need help."
The youth at Hillsong Church have begun to live out their worship in the form of social justice projects and community outreaches. They have annual conferences with themes of worship and social justice going hand-in-hand, as the kids participate in hands-on projects together and end the time with a worship service. "It's amazing what happens when you put those two things at work together. That's worship in spirit and in truth. It's being the hands and feet," Joel says.
So a life of worship should emphasize social justice and community outreach? Granted such concepts may seem obvious given Jesus' two greatest commandments: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." (Matthew 22:37-40, NIV). Why, then, is the correlation foreign in so many churches, especially in the United States?
"I think that the potential of the church here in America is unfathomable," Joel responds. "It's a sleeping giant, you know?" After a recent trip to Europe, he recounted all of the magnificent churches there—that at one time were thriving—and now sit empty. "We can't afford for that to happen in the States," he says. "People live a self-centered life, and when our faith becomes about ourselves, then the church isn't going to thrive. It doesn't matter how disillusioned you are by the church—the fact is that the church is the bride of Christ, and it's God's plan for the salvation of the earth."
Joel and his bandmates are encouraged that worldwide there seems to be a "revolution" of sorts, as young people are taking their faith seriously and beginning to step up and use their gifts for God's kingdom.
United's uniqueness can be found not only in their vision, but also in their organic grassroots approach to the music business. Over the span of their career, they've stayed largely on the fringe, gaining momentum through youth events and word-of-mouth. A few years ago, record execs told them that in order to be successful in America, they would have to do huge tours with festival and radio promotions. Instead, United charted their own course. In staying true to their ministry, the group has seen many incredible opportunities unfold for them. Joel says, "I think it's a real testimony to anybody no matter what they do. You set out with great ideals. You have desires and dreams. It's really easy to kind of be told what you need to be. I think it's a great testimony of staying true to what's in your heart and what God's called you to do."
Getting to the heart of the Hillsong worship ‘revolution’
You may not recognize her name (or have a clue how to pronounce it) and you may not know her face (or her distinctive retro chic outfits). But, like presidents and popes, you will have almost certainly sung one of her songs. She is Darlene Zschech, the woman who wrote the song 'Shout to the Lord'. And chances are, it is not simply her melodies and poetry that have influenced you, for not only is she an accomplished songwriter, Zschech has been the head of the Worship and Creative Arts Department at Hillsong Church in Australia since 1996.
With some 12,000 members, Hillsong is Australia's largest church. But through its music and conferences, its influence spreads much further afield than just the rolling Hills district around Sydney. What Willow Creek did for 'seeker services' and what Rick Warren did for 'Purpose-Driven Churches', Hillsong has done for 'Praise and Worship'. Bill Hybels is surely right when he predicted that "When church historians reflect on the worship revolution that happened around the turn of the 21st century, Darlene Zschech will be credited for playing a major role" (quoted in the 'Endorsements' section of the book). Indeed, the Parachute07 promotional newspaper for 2007 describes Zschech as the "leader of one of the world's most influential worship movements of our time".
Recently, Zschech wrote a book called Extravagant Worship. In it, she seeks to "share the vision that has been given to me for praise and worship" ('Introduction', p. 18). The book therefore provides an opportunity to not simply 'experience' Hillsong Praise and Worship, but to hear the explanation and interpretation of that experience provided by Hillsong itself. It also spells out the goals and intentions behind the "worship revolution" Zschech is leading. In short, it provides an excellent way to get to the heart of what Hillsong worship is all about, and to understand something of its appeal and its dangers.
It is insufficient and naive to believe that the influence and appeal of Hillsong Praise and Worship lies simply in having great music. While superficially this explains the immediate attraction of it, the influence and appeal of Hillsong worship runs far deeper than that. Behind their glamorous, high-selling 'Christian Stadium Rock' albums lies an ethos which is attractive to many Christians, but which also has some inherent dangers. Some of these dangers are obvious, whereas other more serious dangers are much more subtle.
What is attractive about this ethos can be seen right at the beginning of Extravagant Worship. Zschech begins her book with the account of the Pharisee and the woman from Luke 7. Noting that the women washed Jesus' feet with her tears and poured perfume on them that was worth a year's wages, and noting that she did this because she understood fully that Jesus had forgiven her of her sins, Zschech writes, "I long to worship Jesus as did the women with the alabaster jar of perfume! Excessive, abundant, expensive, superfluous, lavish, costly, precious, rich, priceless, valuable ..." (p. 25). Such a sentiment is a wonderful longing for any Christian to have, and (from her book, at least) it seems like Darlene Zschech truly does long to worship Jesus extravagantly in every area of her life, for she is thoroughly amazed at what he has done for her in forgiving her sins. In addition, when she says she is eager to see "extravagant worshippers", she is at pains to show that she does not mean she wants to see really good music teams; she means she wants to see hoards of people worshipping Jesus extravagantly like the woman with the alabaster jar, completely aware of the forgiveness that Jesus brings.
For anyone who understands anything of what Jesus has done on the cross, this is attractive. It is also a wonderful thing with which to encourage in other believers. The last thing we want to do is be like Simon the Pharisee, who loved Christ little (if at all) and who sneered at the woman's devotion to him. If we are to understand the attraction of the 'Hillsong Worship Revolution' properly, we must understand that fundamentally undergirding it is this desire to worship God as extravagantly as the woman with the alabaster jar did, and for the same reasons.
This leads us, then, to the second attractive aspect of the 'Hillsong Worship Revolution': it may be summed up as 'godly professionalism'. The 'godly' side of this aspect is neatly summarized in a statement Zschech makes part-way into her book: "I want to train up worshippers to serve the Lord with gladness and to break the mould on what is traditionally accepted behaviour of a creative person" (p. 220; emphasis mine). Throughout her book, Zschech is eager to encourage godliness before giftedness, faithfulness before talent. She appears to lead from the front in this area: two of the endorsements at the start of her book commend her for being as "gracious" and "humble" privately as she is publicly, and "the same person when she is not in front of thousands".
Having been a secular performer before becoming a believer, Zschech is passionate about this. Her book is remarkably thorough in pointing out all the sinful traps that "performers" can fall into—traps like being a prima donna, wanting the praise of others, drawing attention to yourself by extreme behaviour, undermining rather than supporting the preacher, creating disunity, and being ruled by emotions rather than by Christ. Zschech is also relentless in insisting that "extravagant worshippers" must avoid these traps: "[D]on't give them a musical example. People don't need to follow your talent. Give them a life to follow" (p. 58). She also encourages faithfulness in all things—even the little things and the things no-one sees. Again, this is highly commendable and very attractive to any Christian eager to serve Jesus faithfully and sincerely (not just "performers"). I personally was surprised and delighted to see such godliness encouraged in her book, and was challenged and encouraged at many points.
However, Zschech sees no reason why godliness can't also be accompanied by professionalism (in music particularly). This reasoning is, no doubt, equally as attractive to many. Having emphasized the importance of Christ as the priority, and of the need to avoid traps of ungodliness, Zschech also encourages attention to details—the importance of disciplined rehearsals, the need for excellence in sound and lighting, and so on. In short, near enough isn't good enough when it comes to using your gifts to serve God because it doesn't line up with worshipping God extravagantly.
It is here that we begin to see the tip of the iceberg of the dangers the 'Hillsong Worship Revolution'. These dangers can be broken up into those Zschech is aware of; those she does not appear to be aware of (which are, in fact, more dangerous); those she has fallen into; and those she has not fallen into but leaves others vulnerable to.
One of the dangers which Zschech is all too aware of in what she is advocating is the danger of focusing on the worshipper or the worship instead of the one who is to be worshipped. Zschech's awareness of this danger is obvious at many points throughout the book: she consistently repudiates various errors and occasionally her comments are emphasized in the large print sections—for example, "Church is not the vehicle for us to present our talents and catapult us to Christian stardom! "; "Fulfilment comes from worshipping Him, not having others worship you!"; "Extremes draw more attention to the worshipper than the one being worshipped", and so on (pp. 157, 100, 171). It may be a little too easy for conservative evangelicals to sneer at this danger but it is no less a danger for us (except, perhaps, that the danger is in venerating the teachers rather than the "worshippers"!)
Another danger which Zschech appears to be aware of (but perhaps is not as successful at countering) is the danger of 'worship' being defined as "what we do in the church building when we sing together". To be fair, Zschech is at pains to stress that worship is "a way of life" and that music is "not the essence of it". She is also at pains to emphasize that worship is not an emotion—that it must be accompanied by obedience. However, Zschech's definition of worship is "when one's spirit adores and connects with the Spirit of God, when the very core of one's being is found loving Him, lost in Him" (p. 27). Unfortunately this sounds somewhat like a romantic trying to explain what it feels like to be 'in love': it's unhelpfully vague. By not directly tying worship to obedience, Zschech makes it possible for us to feel that our inhibitions, not our rebellion, are what prevents us from worshipping God.
Furthermore, this clouded definition leaves Zschech and her followers vulnerable to thinking that worship is particularly 'intimate' (and therefore, one would assume, better) when music is played. This impression is further fuelled by Zschech's use of Old Testament temple language for gathering in church, and is not helped by her paralleling going to church with going to the temple (there are constant references to meeting in the "house of God"). At one point, she does state that the "house of God" is not the building, but the people, but this seems to be going against most of her other references to the "house of God" where she uses language like "the sanctuary" to describe it. These things reinforce the impression that 'worship' is special when we go to the "house of God"—that is, church.
However, the greatest dangers that spring from what Zschech is advocating lie in areas which she does not appear to be aware of. The greatest danger of the "worship revolution" embodied by Zschech is that it runs the risk of saying that our praise and worship takes us into the presence of God, not the death of Jesus. It is important to state that Zschech acknowledges that the reason we can come into God's presence is because of the death of Jesus, however she does not appear to be aware of the problems surrounding many of her statements which make it seem like our worship brings us into the presence of God. These statements include: "Praise takes you into the presence of God" (p. 53), "Every time the praise and worship teams ... begin to praise God, His presence comes like a flood. Even though we live in His presence, His love is lavished on us when we praise him in a miraculous way!" (p. 56).
