Hillsong’s home country has been less kind, with Australian media often focusing on the spiritual movement’s financial success. Twenty years later, the American press is still marveling at this box-store brand of religion. In a 1995 profile on the megachurch phenomenon, Peter Jennings visited these new behemoths-replete with stand-up comics, rock music, miracle healers, and self-help support groups-all the while asking if entrepreneurial pastors, suffering from declining membership, were attracting sellout crowds by selling out. megachurch attendance has grown by 26 percent overall. By 2005, there were at least 1,200 megachurches stateside, comprising up to 12 million members. was home to 50 churches that could boast an attendance of more than 1,500, according to the Hartford Institute for Religion Research. Hillsong’s biggest draw has always been the music: Some 40 albums and hundreds of songs have been produced under the church’s umbrella since 1992, raking in millions.Īround the same time that Brian Houston was consolidating his family’s ministries in Australia, Americans were falling in love with the idea of the megachurch. In 1999, when Frank retired-or was fired, depending on your semantic druthers-Brian merged his father’s church with his own, and rebranded under the name Hillsong, after his in-house music ministry that was quickly winning fans worldwide. They believe that Jesus Saves and the Bible should be read literally-and that worship should be an experience: singing and clapping, speaking in tongues, faith healing. They started with just 45 congregants today, Hillsong churches operate in 14 countries and claim to welcome some 100,000 worshippers every week. They called it Hills Christian Life Centre, named for the suburbs of Sydney in New South Wales where it was located. Frank’s son-current Hillsong lead pastor Brian Houston-and Brian’s wife, Bobbie (also a pastor), worked there under Frank until 1983, when the couple left to start their own church. The forerunner to Hillsong was founded in 1977 by Australian pastor Frank Houston, who created the Sydney Christian Life Centre. This is the story that’s left out of breathless media reports about Hillsong’s preachers in YSL motorcycle jackets and all the glitzy good times at the glittering “Church of the Stars.” A church whose coffers brim with millions in tax-free donations, with little accountability over where the money goes. A church with an ultraconservative record on gay marriage and abortion. Of a church that has a long history of rejecting and even self-admittedly damaging its gay and lesbian members. It’s a story of a church that has struggled with a shattering pedophile scandal. It’s a story that has even been well-documented. Headlines have dubbed Lentz a “Rock Star Pastor.”īut the story I’m going to write is a different story, one with a more complex narrative beyond the celebrity baptisms and Broadway-style Christmas pageants. That would be Hillsong NYC’s leader, Carl Lentz-who is “not your typical pastor,” according to reporters at ABC News and the Associated Press and CNN, who have all written this exact sentence. Where a tattooed, mohawked preacher (who naturally lives in Williamsburg) wears a leather jacket in the pulpit and delivers sermons named after Bell Biv DeVoe songs. Where Sunday services surge with pop music and concert lighting and “Silent Night” is sung by midriff-baring flapper girls. It’s the church of Justin Bieber and Hailey Baldwin, Kendall Jenner and Kevin Durant. outposts in New York and Los Angeles-led by pastors Carl Lentz and Joel Houston, and Ben Houston respectively. Everyone from The The New York Times to VICE has covered the scene inside Hillsong’s newest U.S. They’ve been written down or recorded on video by giddy reporters eager to document this seeming paradox of a church-a house of worship with a conservative theology that is led by and filled with millennials and hipsters. I’d write about millennials and celebrities coming together in the heathenish den that is New York City to literally raise their hands up to praise Jesus and perhaps take a selfie.īut really, there have been enough of these types of stories since Hillsong hit American shores in 2010. I would line up with some of the 8,000 other lost souls on any given Sunday and tell you about the fashion vibe and about the rocking-but not too rocking-musical score that’s central to the worship. If I were to write you a story about the Australian Pentecostal mega-church Hillsong, then I would usually begin with a visit.
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