Hillsong - Music, Mission and Much More

The biggest church in Australia, has a vision for local churches around the world - including the UK. Following their huge impact on the way we do worship, what have Hillsong got to offer you, and can they really re-energise the whole way we do church in the UK?

Jesus is building his Church across the earth and your local church is a key piece in His plan." – Hillsong Vision Statement

Hillsong's mission is your local church

Hillsong's mission statement commits the biggest church in Australian history to supporting "your local church as a key part of His plan". Spreading their example worldwide, Hillsong is actively planting sister churches in cities as far from Australia as Kiev, Cape Town, New York, Moscow, Stockholm, Paris, Konstanz, Amsterdam and Copenhagen.

With its declared vision for local churches, Hillsong is going public with the hard won experience of almost thirty years consistent growth. From its early beginnings as Hills Christian Life Centre, with a congregation of just 45, the Sydney Baulkham Hills church has grown its weekly attendance to over 20,000.

Now with sister churches on three sites and church plants around the world, Hillsong's founding leaders, Brian and Bobbie Houston, are set to follow up the church's influential music CDs and DVDs with equally powerful whole church resources.

Total resources to grow your church

Born in the intense spiritual emotion of annual Hillsong Conferences, the church's live music recordings have given Christians worldwide some of most powerful and practical worship songs in use today. Hillsong music have excelled at making their songs, music and backing track CDs available for local churches to share, perform, and get directly involved in the worship experience. A fine example is Cornerstone; powerful lyrics to inspire and encourage the Church to hold on to the foundations faith.

Training, equipping and inspiring the next generation of writers and composers is Hillsong's future. Their own worship school, at present rather far away in Australia, offers quality training - not just in musicianship, but in all the other aspects of worship, service and leadership. Visual, interactive and DVD based training materials bring the opportunity to learn from Hillsong's expertise a lot closer to home, and hopefully more will follow soon, why not have a look at our Hillsong Teaching Series.

...A Church so large in size that the city and nation cannot ignore it." - Hillsong vision

Leadership: you, your church and your locality

Proving that effective leadership patterns can transform even the smallest church, Hillsong’s teaching series gives inspiration and guidance on how to repeat Hillsong's story. Learning from their success with recorded music, most of their teaching resources are produced as audio CDs allowing lead pastor, Brian Houston, to deliver his message with all the passion and vitality of the spoken word, and allowing you to listen when and where you want.

Heading up the church's worldwide 'Sisterhood' network is Brian's wife, Bobbie. Writing and speaking on the role and value of women, Bobbie Houston declares her belief that women are called to be leaders in their own spheres of influence. Insisting that women leaders need not and should not abandon their femininity, she describes how Christian women carry the maternal heart of God and are natural fighters for what is right. As with her husband's teaching resources, most are presented as practical and purposeful audio CDs.

Growing the band, now growing the vision

For certain, Hillsong is set to make a unique impact on the world's local churches. Springing from their local success in Australia and musical success worldwide, they offer resources with a clear and obvious benefit to churches in the UK. Arguably, they also have the cultural inside track having, perhaps, a 'more British' feel than US big-church alternatives.

For local churches, the big advantage from Hillsong's move from music to mission is a much bigger choice of resources. Alongside US alternatives, and home-grown materials from such as Scripture Union, BRF and Alpha, UK local churches are to sure to find something that meets their immediate and long term music, children's, church growth and leadership training needs.