In one very telling anecdote in which one time, her worship team was given only 12 minutes' notice before they had to perform, one of the music pastors in a pep talk to the musos said, "[I]n twelve minutes we are going to take people to the throne room of God!" Describing the ensuing experience, Zschech writes, "Worship was glorious straight away—you could taste it, you could see it, it was the presence of God, and it camped" (p. 155). Zschech seems to be saying that when the praise and worship teams fire up, the presence of God comes in a special way.
Zschech's perspective can also be seen in how she describes what is happening in the worldwide "worship revolution": '[W]e are seeing an increase of God's presence like we have never experienced before" and "[T]he intimacy and powerful presence of God in corporate worship is becoming stronger and stronger" (pp. 154, 203).
The attraction of this is obvious: here is how we can connect with the presence of God in a special way. Here is how we can sense the presence of God with an intimacy that's closer than ever before. However, the errors of this understanding are great, and the dangers are greater. At the heart of it, the errors are the same as those which have followed various 'charismatic' experiences like speaking in tongues and the Toronto Blessing. It is thought that in these things, God is doing something 'new' and 'special'. Furthermore, it is thought that these experiences provide a way for 'greater intimacy with God' or a means of receiving 'greater power from God'. In its current guise, charismatic theology seems to be saying that when believers come together for 'corporate worship' and when the 'Praise and Worship' music teams start up, God's presence comes in a new and special way.
The great error with this understanding is that it either replaces the work of Jesus on the cross with the work of the praise and worship teams, or it elevates the activity of corporate singing above other more 'mundane' activities like corporate prayer and Bible reading. Have we been any less intimate in the presence of God as we have drawn near to him confessing our sins together? Of course not! We might not have been as excited, but it completely lacks biblical warrant to say that God's presence is now with us in a new and special way. If it is being said that God's presence is now evident during these times in a new and more intimate way, the question has to be asked: "What has changed?" Hasn't Jesus died for us? What has changed, of course, is our performance. What is being said is that God's presence is now more manifest because of our effort. Apparently Jesus' death was insufficient to bring us the greatest intimacy with God. Apparently we need some special formula to tap into this intimacy with God-something more than faith alone.
This leads us to the greatest danger of all in the new "worship revolution". The danger is that people are misled into thinking that Jesus is unnecessary for coming into the presence of God. But Scripture makes it clear that it's only through the death of Jesus that anyone can come (Heb 10:19-22). His death opened the way to all who believe in him.
Thankfully, Darlene Zschech acknowledges this in her book. However, at the same time, it is very dangerous and unhelpful of her to say that our praise and worship (music) brings us into the presence of God. It is particularly dangerous of her to interpret the exhilaration you feel from a wonderful music concert as being "the presence of God". The danger is that a thoroughly disobedient person can have this experience without believing in Jesus at all. Such a person can easily be misled into thinking that the way into God's presence is not through Jesus but through exhilarating music. And if anyone thinks they can come into God's presence without Jesus, they won't be able to worship God at all, let alone extravagantly.
With some 12,000 members, Hillsong is Australia's largest church. But through its music and conferences, its influence spreads much further afield than just the rolling Hills district around Sydney. What Willow Creek did for 'seeker services' and what Rick Warren did for 'Purpose-Driven Churches', Hillsong has done for 'Praise and Worship'. Bill Hybels is surely right when he predicted that "When church historians reflect on the worship revolution that happened around the turn of the 21st century, Darlene Zschech will be credited for playing a major role" (quoted in the 'Endorsements' section of the book). Indeed, the Parachute07 promotional newspaper for 2007 describes Zschech as the "leader of one of the world's most influential worship movements of our time".
Recently, Zschech wrote a book called Extravagant Worship. In it, she seeks to "share the vision that has been given to me for praise and worship" ('Introduction', p. 18). The book therefore provides an opportunity to not simply 'experience' Hillsong Praise and Worship, but to hear the explanation and interpretation of that experience provided by Hillsong itself. It also spells out the goals and intentions behind the "worship revolution" Zschech is leading. In short, it provides an excellent way to get to the heart of what Hillsong worship is all about, and to understand something of its appeal and its dangers.
It is insufficient and naive to believe that the influence and appeal of Hillsong Praise and Worship lies simply in having great music. While superficially this explains the immediate attraction of it, the influence and appeal of Hillsong worship runs far deeper than that. Behind their glamorous, high-selling 'Christian Stadium Rock' albums lies an ethos which is attractive to many Christians, but which also has some inherent dangers. Some of these dangers are obvious, whereas other more serious dangers are much more subtle.
What is attractive about this ethos can be seen right at the beginning of Extravagant Worship. Zschech begins her book with the account of the Pharisee and the woman from Luke 7. Noting that the women washed Jesus' feet with her tears and poured perfume on them that was worth a year's wages, and noting that she did this because she understood fully that Jesus had forgiven her of her sins, Zschech writes, "I long to worship Jesus as did the women with the alabaster jar of perfume! Excessive, abundant, expensive, superfluous, lavish, costly, precious, rich, priceless, valuable ..." (p. 25). Such a sentiment is a wonderful longing for any Christian to have, and (from her book, at least) it seems like Darlene Zschech truly does long to worship Jesus extravagantly in every area of her life, for she is thoroughly amazed at what he has done for her in forgiving her sins. In addition, when she says she is eager to see "extravagant worshippers", she is at pains to show that she does not mean she wants to see really good music teams; she means she wants to see hoards of people worshipping Jesus extravagantly like the woman with the alabaster jar, completely aware of the forgiveness that Jesus brings.
For anyone who understands anything of what Jesus has done on the cross, this is attractive. It is also a wonderful thing with which to encourage in other believers. The last thing we want to do is be like Simon the Pharisee, who loved Christ little (if at all) and who sneered at the woman's devotion to him. If we are to understand the attraction of the 'Hillsong Worship Revolution' properly, we must understand that fundamentally undergirding it is this desire to worship God as extravagantly as the woman with the alabaster jar did, and for the same reasons.
This leads us, then, to the second attractive aspect of the 'Hillsong Worship Revolution': it may be summed up as 'godly professionalism'. The 'godly' side of this aspect is neatly summarized in a statement Zschech makes part-way into her book: "I want to train up worshippers to serve the Lord with gladness and to break the mould on what is traditionally accepted behaviour of a creative person" (p. 220; emphasis mine). Throughout her book, Zschech is eager to encourage godliness before giftedness, faithfulness before talent. She appears to lead from the front in this area: two of the endorsements at the start of her book commend her for being as "gracious" and "humble" privately as she is publicly, and "the same person when she is not in front of thousands".
Having been a secular performer before becoming a believer, Zschech is passionate about this. Her book is remarkably thorough in pointing out all the sinful traps that "performers" can fall into—traps like being a prima donna, wanting the praise of others, drawing attention to yourself by extreme behaviour, undermining rather than supporting the preacher, creating disunity, and being ruled by emotions rather than by Christ. Zschech is also relentless in insisting that "extravagant worshippers" must avoid these traps: "[D]on't give them a musical example. People don't need to follow your talent. Give them a life to follow" (p. 58). She also encourages faithfulness in all things—even the little things and the things no-one sees. Again, this is highly commendable and very attractive to any Christian eager to serve Jesus faithfully and sincerely (not just "performers"). I personally was surprised and delighted to see such godliness encouraged in her book, and was challenged and encouraged at many points.
However, Zschech sees no reason why godliness can't also be accompanied by professionalism (in music particularly). This reasoning is, no doubt, equally as attractive to many. Having emphasized the importance of Christ as the priority, and of the need to avoid traps of ungodliness, Zschech also encourages attention to details—the importance of disciplined rehearsals, the need for excellence in sound and lighting, and so on. In short, near enough isn't good enough when it comes to using your gifts to serve God because it doesn't line up with worshipping God extravagantly.
It is here that we begin to see the tip of the iceberg of the dangers the 'Hillsong Worship Revolution'. These dangers can be broken up into those Zschech is aware of; those she does not appear to be aware of (which are, in fact, more dangerous); those she has fallen into; and those she has not fallen into but leaves others vulnerable to.
One of the dangers which Zschech is all too aware of in what she is advocating is the danger of focusing on the worshipper or the worship instead of the one who is to be worshipped. Zschech's awareness of this danger is obvious at many points throughout the book: she consistently repudiates various errors and occasionally her comments are emphasized in the large print sections—for example, "Church is not the vehicle for us to present our talents and catapult us to Christian stardom! "; "Fulfilment comes from worshipping Him, not having others worship you!"; "Extremes draw more attention to the worshipper than the one being worshipped", and so on (pp. 157, 100, 171). It may be a little too easy for conservative evangelicals to sneer at this danger but it is no less a danger for us (except, perhaps, that the danger is in venerating the teachers rather than the "worshippers"!)
Another danger which Zschech appears to be aware of (but perhaps is not as successful at countering) is the danger of 'worship' being defined as "what we do in the church building when we sing together". To be fair, Zschech is at pains to stress that worship is "a way of life" and that music is "not the essence of it". She is also at pains to emphasize that worship is not an emotion—that it must be accompanied by obedience. However, Zschech's definition of worship is "when one's spirit adores and connects with the Spirit of God, when the very core of one's being is found loving Him, lost in Him" (p. 27). Unfortunately this sounds somewhat like a romantic trying to explain what it feels like to be 'in love': it's unhelpfully vague. By not directly tying worship to obedience, Zschech makes it possible for us to feel that our inhibitions, not our rebellion, are what prevents us from worshipping God.
