Brian and Bobbie Houston moved from New Zealand in 1978 and joined the Sydney Christian Life Centre in Darlinghurst, pastored by Brian Houston's father, Frank Houston.[They started Hillsong Church, which was then known as Hills Christian Life Centre, in August 1983 with services held at the Baulkham Hills Public School hall and with an initial congregation of 45.In 1990, the church moved from "the warehouse", which they had occupied since 1984,to hold services at the Hills Centre. In 1986, an annual conference was developed, now called Hillsong Conference.
In the early 1990s, praise and worship recordings from the Hills Christian Life Centre were released in Australia and internationally under the name Hillsong. The name is also used for a television show featuring clips from the videos of the recordings and a message from Brian Houston. In 1997 the church moved into its new building at Baulkham Hills' Norwest Business Park.
In the late 1990s the church realised that the name Hillsong was more well-known than Hills Christian Life Centre due to the branding of its recordings. The church was renamed Hillsong Church in 1999, about the same time its mother church, Sydney Christian Life Centre, was merged into Hillsong Church.
A new convention centre at the church's "Hills" location, was opened on 19 October 2002 by John Howard, the then Prime Minister of Australia. Due to the growth of the "City" location, in 2007 the church announced its intentions to develop a significant area of land on Rothschild Avenue, Roseberyinto the new "City" location. In August 2008, Hillsong withdrew the development application they had lodged with the Sydney City Council after an independent report recommended against the council approving the development. In August 2009 it was announced that the site was for sale. Since then, Hillsong has opened up another City location in Alexandria.
Hillsong is affiliated with Australian Christian Churches (the Assemblies of God in Australia), which belongs within the Pentecostal tradition of Christianity. The church's beliefs are Evangelical and Pentecostal in that it holds the Bible as accurate and authoritative in matters of faith and that Jesus Christ reconciled humanity to God through his death and resurrection. The church believes that in order to live a fruitful Christian life a person should seek the baptism in the Holy Spirit and that the Holy Spirit enables the use of spiritual gifts, which include speaking in tongues.
Hillsong's stand on many topical issues in contemporary Christianity is in keeping with mainstream Pentecostalism opposing embryonic stem cell research and abortion on the basis that human life commences at conception. Hillsong has also declared support for Creationism and Intelligent Design and believes this should be taught in schools. It also believes that homosexuality is contrary to biblical teaching but emphasizes that it does not condemn homosexuals.
Hillsong's prosperity teachings have been criticised by Christian leaders Tim Costello and George Pell. Subsequent statements by Tim Costello indicated that he was satisfied with changes made by Brian Houston to Hillsong's teaching in response to criticism, a change which has been noted by the media. Hillsong's teachings have been commented on favourably by Peter Costello, Tim Costello's brother, also a Baptist and a former Treasurer of Australia who has defended the church against accusations of unorthodoxy.
Hillsong Church has a well-recognised music ministry with songs such as "Power of Your Love" by Geoff Bullock and "Shout to the Lord" by Darlene Zschech sung in churches worldwide. Originally published as "Hillsongs", Hillsong Church now produces its music through its own label, Hillsong Music Australia. Hillsong Music has released over 40 albums since 1992, many of them achieving gold status in Australia and one of them, People Just Like Us, achieving platinum status. The church's 2004 live praise and worship album For All You've Done reached No. 1 in the mainstream Australian album charts (ARIA).
Hillsong's most successful albums, the Live Album Series, lead by Darlene Zschech and Reuben Morgan, have all achieved gold status in Australia and, since the inception in 1992 of the annual live praise and worship albums, Hillsong has branched out and released other albums including the worship series Hillsong United, Hillsong Kids, Hillsong London, Christmas albums and compilation albums. The Live Album Series are recorded at the Sydney campus(es) and then edited and produced by Hillsong Music Australia. The worship series began as a compilation of songs and developed into studio recorded albums. The Hillsong United series and the Hillsong United band led by Joel Houston, contains songs from the Hillsong United youth ministry. Hillsong Kids has released an annual worship for kids album since 2004. Hillsong Music has released two Christmas albums, several compilation albums as well as recordings from Hillsong London, Hillsong Kiev and Youth Alive. To help take Hillsong Music mainstream an agreement withWarner Music Australia took place in 1999. In 2003 Sony Music Australia also signed with Hillsong Music to take the group even more mainstream.
Geoff Bullock served as Hillsong's first worship pastor. Darlene Zschech led Hillsong's music ministries as worship pastor from 1995 until 2008. Reuben Morgan is currently the worship pastor.
On 24 October 2010, it was announced that Darlene Zschech and her husband, Mark, would be taking over as senior pastors at Church Unlimited in Charmhaven on the central coast region of New South Wales, effective as of 23 January 2011. As of December 2011, Hillsong has sold more than 12 million records across the globe, following its first release in 1991 and a quarter of all contemporary songs heard in Australian churches in 2011 were written by Hillsong.
In September 2012, Hillsong produced The Global Project, a collection of their most popular songs released in nine different languages including Spanish, Portuguese, Korean, Mandarin, Indonesian, German, French, Swedish and Russian.
Source: Wikipedia.org
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