Inside Hillsong Church’s Hit-Making Music Machine|Rolling Stone

The savvy church has quietly turned its worship program into one of Australia’s biggest music exports. By Jessy Edwards.

It’s a full house at New York City’s Hammerstein Ballroom when a heavenly bassline starts to ripple through the crowds. Spotlights come up on a bearded singer in a denim jacket who looks remarkably like Post Malone without the tattoos, and the 10-piece band starts to play. The crowd lifts its hands. Up above, a band of angels playing harps and flutes on the hand-painted ceiling seems to look down with approval.

In the foyer, uniformed security guards dig through bags as their owners are eyed going through a metal detector. It’s a typical scene for this major music venue. But instead of IDs being checked on the other side, a smiling woman greets arrivals: “Welcome to church!”

It’s 10 a.m on a recent Sunday in January, and the Manhattan location of Australian megachurch Hillsong is about to kick off its first service of the day. It’s one of five services the church will do today in New York, and the 8,000 worshippers expected to come through the doors are just some of the 50 million people worldwide estimated to sing Hillsong songs in church each week.

The venue and the numbers are indicative of the unprecedented international success Hillsong has had overseas, not only as a church but as a Christian music brand. A brand that, without broadcasting it to the local music industry, has steadily grown to be one of Australia’s biggest music exports.

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