Furthermore, this clouded definition leaves Zschech and her followers vulnerable to thinking that worship is particularly 'intimate' (and therefore, one would assume, better) when music is played. This impression is further fuelled by Zschech's use of Old Testament temple language for gathering in church, and is not helped by her paralleling going to church with going to the temple (there are constant references to meeting in the "house of God"). At one point, she does state that the "house of God" is not the building, but the people, but this seems to be going against most of her other references to the "house of God" where she uses language like "the sanctuary" to describe it. These things reinforce the impression that 'worship' is special when we go to the "house of God"—that is, church.
However, the greatest dangers that spring from what Zschech is advocating lie in areas which she does not appear to be aware of. The greatest danger of the "worship revolution" embodied by Zschech is that it runs the risk of saying that our praise and worship takes us into the presence of God, not the death of Jesus. It is important to state that Zschech acknowledges that the reason we can come into God's presence is because of the death of Jesus, however she does not appear to be aware of the problems surrounding many of her statements which make it seem like our worship brings us into the presence of God. These statements include: "Praise takes you into the presence of God" (p. 53), "Every time the praise and worship teams ... begin to praise God, His presence comes like a flood. Even though we live in His presence, His love is lavished on us when we praise him in a miraculous way!" (p. 56).
In one very telling anecdote in which one time, her worship team was given only 12 minutes' notice before they had to perform, one of the music pastors in a pep talk to the musos said, "[I]n twelve minutes we are going to take people to the throne room of God!" Describing the ensuing experience, Zschech writes, "Worship was glorious straight away—you could taste it, you could see it, it was the presence of God, and it camped" (p. 155). Zschech seems to be saying that when the praise and worship teams fire up, the presence of God comes in a special way.
Zschech's perspective can also be seen in how she describes what is happening in the worldwide "worship revolution": '[W]e are seeing an increase of God's presence like we have never experienced before" and "[T]he intimacy and powerful presence of God in corporate worship is becoming stronger and stronger" (pp. 154, 203).
The attraction of this is obvious: here is how we can connect with the presence of God in a special way. Here is how we can sense the presence of God with an intimacy that's closer than ever before. However, the errors of this understanding are great, and the dangers are greater. At the heart of it, the errors are the same as those which have followed various 'charismatic' experiences like speaking in tongues and the Toronto Blessing. It is thought that in these things, God is doing something 'new' and 'special'. Furthermore, it is thought that these experiences provide a way for 'greater intimacy with God' or a means of receiving 'greater power from God'. In its current guise, charismatic theology seems to be saying that when believers come together for 'corporate worship' and when the 'Praise and Worship' music teams start up, God's presence comes in a new and special way.
The great error with this understanding is that it either replaces the work of Jesus on the cross with the work of the praise and worship teams, or it elevates the activity of corporate singing above other more 'mundane' activities like corporate prayer and Bible reading. Have we been any less intimate in the presence of God as we have drawn near to him confessing our sins together? Of course not! We might not have been as excited, but it completely lacks biblical warrant to say that God's presence is now with us in a new and special way. If it is being said that God's presence is now evident during these times in a new and more intimate way, the question has to be asked: "What has changed?" Hasn't Jesus died for us? What has changed, of course, is our performance. What is being said is that God's presence is now more manifest because of our effort. Apparently Jesus' death was insufficient to bring us the greatest intimacy with God. Apparently we need some special formula to tap into this intimacy with God-something more than faith alone.
This leads us to the greatest danger of all in the new "worship revolution". The danger is that people are misled into thinking that Jesus is unnecessary for coming into the presence of God. But Scripture makes it clear that it's only through the death of Jesus that anyone can come (Heb 10:19-22). His death opened the way to all who believe in him.
Thankfully, Darlene Zschech acknowledges this in her book. However, at the same time, it is very dangerous and unhelpful of her to say that our praise and worship (music) brings us into the presence of God. It is particularly dangerous of her to interpret the exhilaration you feel from a wonderful music concert as being "the presence of God". The danger is that a thoroughly disobedient person can have this experience without believing in Jesus at all. Such a person can easily be misled into thinking that the way into God's presence is not through Jesus but through exhilarating music. And if anyone thinks they can come into God's presence without Jesus, they won't be able to worship God at all, let alone extravagantly.
Hillsong United Lyrics-All For Love
Hillsong United Lyrics-All For Love
All for love a Father gave
For only love could make a way
All for love heavens cried
For love was crucified
Oh how many times have I broken Your heart
But still You forgive
If only I ask
And how many times have You heard me pray
Draw near to me
Everything I need is You
My beginning, my forever
Everything I need is You
Let me sing all for love
I will join the angel song
Ever holy is the Lord
King of Glory
King of all
All for a love a Saviour prayed
Abba Father have Your way
Though they know not what they do
Let the Cross draw man to You
All for love a Father gave
For only love could make a way
All for love heavens cried
For love was crucified
Oh how many times have I broken Your heart
But still You forgive
If only I ask
And how many times have You heard me pray
Draw near to me
Everything I need is You
My beginning, my forever
Everything I need is You
Let me sing all for love
I will join the angel song
Ever holy is the Lord
King of Glory
King of all
All for a love a Saviour prayed
Abba Father have Your way
Though they know not what they do
Let the Cross draw man to You
Monday, June 16, 2008
How to win Australian Idol
In some quarters "there are mutterings that Idol contestants connected to large congregations have an advantage in a competition that relies on a popular vote", wrote The Age's Katherine Kizilos last year, noting that 2006 finalist Dean Geyer worshipped at Adelaide's City Church while others -- Guy Mutton (Mutto), Jessica Mauboy and Lavina Williams -- all sang in church. So did finalists from other years: Paulini Curuenavuli and Lavina's sister, Emily.
Christian groups have downplayed the voting influence, saying it's all that training in church choirs that sets their flock in good stead. In other words, talent triumphs. Or perhaps it's all that training in Idol pizazz -- Hillsong Church is a place where "all the nasty, negative bits of Christianity have been removed and we're all winning contestants in a cosmic version of Australian Idol," writes Pinky Beecroft in Manic Times.
Whatever you make of the Hillsong factor, Crikey understands that other denominations have also been pitching for their congregation's 15 minutes. We have word from the dancefloor that Dancing with the Stars winner Kate Ceberano was strongly supported in her ballroom bid by voters in the Scientology community. In fact, we hear there was an organised campaign in finals week by her "people" to rally her other people. Then again, runner-up Fifi Box had the not insignificant weight of Triple M's marketing department behind her.
Of course, it's all conjecture. Voting for reality shows like Australian Idol isn't broken down into religious electorates. In fact, in public view, it's not even broken down into vote numbers.
In 2003, when Idol judge Ian "Dicko" Dickson inadvertently told The SMH that 1.4 million votes had been clocked in a 24-hour voting period for one final show he broke with Ten policy.
How many votes does it take to push someone over the line? Equally hard to know, though it's likely to be in the thousands or tens of thousands. A number not out of reach of large congregations.
If you're looking for the recipe for Idol (or indeed reality TV) success find yourself in a small (but not tiny) community, the more parochial the better.
Bendigo girl and third Idol, Kate DeAraugo, was plagued with rumours that her family bought community votes to get her through. True or not, the small town factor no doubt played its part.
If you can belong to a large church and a medium-sized community -- where most people know your name -- even better. Oh, and some chops wouldn't hurt either.
Christian groups have downplayed the voting influence, saying it's all that training in church choirs that sets their flock in good stead. In other words, talent triumphs. Or perhaps it's all that training in Idol pizazz -- Hillsong Church is a place where "all the nasty, negative bits of Christianity have been removed and we're all winning contestants in a cosmic version of Australian Idol," writes Pinky Beecroft in Manic Times.
Whatever you make of the Hillsong factor, Crikey understands that other denominations have also been pitching for their congregation's 15 minutes. We have word from the dancefloor that Dancing with the Stars winner Kate Ceberano was strongly supported in her ballroom bid by voters in the Scientology community. In fact, we hear there was an organised campaign in finals week by her "people" to rally her other people. Then again, runner-up Fifi Box had the not insignificant weight of Triple M's marketing department behind her.
Of course, it's all conjecture. Voting for reality shows like Australian Idol isn't broken down into religious electorates. In fact, in public view, it's not even broken down into vote numbers.
In 2003, when Idol judge Ian "Dicko" Dickson inadvertently told The SMH that 1.4 million votes had been clocked in a 24-hour voting period for one final show he broke with Ten policy.
How many votes does it take to push someone over the line? Equally hard to know, though it's likely to be in the thousands or tens of thousands. A number not out of reach of large congregations.
If you're looking for the recipe for Idol (or indeed reality TV) success find yourself in a small (but not tiny) community, the more parochial the better.
Bendigo girl and third Idol, Kate DeAraugo, was plagued with rumours that her family bought community votes to get her through. True or not, the small town factor no doubt played its part.
If you can belong to a large church and a medium-sized community -- where most people know your name -- even better. Oh, and some chops wouldn't hurt either.
Hillsong Church, Gloria Jeans linked to abuse claims
YOUNG women suffering mental illness were treated with Bible studies and exorcisms as part of a secretive ministry linked to Gloria Jean's Coffees and the Hillsong Church.
Troubled young women signed over months of their lives to Mercy Ministries, which offered them little or no medical or psychiatric care, the Sydney Morning Herald investigation found.
Three former ministry residents have blown the whistle on the program, claiming they were independent young women when they entered, but came out broken and suicidal, believing - as ministry staff had told them - that they were possessed by demons and that Satan controlled them.
The women have since been forced to undergo years of intense psychological and psychiatric care to overcome their treatment at the ministry.
Membership at the ministry required residents to sign over any Centrelink benefits, and it is believed the group also received a carers payment to look after the women, the Herald reported.
The Mercy Ministries website says the group takes in women aged 16 to 28 and offers them support from "psychologists, general practitioners, dietitians, social workers, (and) career counsellors''.
