Hillsong plans Brisbane housewarming before vote cast

Bobbie Houston, senior pastor and founder of the Hillsong Church.



The Hillsong juggernaut has planned a victory party on May 1 to celebrate its arrival in Brisbane despite its takeover of a Pentecostal church south of the city not yet receiving the green light from congregants.

Registered members of the Garden City Christian Church in Mount Gravatt will on Sunday vote on whether to officially appoint evangelists and Hillsong founders Brian and Bobbie Houston as senior pastors in a move that would see the church renamed the Hillsong Brisbane Campus.

Despite claiming their pending footprint into Queensland was merely a partnership with the existing church, an information document circulated at Garden City at a service on April 5 has left little doubt about the Houstons' intentions to change the face of the congregation.

"We intend, as indicated earlier, to operate as Hillsong Brisbane Campus," the document noted.

Anticipating the approval of the takeover by members will be a mere formality, Hillsong heavies have planned a large housewarming party at the church on May 1 - the day after the three-day Australian Christian Churches (ACC) national conference winds up at the Gold Coast Convention Centre.

ACC, of which Mr Houston is the head, is the Australian branch of the Assemblies of God denomination.

"They're going to have a gathering at the church to celebrate their win," said a Mt Gravatt church congregrant, who asked that her name not be published.

The congregant fears the nature of the Mt Gravatt church, which has more than 1000 members, will continue to go backwards under the stewardship of the Hillsong franchise.

"It used to be a really humble church and it's totally changed over the years," she said.

"They do really, really frivolous things. Once they did skydiving to raise money for missions.

"If people want to support the church they will - you don't have to have big names."

She said her family intended to end their long-time association with the church when Hillsong took over.

Hillsong has indicated it would allow the church's acting pastor Steve Dixon to remain for a transitional period and that members would not lose control over church assets under the so-called partnership.

But one former Hillsong congregant has warned that the "controlling cult" made fundraising and recruitment its highest priorities, with church members holding few rights.

"They're coming off all kind and pastoral when in fact it is simply a company takeover," said Tanya Levin, author of the 2007 book People in Glass Houses, about her experiences under Hillsong.

"It will be interesting to to see how much of their former church as they know it survives.

"Because the Assemblies of God have got a history of going in, taking over and pretty quickly throwing out everybody that the previous church actually thought were important."

Hillsong's headquarters, the "Hills" campus, is in the Sydney suburb of Baulkham Hills but it also has two other campuses in the city. It conducts services around Sydney and has established international extensions in the UK, the Ukraine, South Africa and Sweden.

Ms Levin said the move into Brisbane was the latest example of the Houstons' desire to spread their influence.

"They're really explicit about wanting other areas in the world," she said.

"They want Africa, particularly, as well as India."

The church has established a growing presence within political circles in recent years, with then-Prime Minister John Howard opening its Baulkham Hills complex in 2002 and the likes of Peter Costello, Alexander Downer, Helen Coonan and Bob Carr having attended Hillsong events and conventions.

Hillsong Church visits the Park School in Yeovil

PUPILS at The Park School in Yeovil were challenged by a visit from a dynamic group of musicians from the London church Hillsong.

Hillsong has its base in the Dominion Theatre where there are regular congregations of as many as 2,000 people attending each of the four Sunday services.

Hillsong’s vibrant mix of live music and testimony is already popular amongst young people in London schools, but this was the group’s first visit to a school outside the London area.

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Pupils from The Park had previously visited the Dominion Theatre whilst on a visit to the city and have been amazed to worship with so many young people. Hillsong Church aims to introduce people to a living faith, viewing themselves as a community of ordinary folk who seek to embrace our cities and the nation by showing care for all.

The mixture of live music, video and speech was invigorating, punchy and tuneful, but contained the message for their audience: “It’s not about where you are from, it’s about humanity being deprived of the very thing that it was created to do…love.”

Hillsong takeover bid for Garden City Christian Church

ONE of Brisbane's largest Pentecostal congregations has been stunned by news their pastor could be forced out when the church is taken over by Hillsong.

The Sydney-based mega church is set to take control of the 1000-member Garden City Christian Church in Mt Gravatt on Sunday if Hillsong evangelists Brian and Bobbie Houston are named senior pastors of GCCC.

In a statement, Hillsong said current GCCC pastor Steve Dixon would remain only for a 12-month "transitional period". That stunned longtime members who were told Pastor Dixon wanted to stay.

"Nobody has been told anything about that. That's the first I've heard of that," said one member.

Pastor Dixon is not commenting as the church waits on Sunday's vote to determine if the Houstons will control the church.

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Hail to the King by Hillsong London

Based on Hillsong London's new CD, ‘Hail to the King', it's easy to see why the group has become one of the more successful praise and worship bands in the country. Indeed, their Christian music, reminiscent of early U2, has found a welcome audience even across the ocean in places like the United States. ‘Hail to the King' offers the group's standard excellent vocals and strings, with occasional brilliant piano interludes, all wrapped in a British-pop package.

Having said that, it should be said that there is little new ground broken on ‘Hail to the King'. In fact, with one or two possible exceptions, you can divide the songs neatly into two categories: the slow songs and the fast songs. Most of the slow ones sound like all the other slow ones and most of the fast ones sound like all of the other fast ones.

This is not as severe of an attack as it might first seem. With the slow songs, Hillsong London actually managed to create a style that will probably be welcomed in evangelical worship services. Especially with songs like ‘You Brought Me Home' and ‘I Receive', there is an intensity that lends itself well to worship (‘You Brought Me Home,' especially, had me near tears).

Still, one would hope that on the group's fourth CD, there would be some stand-out songs that would be different, unique, and it's hard to find anything like that on ‘Hail to the King.' One notable exception is ‘The Call.' Even though it's an upbeat song, it relies less on the high-octane electric guitar than some of the other upbeat songs. And it does some interesting things with the vocals which I can't really explain, you'll just have to hear.

One final point: even though this review has focused on Hillsong London's success with praise music, from an artistic point of view, their ‘fast songs' are actually superior to the slow ones. They might find more success if they focused their time and talents more on the youth market and less on the worship songs. Not that they're not good at the latter. It's just that they're better at the former.