However, the three residents who have spoken out about the ministry said no professional medical services were provided, and instead the program focused on prayer, Christian counselling and expelling demons from in and around the young women.
"Mercy Ministries staff address the issues that the residents face from a holistic client-focused approach; physical, mental, emotional. The program is voluntary and all aspects are explained comprehensibly to the residents and no force is used,'' ministry executive manager of programs Judy Watson told the Herald.
Mercy Ministries, sponsored by Gloria Jean's and supported by the Hillsong Foundation, says it has a 90 per cent success rate from its programs.
Troubled young women signed over months of their lives to Mercy Ministries, which offered them little or no medical or psychiatric care, the Sydney Morning Herald investigation found.
Three former ministry residents have blown the whistle on the program, claiming they were independent young women when they entered, but came out broken and suicidal, believing - as ministry staff had told them - that they were possessed by demons and that Satan controlled them.
The women have since been forced to undergo years of intense psychological and psychiatric care to overcome their treatment at the ministry.
Membership at the ministry required residents to sign over any Centrelink benefits, and it is believed the group also received a carers payment to look after the women, the Herald reported.
The Mercy Ministries website says the group takes in women aged 16 to 28 and offers them support from "psychologists, general practitioners, dietitians, social workers, (and) career counsellors''.
However, the three residents who have spoken out about the ministry said no professional medical services were provided, and instead the program focused on prayer, Christian counselling and expelling demons from in and around the young women.
"Mercy Ministries staff address the issues that the residents face from a holistic client-focused approach; physical, mental, emotional. The program is voluntary and all aspects are explained comprehensibly to the residents and no force is used,'' ministry executive manager of programs Judy Watson told the Herald.
Mercy Ministries, sponsored by Gloria Jean's and supported by the Hillsong Foundation, says it has a 90 per cent success rate from its programs.
Hillsong United Lyrics-All Day
Hillsong United Lyrics-All Day
Verse 1:
I don't care what they say about me
It's all right, all right
I don't care they think about me
It's all right, they'll get it one day
Pre-Chorus
I love you, I'll follow you
You are my, my life
I will read my Bible and pray
I will follow you all day
Verse 2:
I don't care what it costs anymore
Cos' you gave it all and I'm following you
I don't care what it takes anymore
No matter what happens I'm going your way
Pre-Chorus
Chorus:
All Day
All Day now
All Day
I'll follow You
Verse 1
Pre-Chorus
Chorus
Bridge:
Anyone around can see
Just how good you've been to me
For all my friends that don't know you
I pray that you would save them too
Chorus
Verse 1:
I don't care what they say about me
It's all right, all right
I don't care they think about me
It's all right, they'll get it one day
Pre-Chorus
I love you, I'll follow you
You are my, my life
I will read my Bible and pray
I will follow you all day
Verse 2:
I don't care what it costs anymore
Cos' you gave it all and I'm following you
I don't care what it takes anymore
No matter what happens I'm going your way
Pre-Chorus
Chorus:
All Day
All Day now
All Day
I'll follow You
Verse 1
Pre-Chorus
Chorus
Bridge:
Anyone around can see
Just how good you've been to me
For all my friends that don't know you
I pray that you would save them too
Chorus
Monday, June 9, 2008
God Wears Tsubi at Hillsong
Has anyone seen my Bible? It has a brown leather 'Herringbone' cover with 'Tsubi' stickers all over it." This is the question posed by a good looking, well dressed 20- something male after Sunday nights service at Hillsong Church, in Sydney's Baulkham Hills.
To those aged over 30 this question might seem a little strange.
Are 'Herringbone' and 'Tsubi' holy saints that are adorning this church-goer's Bible? And the simple answer is no. Not even close.
'Herringbone' and 'Tsubi,' as most of the almost 3000 strong crowd gathered at the Hillsong service will be able to tell you, are fashion labels for the fashion conscious.
Tsubi are the designer jeans with celebrity status (and holy price tags of up to $600 per pair) that are wrapped around the toned legs of Sydney's fashionable elite. And similarly a significant number of people here.
While traditional churches may be fighting to survive with dwindling congregations, evangelicals such as Hillsong have struck a chord with the young.
As the numbers who turn up at Baulkham Hills and at Young Street Waterloo can testify Paradise Pentecostal Church is the fastest growing Christian denomination with two-thirds of its congregation under 35. While more than 3000 youngsters attend Hillsong's services every Sunday.
With an 18 strong rock band on stage and Australian Idol winner, Guy Sebastian sitting five metres away, who wouldn't want to come to church? Looking around at the congregation at Hillsong at Baulkham Hills it is impossible not to be struck by the amount of fresh, young faces you see - a stark contrast to the ageing congregations of traditional churches such as the Catholic Church.
So why are these churches attracting such young, hip, and fashion conscious congregations? "These Pentecostal churches are re-packaging of Christianity in accords with consumer capitalism" said Carole Cusack, senior lecturer in religion at Sydney University, said.
"This enables them to embrace fashion, culture and technology and everything in the broader culture and still argue they are religious or spiritual.
"Previously Christianity has been identified with a down-grading of the pleasures of this world in favour of the after-life, holding it to be entirely far superior. This has changed here. The whole set up is different. No longer is it 'Blessed are the poor' but instead it is based on 'God loves the rich."
Chris Murphy, a Catholic priest at Kensington Parish in Sydney's South, attributes the simplicity of churches such as Hillsong in contributing to their popularity.
"They preach a certainty and simplicity that is possibly untrue to the ambiguities of life" he said.
"The youth in their idealism are looking for and can be hanging on to simple answers."
Ms Cusack similarly, quotes philosopher H L Mencken's, 'For every complex question there is a simple answer. And it's wrong.' She sees society as being so complex that most don't truly understand it nor take the time to really try to work it out. She sees the quick fix-solutions offered by the likes of Hillsong as an almost inevitable consequence of our culture.
"People can't be bothered to immerse themselves in the pursuit of knowledge and finding answers and they prefer even idiotic answers" Ms Cusack said.
However young members of the Hillsong congregation, reject Ms Cusack's views.
"We are essentially a bible based religion with all of the same teachings as traditional churches but we are more understanding of what's going on in a young person's world," said 24-year-old Kirsten Grundy.
"This is where I fit. Where I feel comfortable. It's just church done to suit a different type of person.
"I had tried all types of religions. I had been to the Baja temple, the Uniting Church, and the rest but found them all too quiet and constraining. I was louder and more boisterous, when I came here I enjoyed it and kept coming. I felt that this is where I was supposed to be." Ms Grundy came to Hillsong two years ago, ironically, after reading negative press about the controversial church.
"I had gone away on holidays with a boyfriend and had a terrible fight. He couldn't understand my decision to abstain from sex until marriage.
"The next morning I woke up to find an article in the Sydney Morning Herald, a negative article about Hillsong. Through all that negativity I could see that this was a young church that believed in young people and I wanted to go."
Ms Grundy gave up her job managing an exclusive home wares shop in Double Bay six months ago. She now works full time for Hillsong Church as "Creative Design Co-ordinator" looking after the elaborate stage settings at the church's two locations.
"It has been a massive life change, one that my friends outside the church cannot fully understand and it has caused some problems."
One cause for concern amongst her friends, Ms Grundy said was the relatively small amount of pay she received from a church so obviously wealthy.
"Ten per cent of every member's pay goes to the church- it's a biblical principle," she said.
"While I don't make a great deal of money the church would never let me go hungry. I have never worked for love of money anyway.
"We use the churches money in creating a beautiful church for the second coming. It's definitely about building a 'great' church based on God's principles. God is the creator of the world, surely he can have a great church! We shouldn't be limiting God's capability.' Ms Grundy was working extra hard when she talked to Southside News as Hillsong was preparing to host the fourth World Assemblies of God Congress called 'Take the Nation, Shake the World' at its huge Baulkham Hills venue.
The conference ran in May and saw the gathering of church leaders and members from all over the world.
Hillsong numbers have increased so much in fact on a regular weekend that a second service is now held on Sunday night at Baulkham Hills.
"People love coming to church so much that most come twice or more on a weekend. We are just crammed every service, and I would say out of those that come here, about 70 per cent are under 30," said Ms Grundy.
This is a statistic that alarms Dr Vicki Crinis, Lecturer and Australian Historian at Wollongong University.
"This concerns me deeply because this is a time in young people's lives when they should be questioning the conservative ideals that these churches represent. It should be a time of questioning not a time of sameness," she said.
"In the 70s there was the Vietnam War and we saw young people protesting against conscription and rallying for feminism. Young people could engage in activism.
"Today there is a lot of insecurity in the world. Young people feel powerless. This belief in God and the unity they find in these churches empowers them, gives them a kind of activism. It gives them a sense of security and belonging while on the other hand excluding others," Dr Crinis added.
"There is a very anti-gay sentiment amongst these churches and the idea that, like a drug addict they can be saved.
"They feel a kind of strength in numbers in these churches that attracts 'more of the same'. Churches like Hillsong are not really a way of escaping, but a way to have their ideas upheld and supported."
And who better to support your ideas, said Dr Crinis, than those you look up to. The 'cool' rockers on the stage at Hillsong, The Australian Idol in the row next to you, and the trendy people to the side of you.
"It is important to know, however," Ms Cusack said that Hillsong, "is not the first and definitely not the last of its kind. What people don't realise is that there is a high turn over of people.
"Statistically people spend between 18 months and three years at churches such as these," she said.
She said, people come to these churches in their youth and then move away as they get older.
When asked if Ms Grundy's own mother attended Hillsong too, she said.
"No, definitely not, she said she can't stand the loud music!"
To those aged over 30 this question might seem a little strange.
Are 'Herringbone' and 'Tsubi' holy saints that are adorning this church-goer's Bible? And the simple answer is no. Not even close.
'Herringbone' and 'Tsubi,' as most of the almost 3000 strong crowd gathered at the Hillsong service will be able to tell you, are fashion labels for the fashion conscious.
Tsubi are the designer jeans with celebrity status (and holy price tags of up to $600 per pair) that are wrapped around the toned legs of Sydney's fashionable elite. And similarly a significant number of people here.
While traditional churches may be fighting to survive with dwindling congregations, evangelicals such as Hillsong have struck a chord with the young.
As the numbers who turn up at Baulkham Hills and at Young Street Waterloo can testify Paradise Pentecostal Church is the fastest growing Christian denomination with two-thirds of its congregation under 35. While more than 3000 youngsters attend Hillsong's services every Sunday.
With an 18 strong rock band on stage and Australian Idol winner, Guy Sebastian sitting five metres away, who wouldn't want to come to church? Looking around at the congregation at Hillsong at Baulkham Hills it is impossible not to be struck by the amount of fresh, young faces you see - a stark contrast to the ageing congregations of traditional churches such as the Catholic Church.
So why are these churches attracting such young, hip, and fashion conscious congregations? "These Pentecostal churches are re-packaging of Christianity in accords with consumer capitalism" said Carole Cusack, senior lecturer in religion at Sydney University, said.
"This enables them to embrace fashion, culture and technology and everything in the broader culture and still argue they are religious or spiritual.
"Previously Christianity has been identified with a down-grading of the pleasures of this world in favour of the after-life, holding it to be entirely far superior. This has changed here. The whole set up is different. No longer is it 'Blessed are the poor' but instead it is based on 'God loves the rich."
Chris Murphy, a Catholic priest at Kensington Parish in Sydney's South, attributes the simplicity of churches such as Hillsong in contributing to their popularity.
"They preach a certainty and simplicity that is possibly untrue to the ambiguities of life" he said.
"The youth in their idealism are looking for and can be hanging on to simple answers."
Ms Cusack similarly, quotes philosopher H L Mencken's, 'For every complex question there is a simple answer. And it's wrong.' She sees society as being so complex that most don't truly understand it nor take the time to really try to work it out. She sees the quick fix-solutions offered by the likes of Hillsong as an almost inevitable consequence of our culture.
"People can't be bothered to immerse themselves in the pursuit of knowledge and finding answers and they prefer even idiotic answers" Ms Cusack said.
However young members of the Hillsong congregation, reject Ms Cusack's views.
"We are essentially a bible based religion with all of the same teachings as traditional churches but we are more understanding of what's going on in a young person's world," said 24-year-old Kirsten Grundy.
"This is where I fit. Where I feel comfortable. It's just church done to suit a different type of person.
"I had tried all types of religions. I had been to the Baja temple, the Uniting Church, and the rest but found them all too quiet and constraining. I was louder and more boisterous, when I came here I enjoyed it and kept coming. I felt that this is where I was supposed to be." Ms Grundy came to Hillsong two years ago, ironically, after reading negative press about the controversial church.
"I had gone away on holidays with a boyfriend and had a terrible fight. He couldn't understand my decision to abstain from sex until marriage.
"The next morning I woke up to find an article in the Sydney Morning Herald, a negative article about Hillsong. Through all that negativity I could see that this was a young church that believed in young people and I wanted to go."
Ms Grundy gave up her job managing an exclusive home wares shop in Double Bay six months ago. She now works full time for Hillsong Church as "Creative Design Co-ordinator" looking after the elaborate stage settings at the church's two locations.
"It has been a massive life change, one that my friends outside the church cannot fully understand and it has caused some problems."
One cause for concern amongst her friends, Ms Grundy said was the relatively small amount of pay she received from a church so obviously wealthy.
"Ten per cent of every member's pay goes to the church- it's a biblical principle," she said.
"While I don't make a great deal of money the church would never let me go hungry. I have never worked for love of money anyway.
"We use the churches money in creating a beautiful church for the second coming. It's definitely about building a 'great' church based on God's principles. God is the creator of the world, surely he can have a great church! We shouldn't be limiting God's capability.' Ms Grundy was working extra hard when she talked to Southside News as Hillsong was preparing to host the fourth World Assemblies of God Congress called 'Take the Nation, Shake the World' at its huge Baulkham Hills venue.
The conference ran in May and saw the gathering of church leaders and members from all over the world.
Hillsong numbers have increased so much in fact on a regular weekend that a second service is now held on Sunday night at Baulkham Hills.
"People love coming to church so much that most come twice or more on a weekend. We are just crammed every service, and I would say out of those that come here, about 70 per cent are under 30," said Ms Grundy.
This is a statistic that alarms Dr Vicki Crinis, Lecturer and Australian Historian at Wollongong University.
"This concerns me deeply because this is a time in young people's lives when they should be questioning the conservative ideals that these churches represent. It should be a time of questioning not a time of sameness," she said.
"In the 70s there was the Vietnam War and we saw young people protesting against conscription and rallying for feminism. Young people could engage in activism.
"Today there is a lot of insecurity in the world. Young people feel powerless. This belief in God and the unity they find in these churches empowers them, gives them a kind of activism. It gives them a sense of security and belonging while on the other hand excluding others," Dr Crinis added.
"There is a very anti-gay sentiment amongst these churches and the idea that, like a drug addict they can be saved.
"They feel a kind of strength in numbers in these churches that attracts 'more of the same'. Churches like Hillsong are not really a way of escaping, but a way to have their ideas upheld and supported."
And who better to support your ideas, said Dr Crinis, than those you look up to. The 'cool' rockers on the stage at Hillsong, The Australian Idol in the row next to you, and the trendy people to the side of you.
"It is important to know, however," Ms Cusack said that Hillsong, "is not the first and definitely not the last of its kind. What people don't realise is that there is a high turn over of people.
"Statistically people spend between 18 months and three years at churches such as these," she said.
She said, people come to these churches in their youth and then move away as they get older.
When asked if Ms Grundy's own mother attended Hillsong too, she said.
"No, definitely not, she said she can't stand the loud music!"
The lord's profits
A sexy young Christian, a walkie-talkie clipped to her hipsters, greets us on our walk from the car park. "Hiya, howya doin'?" she says, with a flick of her mane and a smile. "Welcome to God's house - what an awesome day!" She points us in the direction of God's pad, a massive Olympic-style stadium up on the hill, and returns to conducting traffic with a fluoro stick.
All around, beaming young folk (and they are mainly young) are decked out in their coolest threads - no Amish-skirted Christians here. Hundreds walk with us, and beneath the awnings and in the foyer of the building - all tubular steel and glass - thousands are milling excitedly. By the end of the weekend, almost 12,000 people will have made this walk. Once inside, the first thing the faithful strike is not a crucifix or stained-glass window (the building is devoid of Christian symbolism), but a vast bookshop, of sleek frosted glass and wood, where dozens wait by the till for books and tapes and CDs - or, as they like to call them here at Hillsong Church, "Christian resources" - from around the world. Most prominent, and with almost half the shop to themselves, are the titles by Brian Houston and his wife Bobbie, Hillsong's senior pastors.
As 6pm approaches, the crowd spills into the church, a massive 3500-seat auditorium in Sydney's Baulkham Hills. Australia's newest, wealthiest and largest single church, it holds almost twice as many people as that city's St Mary's Cathedral, its closest competitor (which has total weekend attendances of fewer than 2000). They are crowds no one can afford to ignore and, the day after he returned from visiting the scene of the Bali bombings in October, Prime Minister Howard put aside his war on terror to open this house of worship.
Today a 12-piece band with five back-up singers and a choir of 50-odd youngsters literally bounce into action. Behind them, three massive screens hang from the walls - the middle one morphs through different shades of red and blue, only the message, "Glory to God", remaining constant. The momentum builds with the tempo of the band as the packed stadium sings along to the words flashed up on the screens, swaying in a one-armed, open-palm salute to the band, to the Lord.
After 20 minutes, the warm-up pastor takes to the stage, chiming in with the band - "Come on, church, you can groove" - and then segues into his spiel. Our God, he says,
is a God who delivers miracles, a totally awesome God. He rattles off stories, true stories, from this very congregation, of cancers cured, of cripples healed, of sinners saved. Why, the Lord even saw his way to finding $4000 for one student to pay his fees at the Hillsong Bible college. The congregation hoot and clap; a young fellow beside me has his eyes closed and as each miracle is proclaimed he shouts, "Amen, man. Awesome."
But you, too, should honour the Lord, the pastor tells his flock, and He will deliver these miracles, because the Bible says so, right here in Proverbs, chapter 3, which says that "if you honour the Lord with your possessions, and with the fruits of your increase, your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will overflow with new wine". He makes the point numerous times, lets it sink in, then informs the throng that credit card facilities are available, and cheques should be made out to Hillsong. "Amen," shouts the pastor, thumping the air with his fists. "Amen, let's pass those buckets along."
And the faithful oblige - last year they filled the Hillsong buckets to the tune of $10 million. The church's music arm also bought in a tidy tax-free $8 million, and one of its albums, Blessed, debuted at No4 in the pop charts, above Shakira, and stayed there for weeks. Hillsong has bought into medical centres. Its Bible college has close to 1700 full- and part-time students, some paying annual fees of more than $4000. It has a staff of almost 200, including 70 pastors. It has built a state-of-the-art conference centre-cum-church worth $25 million. No fewer than five television cameras are mounted in the auditorium; the services are recorded and then televised in more than 80 countries.
Let's not be coy, Hillsong is not a church that is afraid of money - its spiritual leader, Brian Houston, is also the author of You Need More Money: Discovering God's Amazing Financial Plan for Your Life. Is that what makes this the seemingly fastest-growing Christian church in Australia? The census reveals that while millions identify as Catholic, Anglican or other Protestant denominations, few of them actually go to church. There are, for example, 3.9 million Anglicans, but only 180,000 attend church. (The Anglicans are like South Sydney rugby league club supporters - plenty of guernseys, but hardly any go to the games.) The Catholics are way out in front with 875,000 attendees from their 4.7 million flock. But with almost 200,000 people attending Pentecostal services each weekend around the country, they have nudged ahead of the Anglicans. The Pentecostals have a truancy rate of almost nil. What brand of God are they selling that sees the Almighty walking off the shelves, when the traditional churches struggle to give Him away?
Brian Houston, 48, saunters over to greet me, a tall, tanned man with a deep, radio man's drawl, and a silver and gold Breitling watch shimmering on his wrist. The pastor drives, among other vehicles, a Harley-Davidson Fatboy that a friend from overseas gave him. After emigrating from New Zealand, he and his wife, Bobbie, started this church in Baulkham Hills almost 20 years ago, preaching to a couple of dozen people in a hired school hall. Brian's father, Frank, had already set up a similar fundamentalist Pentecostal church (which has since joined with Hillsong) in the inner-Sydney suburb of Waterloo. Brian grew up with the church, while Bobbie got saved and "met Jesus" at the Auckland Town Hall at the age of 15. The couple met at church camp when Bobbie bought Brian an ice-cream ("He was the first boy I ever kissed," says Bobbie with a girlish giggle. "Can you believe I'm telling you this?"), were married when Bobbie was 19 and are now Hillsong's senior pastors.
They work out regularly and look like an advertiser's dream couple. Bobbie, 45, is blonde, busty and beautiful, and speaks in an airy, suburban earth-mother tone - part Phoebe from Friends, part Kath & Kim.
When asked to explain their roles in the church, Bobbie says pleasantly: "We are seen as one entity but obviously our roles will differ in that we kinda, we are united in this together so we are not afraid of that, yeah, so, so, we are not a kingdom divided against ourselves. So, we are yoked together in this, I mean, they are biblical words, we are yoked together, obviously his roles, I defer to him, I respect his role. Do you know what I mean?"
Brian and I leave Bobbie and go for a drive.
So why does he think the church has been so successful? "I think the biggest issue is relevance, I really do," he says, as we tour around the bland suburbs - row upon row of enormous, identical houses - of the Hills District, which surrounds his church. "We are scratching people where they are itching." This is the nearest thing Australia has to a Bible belt. Houston says that when he and Bobbie set out to build a church, he wanted to build one that he and his family would want to attend, with good music, good sermons and a positive message.
So, at Hillsong services, the music is modern and uplifting and the presentation theatrical. The show stopper is the communal baptism, held every few weeks. The giant stage rolls back and beneath is a baptismal pool. The faithful line up at the side to be dunked, fully clothed, while the onlookers cheer and clap.
Then, there's the message, which is simple and alluring. It says that if you embrace this brand of God you will be rewarded financially and spiritually in this life, as well as the next. It is religion for our material age. And there, as an example of what is possible, is the handsome, charismatic pastor, his bubbly wife and their three beautiful kids (Joel, 23, the oldest, is lead singer in the Hillsong rock band). All this comes with Brian's guarantee - from More Money - that "anyone who puts the Kingdom of God first (rich or poor) can expect bible economics to work in their life NOW".
Many of the young people I meet at the services volunteer their stories of financial success since joining Hillsong. "I was living in a housing commission house, working in a factory job and struggling to pay my bills," says Brian Griffiths, aged in his early twenties and still sweating from dancing in the bleachers. "Since I started coming [in 1999], great things have happened." He got a job selling insurance over the phone, with someone he met through the church. "God made me meet him." He is more than happy to give
10 per cent of his wage back, as most are. "Granted, many people have a life that's going great without God, yet I think that God probably had a whole lot more in mind for them."
"If you believe in Jesus," Houston tells me, "He will reward you here [on earth] as well [as in Heaven]." It is this prosperity gospel teaching that puts him at odds with people like the Reverend Tim Costello, the former head of the Baptist Union of Australia.
"The quickest way to degrade the gospel," says Costello, "is to link it with money and the pursuit of money. It is the total opposite of what Jesus preached. These people have learnt nothing from the mistakes made by the American televangelists."
Not so, says Houston. When Jesus said it was harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, he didn't mean rich Christians, because all you need is "God as your foremost priority. Jesus talks constantly of people's attitude to money but he never talks against money."
Costello, says Houston, "likes what we do generally" but has a problem with Hillsong's success. He, like those from some of the more traditional churches, is simply jealous of it, Houston tells me. "The irony is, Tim Costello is a pretty successful guy himself. The big difference between us is that I like to teach other people to be successful and not just enjoy the success myself."
Hillsong, he says, has moved with the times, while the old churches are stuck in the 19th century. "What good is a vow of poverty?" he asks. "A person who has more is able to help more. That's what we are all about, giving people a handout." The multi-million-dollar church's charitable arm, Hillsong Emerge, according to ASIC documents, has an annual budget of just a little over $400,000.
That's not to say that Houston's views on some other matters aren't conservative. He believes in speaking in tongues. He would like to see creationism taught in schools and abortion banned. Homosexuals are, of course, unwelcome, but Houston says he's not a Fred Nile-type fanatic on these matters. Picketing outside abortion clinics achieves little; a more pro-active approach is to help teenage girls through their pregnancies. The church partly funds a hostel, Mercy Ministries, for young pregnant women and other troubled girls (there's another for troubled boys at Bankstown) who can live there free for a year, on the proviso that they attend church. Another of the Hillsong Emerge projects, Young and Gorgeous, sees young Emerge women going into schools to teach 12- and
13-year-old girls about skin care and make-up, to help them learn, an Emerge woman told me, "that each and every one of them is unique and precious". Houston takes me for a drive past the youth hostel, in a bush setting near his church, and then on to a medical centre the church has bought in Baulkham Hills (they own another at Blacktown). It is all part of healing people "body, mind and spirit", he says, explaining the Hillsong approach.
The medical centres are small, but with plans for expansion. And while they may be helping the converted, they're also causing ripples among those outside Hillsong. Local doctors are angry that they will have to compete against a business that is exempt from all the normal business taxes - such as payroll tax - just because it is a religious organisation.
It is a matter the AMA intends to scrutinise.
Max Wallace, a sociologist at the Australian National University, is writing a book,
The Purple Economy, about the tax-free godsend enjoyed by the Australian churches. He says that while the traditional churches are "immensely wealthy", Australians had better get used to the "astronomical wealth growth"
of young, corporate churches such as Hillsong, which haven't the burden of maintaining ageing churches and small congregations (some don't even have the burden of charity). New churches are also moving into a host of new business ventures that have nothing
to do with religion - turf farms, fruit juice manufacturing, furniture making - often sending their competitors broke along the way.
Tim Costello wants to know how much of the Hillsong wealth is going to Brian and Bobbie. "The churches have an enormously privileged position in society - not only do they not pay tax, but they are exempt from many of the fringe benefit rules as well. As a result, they need to be open and fully accountable. Anyone can walk into my church and find out exactly how much I earn, what car I drive, whatever, including any other associated monies I might earn from being a minister. I would like to ask the same of Hillsong."
So I do. Brian Houston's open, good-guy demeanour disappears. No, he will not tell me what he or Bobbie earns. "All you guys [the media] want to know about is the money,"
he says. "You don't want to know about the church." Well, it's a bit like walking into Rose Hancock's house and not noticing the chandeliers - the money at Hillsong just leaps out at you.
Houston says that while he draws a wage, he donates it back to the church. "I want to make it clear that I cost this church nothing, I want that on the record." He earns some of his money, he says, as a property developer, "being a silent partner with a couple of guys from the church in building developments", but he gets "the vast majority" of his money from overseas speaking engagements at other charismatic churches. He and Bobbie also get the royalties from those "Christian resources" out the front of the church.
Phillip Powell, a Pentecostal preacher and a former general secretary of the Assemblies
of God (the umbrella group of which Houston is now president), says Houston's overseas speaking engagements are at churches whose own senior pastors are "on the circuit". Powell, who has set up a "watchdog ministry", Christian Witness Ministries, in part to monitor Hillsong, says, "They get paid huge amounts of money to speak at each other's churches. The money goes to Brian, but his profile comes from Hillsong." It is a bit like the Pope charging for speaking engagements, and then keeping the cash. (Houston says Powell's sentiments are "pitiful comments from a pitiful man who knows nothing of Hillsong or of me".)
The Hillsong church structure is tightly controlled. The general manager, Brian Aghajanian (also an elder), says the elders are nominated "by Brian or the other elders". No elections? "No, we feel that people might stand who don't have a great understanding of the way the church works or have the same vision we have for the church," Aghajanian says.
All around, beaming young folk (and they are mainly young) are decked out in their coolest threads - no Amish-skirted Christians here. Hundreds walk with us, and beneath the awnings and in the foyer of the building - all tubular steel and glass - thousands are milling excitedly. By the end of the weekend, almost 12,000 people will have made this walk. Once inside, the first thing the faithful strike is not a crucifix or stained-glass window (the building is devoid of Christian symbolism), but a vast bookshop, of sleek frosted glass and wood, where dozens wait by the till for books and tapes and CDs - or, as they like to call them here at Hillsong Church, "Christian resources" - from around the world. Most prominent, and with almost half the shop to themselves, are the titles by Brian Houston and his wife Bobbie, Hillsong's senior pastors.
As 6pm approaches, the crowd spills into the church, a massive 3500-seat auditorium in Sydney's Baulkham Hills. Australia's newest, wealthiest and largest single church, it holds almost twice as many people as that city's St Mary's Cathedral, its closest competitor (which has total weekend attendances of fewer than 2000). They are crowds no one can afford to ignore and, the day after he returned from visiting the scene of the Bali bombings in October, Prime Minister Howard put aside his war on terror to open this house of worship.
Today a 12-piece band with five back-up singers and a choir of 50-odd youngsters literally bounce into action. Behind them, three massive screens hang from the walls - the middle one morphs through different shades of red and blue, only the message, "Glory to God", remaining constant. The momentum builds with the tempo of the band as the packed stadium sings along to the words flashed up on the screens, swaying in a one-armed, open-palm salute to the band, to the Lord.
After 20 minutes, the warm-up pastor takes to the stage, chiming in with the band - "Come on, church, you can groove" - and then segues into his spiel. Our God, he says,
is a God who delivers miracles, a totally awesome God. He rattles off stories, true stories, from this very congregation, of cancers cured, of cripples healed, of sinners saved. Why, the Lord even saw his way to finding $4000 for one student to pay his fees at the Hillsong Bible college. The congregation hoot and clap; a young fellow beside me has his eyes closed and as each miracle is proclaimed he shouts, "Amen, man. Awesome."
But you, too, should honour the Lord, the pastor tells his flock, and He will deliver these miracles, because the Bible says so, right here in Proverbs, chapter 3, which says that "if you honour the Lord with your possessions, and with the fruits of your increase, your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will overflow with new wine". He makes the point numerous times, lets it sink in, then informs the throng that credit card facilities are available, and cheques should be made out to Hillsong. "Amen," shouts the pastor, thumping the air with his fists. "Amen, let's pass those buckets along."
And the faithful oblige - last year they filled the Hillsong buckets to the tune of $10 million. The church's music arm also bought in a tidy tax-free $8 million, and one of its albums, Blessed, debuted at No4 in the pop charts, above Shakira, and stayed there for weeks. Hillsong has bought into medical centres. Its Bible college has close to 1700 full- and part-time students, some paying annual fees of more than $4000. It has a staff of almost 200, including 70 pastors. It has built a state-of-the-art conference centre-cum-church worth $25 million. No fewer than five television cameras are mounted in the auditorium; the services are recorded and then televised in more than 80 countries.
Let's not be coy, Hillsong is not a church that is afraid of money - its spiritual leader, Brian Houston, is also the author of You Need More Money: Discovering God's Amazing Financial Plan for Your Life. Is that what makes this the seemingly fastest-growing Christian church in Australia? The census reveals that while millions identify as Catholic, Anglican or other Protestant denominations, few of them actually go to church. There are, for example, 3.9 million Anglicans, but only 180,000 attend church. (The Anglicans are like South Sydney rugby league club supporters - plenty of guernseys, but hardly any go to the games.) The Catholics are way out in front with 875,000 attendees from their 4.7 million flock. But with almost 200,000 people attending Pentecostal services each weekend around the country, they have nudged ahead of the Anglicans. The Pentecostals have a truancy rate of almost nil. What brand of God are they selling that sees the Almighty walking off the shelves, when the traditional churches struggle to give Him away?
Brian Houston, 48, saunters over to greet me, a tall, tanned man with a deep, radio man's drawl, and a silver and gold Breitling watch shimmering on his wrist. The pastor drives, among other vehicles, a Harley-Davidson Fatboy that a friend from overseas gave him. After emigrating from New Zealand, he and his wife, Bobbie, started this church in Baulkham Hills almost 20 years ago, preaching to a couple of dozen people in a hired school hall. Brian's father, Frank, had already set up a similar fundamentalist Pentecostal church (which has since joined with Hillsong) in the inner-Sydney suburb of Waterloo. Brian grew up with the church, while Bobbie got saved and "met Jesus" at the Auckland Town Hall at the age of 15. The couple met at church camp when Bobbie bought Brian an ice-cream ("He was the first boy I ever kissed," says Bobbie with a girlish giggle. "Can you believe I'm telling you this?"), were married when Bobbie was 19 and are now Hillsong's senior pastors.
They work out regularly and look like an advertiser's dream couple. Bobbie, 45, is blonde, busty and beautiful, and speaks in an airy, suburban earth-mother tone - part Phoebe from Friends, part Kath & Kim.
When asked to explain their roles in the church, Bobbie says pleasantly: "We are seen as one entity but obviously our roles will differ in that we kinda, we are united in this together so we are not afraid of that, yeah, so, so, we are not a kingdom divided against ourselves. So, we are yoked together in this, I mean, they are biblical words, we are yoked together, obviously his roles, I defer to him, I respect his role. Do you know what I mean?"
Brian and I leave Bobbie and go for a drive.
So why does he think the church has been so successful? "I think the biggest issue is relevance, I really do," he says, as we tour around the bland suburbs - row upon row of enormous, identical houses - of the Hills District, which surrounds his church. "We are scratching people where they are itching." This is the nearest thing Australia has to a Bible belt. Houston says that when he and Bobbie set out to build a church, he wanted to build one that he and his family would want to attend, with good music, good sermons and a positive message.
So, at Hillsong services, the music is modern and uplifting and the presentation theatrical. The show stopper is the communal baptism, held every few weeks. The giant stage rolls back and beneath is a baptismal pool. The faithful line up at the side to be dunked, fully clothed, while the onlookers cheer and clap.
Then, there's the message, which is simple and alluring. It says that if you embrace this brand of God you will be rewarded financially and spiritually in this life, as well as the next. It is religion for our material age. And there, as an example of what is possible, is the handsome, charismatic pastor, his bubbly wife and their three beautiful kids (Joel, 23, the oldest, is lead singer in the Hillsong rock band). All this comes with Brian's guarantee - from More Money - that "anyone who puts the Kingdom of God first (rich or poor) can expect bible economics to work in their life NOW".
Many of the young people I meet at the services volunteer their stories of financial success since joining Hillsong. "I was living in a housing commission house, working in a factory job and struggling to pay my bills," says Brian Griffiths, aged in his early twenties and still sweating from dancing in the bleachers. "Since I started coming [in 1999], great things have happened." He got a job selling insurance over the phone, with someone he met through the church. "God made me meet him." He is more than happy to give
10 per cent of his wage back, as most are. "Granted, many people have a life that's going great without God, yet I think that God probably had a whole lot more in mind for them."
"If you believe in Jesus," Houston tells me, "He will reward you here [on earth] as well [as in Heaven]." It is this prosperity gospel teaching that puts him at odds with people like the Reverend Tim Costello, the former head of the Baptist Union of Australia.
"The quickest way to degrade the gospel," says Costello, "is to link it with money and the pursuit of money. It is the total opposite of what Jesus preached. These people have learnt nothing from the mistakes made by the American televangelists."
Not so, says Houston. When Jesus said it was harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, he didn't mean rich Christians, because all you need is "God as your foremost priority. Jesus talks constantly of people's attitude to money but he never talks against money."
Costello, says Houston, "likes what we do generally" but has a problem with Hillsong's success. He, like those from some of the more traditional churches, is simply jealous of it, Houston tells me. "The irony is, Tim Costello is a pretty successful guy himself. The big difference between us is that I like to teach other people to be successful and not just enjoy the success myself."
Hillsong, he says, has moved with the times, while the old churches are stuck in the 19th century. "What good is a vow of poverty?" he asks. "A person who has more is able to help more. That's what we are all about, giving people a handout." The multi-million-dollar church's charitable arm, Hillsong Emerge, according to ASIC documents, has an annual budget of just a little over $400,000.
That's not to say that Houston's views on some other matters aren't conservative. He believes in speaking in tongues. He would like to see creationism taught in schools and abortion banned. Homosexuals are, of course, unwelcome, but Houston says he's not a Fred Nile-type fanatic on these matters. Picketing outside abortion clinics achieves little; a more pro-active approach is to help teenage girls through their pregnancies. The church partly funds a hostel, Mercy Ministries, for young pregnant women and other troubled girls (there's another for troubled boys at Bankstown) who can live there free for a year, on the proviso that they attend church. Another of the Hillsong Emerge projects, Young and Gorgeous, sees young Emerge women going into schools to teach 12- and
13-year-old girls about skin care and make-up, to help them learn, an Emerge woman told me, "that each and every one of them is unique and precious". Houston takes me for a drive past the youth hostel, in a bush setting near his church, and then on to a medical centre the church has bought in Baulkham Hills (they own another at Blacktown). It is all part of healing people "body, mind and spirit", he says, explaining the Hillsong approach.
The medical centres are small, but with plans for expansion. And while they may be helping the converted, they're also causing ripples among those outside Hillsong. Local doctors are angry that they will have to compete against a business that is exempt from all the normal business taxes - such as payroll tax - just because it is a religious organisation.
It is a matter the AMA intends to scrutinise.
Max Wallace, a sociologist at the Australian National University, is writing a book,
The Purple Economy, about the tax-free godsend enjoyed by the Australian churches. He says that while the traditional churches are "immensely wealthy", Australians had better get used to the "astronomical wealth growth"
of young, corporate churches such as Hillsong, which haven't the burden of maintaining ageing churches and small congregations (some don't even have the burden of charity). New churches are also moving into a host of new business ventures that have nothing
to do with religion - turf farms, fruit juice manufacturing, furniture making - often sending their competitors broke along the way.
Tim Costello wants to know how much of the Hillsong wealth is going to Brian and Bobbie. "The churches have an enormously privileged position in society - not only do they not pay tax, but they are exempt from many of the fringe benefit rules as well. As a result, they need to be open and fully accountable. Anyone can walk into my church and find out exactly how much I earn, what car I drive, whatever, including any other associated monies I might earn from being a minister. I would like to ask the same of Hillsong."
So I do. Brian Houston's open, good-guy demeanour disappears. No, he will not tell me what he or Bobbie earns. "All you guys [the media] want to know about is the money,"
he says. "You don't want to know about the church." Well, it's a bit like walking into Rose Hancock's house and not noticing the chandeliers - the money at Hillsong just leaps out at you.
Houston says that while he draws a wage, he donates it back to the church. "I want to make it clear that I cost this church nothing, I want that on the record." He earns some of his money, he says, as a property developer, "being a silent partner with a couple of guys from the church in building developments", but he gets "the vast majority" of his money from overseas speaking engagements at other charismatic churches. He and Bobbie also get the royalties from those "Christian resources" out the front of the church.
Phillip Powell, a Pentecostal preacher and a former general secretary of the Assemblies
of God (the umbrella group of which Houston is now president), says Houston's overseas speaking engagements are at churches whose own senior pastors are "on the circuit". Powell, who has set up a "watchdog ministry", Christian Witness Ministries, in part to monitor Hillsong, says, "They get paid huge amounts of money to speak at each other's churches. The money goes to Brian, but his profile comes from Hillsong." It is a bit like the Pope charging for speaking engagements, and then keeping the cash. (Houston says Powell's sentiments are "pitiful comments from a pitiful man who knows nothing of Hillsong or of me".)
The Hillsong church structure is tightly controlled. The general manager, Brian Aghajanian (also an elder), says the elders are nominated "by Brian or the other elders". No elections? "No, we feel that people might stand who don't have a great understanding of the way the church works or have the same vision we have for the church," Aghajanian says.
Hillsong United Lyrics-All About You
Hillsong United Lyrics-All About You
Hear our praises,
Hear Your people sing
Hear our hearts cry,
Your love is everything
And all will hear this sound
As the nations turn to You
And this will be our anthem
Cause we're all about You
And the world You promised
And all we have will give you praise
Cause we're all about You
And the world can't stop us
Living Your Way
Always
Let our hearts break,
As we praise your name
Let the earth shake,
This is the sound of faith
And all will hear this sound
As the nations turn to You
And this will be our anthem
Cause we're all about You
And the world You promised
And all we have will give you praise
Cause we're all about You
And the world can't stop us
Living Your Way
Always
And the walls will fall down
and religion will break
And the nations will hear this shout
Can you hear the sound of faith?
Cause we're all about You
Cause we're all about You
(4x)
Cause we're all about You
And the world You promised
And all we have will give you praise
Cause we're all about You
And the world can't stop us
Living Your Way
Always
Cause we're all about You
Cause we're all about You
(4x)
And all the walls are falling down
As all the nations praise
And all the world will hear this shout
Can you hear the sound of faith?
(2x)
Hear our praises,
Hear Your people sing
Hear our hearts cry,
Your love is everything
And all will hear this sound
As the nations turn to You
And this will be our anthem
Cause we're all about You
And the world You promised
And all we have will give you praise
Cause we're all about You
And the world can't stop us
Living Your Way
Always
Let our hearts break,
As we praise your name
Let the earth shake,
This is the sound of faith
And all will hear this sound
As the nations turn to You
And this will be our anthem
Cause we're all about You
And the world You promised
And all we have will give you praise
Cause we're all about You
And the world can't stop us
Living Your Way
Always
And the walls will fall down
and religion will break
And the nations will hear this shout
Can you hear the sound of faith?
Cause we're all about You
Cause we're all about You
(4x)
Cause we're all about You
And the world You promised
And all we have will give you praise
Cause we're all about You
And the world can't stop us
Living Your Way
Always
Cause we're all about You
Cause we're all about You
(4x)
And all the walls are falling down
As all the nations praise
And all the world will hear this shout
Can you hear the sound of faith?
(2x)
Monday, June 2, 2008
The I Heart Revolution: With Hearts as One
After years of relative obscurity in the worship genre, Hillsong United suddenly has become one of the biggest worship bands on the planet—and they're clearly striking while the iron is hot. Just less than a year after the release of their studio project All of the Above, United is already back with another live album … and yet something more.
The I Heart Revolution: With Hearts as One marks the start of a new social justice initiative by United, followed by a DVD release in June, and the launch of a new online community in July. This double disc set is the culmination of 2 years of concerts from all around the world, representing 6 continents. Not that you'd notice from track to track. Aside from singing "Fire Falls Down" in Spanish, the recording is edited so seamlessly, it may as well be a single worship service—and maybe that's the point.
United also dutifully juggles between each of their albums from the last 5 years, in essence assembling a best-of collection. With over 150 minutes of music, it feels like every United song is included, or at least the best-known rockers ("Tell the World," "Take It All," "What the World Will Never Take"), ballads ("Take All of Me," "There Is Nothing Like," Hosanna"), and anthems ("Shout Unto God," "The Stand"), though I'm surprised "Lead Me to the Cross" was omitted. Thus, there's really nothing new here beyond the recordings themselves, but the album is better sequenced than previous live projects, avoiding overly monotonous pacing by freely alternating between fast and slow songs.
The production values are better too, with United never sounding more beefed up and exciting than this. The lively singing from the crowds adds to the energy, though sometimes it's unintelligible when the lead vocals drop out to capture the crowds' singing. I also wish there was more to United's worship leading here, which often relies on cheesy shout-outs like "Anybody here love Jesus?"
Can an album like this really inspire worldwide social change? And do fans really need to buy alternate versions of songs they already have to do so? Answer those questions for yourself, but With Hearts as One shows this band doing what they do best, leading thousands of worshipers in singing their hearts out to the Lord. It can be an exhausting listening experience, for sure, but the album is nonetheless well-made, proving United to be not just another worship band, but a world-renowned phenomenon.
The I Heart Revolution: With Hearts as One marks the start of a new social justice initiative by United, followed by a DVD release in June, and the launch of a new online community in July. This double disc set is the culmination of 2 years of concerts from all around the world, representing 6 continents. Not that you'd notice from track to track. Aside from singing "Fire Falls Down" in Spanish, the recording is edited so seamlessly, it may as well be a single worship service—and maybe that's the point.
United also dutifully juggles between each of their albums from the last 5 years, in essence assembling a best-of collection. With over 150 minutes of music, it feels like every United song is included, or at least the best-known rockers ("Tell the World," "Take It All," "What the World Will Never Take"), ballads ("Take All of Me," "There Is Nothing Like," Hosanna"), and anthems ("Shout Unto God," "The Stand"), though I'm surprised "Lead Me to the Cross" was omitted. Thus, there's really nothing new here beyond the recordings themselves, but the album is better sequenced than previous live projects, avoiding overly monotonous pacing by freely alternating between fast and slow songs.
The production values are better too, with United never sounding more beefed up and exciting than this. The lively singing from the crowds adds to the energy, though sometimes it's unintelligible when the lead vocals drop out to capture the crowds' singing. I also wish there was more to United's worship leading here, which often relies on cheesy shout-outs like "Anybody here love Jesus?"
Can an album like this really inspire worldwide social change? And do fans really need to buy alternate versions of songs they already have to do so? Answer those questions for yourself, but With Hearts as One shows this band doing what they do best, leading thousands of worshipers in singing their hearts out to the Lord. It can be an exhausting listening experience, for sure, but the album is nonetheless well-made, proving United to be not just another worship band, but a world-renowned phenomenon.
Hillsong United Lyrics-All...
Hillsong United Lyrics-All...
Verse 1:
You're the one who gives me shelter...
And you're the light that leads me home
You're the love that gave forever...
Lord you're all that I know
Chorus:
And all that I am... unto you I surrender...
Lord there is none like you
And I know that I stand... in the arms of forever...
Lord there is none like you
There is none like you
Verse 2:
With the world upon your shoulders...
Lord you gave your life away
If the world I know was over...
I know I'd have life in the price You paid
Bridge:
And I will stand...and I will worship You forever... for all You are
And I will stand...and all to you I will surrender... I'll worship you forever
Verse 1:
You're the one who gives me shelter...
And you're the light that leads me home
You're the love that gave forever...
Lord you're all that I know
Chorus:
And all that I am... unto you I surrender...
Lord there is none like you
And I know that I stand... in the arms of forever...
Lord there is none like you
There is none like you
Verse 2:
With the world upon your shoulders...
Lord you gave your life away
If the world I know was over...
I know I'd have life in the price You paid
Bridge:
And I will stand...and I will worship You forever... for all You are
And I will stand...and all to you I will surrender... I'll worship you forever
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Toronto loves Hillsong United
The music and message of Hillsong United has pretty much swept around the globe but it is my understanding that southern Ontario is kind of like "Australia North" for these guys - to say that they are popular here is an understatement. At a time when NOBODY comes up on here on tours because they can't sell tickets (Newsboys, Jars of Clay, Third Day, etc etc regularly have shows booked, promoted and then cancelled) the guys from Hillsong United are able to fill 3,000 seat venues twice in one night. It is a pretty amazing thing.
Last summer there were somewhere between 12,000 and 15,000 people gathered for a Hillsong United concert. (The debate of concert vs. worship experience will be a never-ending one but I think it was promoted as a concert so I have no problem calling it that.) Those are huge numbers in any market but these guys have really struck a chord with students here and they are not missing the opportunity.
Later this summer Hillsong United will be running their youth conference in Toronto. The Facebook group is already alive and kicking! :) I'm excited that this is happening close to us - not because United is my favourite band or that I love a ton of their songs but I think that this will have a positive impact on the church culture and arts culture in our region. Hillsong will be able to gather thousands of students from Canada and parts of the US who will come together to worship (God, hopefully!) and who will be inspired to return home as worshippers.
Last summer there were somewhere between 12,000 and 15,000 people gathered for a Hillsong United concert. (The debate of concert vs. worship experience will be a never-ending one but I think it was promoted as a concert so I have no problem calling it that.) Those are huge numbers in any market but these guys have really struck a chord with students here and they are not missing the opportunity.
Later this summer Hillsong United will be running their youth conference in Toronto. The Facebook group is already alive and kicking! :) I'm excited that this is happening close to us - not because United is my favourite band or that I love a ton of their songs but I think that this will have a positive impact on the church culture and arts culture in our region. Hillsong will be able to gather thousands of students from Canada and parts of the US who will come together to worship (God, hopefully!) and who will be inspired to return home as worshippers.
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