Hillsong Church Splits From Assembly Of God Fellowship

Citing the growing global nature of the church, Brian Houston, global senior pastor of the popular Hillsong Church, has announced a split from Australia’s largest Pentecostal denomination to become a denomination of its own.

Since their initiation, Hillsong Church has been a piece of the Australian Christian Churches, a branch of the World Assemblies of God Fellowship, which is the biggest Pentecostal denomination on the planet. In an ongoing letter to the ACC, Houston said Hillsong's activity as a congregation had outgrown the capacity of the ACC.

"As Hillsong Church has kept on developing, we never again consider ourselves to be an Australian Church with a worldwide impression, but instead a Global church with an Australian base — our worldwide office presently resides in the USA Two thirds of the people attending Hillsong Church each weekend live in countries beyond Australia. We have pastoral staff in twenty-four nations around the world, representing 123 campuses and locations, with 263 different church services on any given weekend. We consider it to be ‘One House, with many rooms,'” Houston explained in the letter.

“So with that growing footprint in mind — it has become clear to us that we need to be able to credential our own pastors and restructure our church in a way that enables us to give due diligence to governance, risk, church health, safe church, and many other policies that are crucial to the future progress of Hillsong, globally,” he said.

"Thus, we are currently enrolled by the Australian Department of Births, Deaths, and Marriages, as a perceived group with the capacity to credential pastors in our own right. This recognition alleviates the issues that would occur if, for example, a concern arises that affects the credential of a Hillsong Church youth pastor in one of our campuses in Europe. The Australian ACC can't be relied upon to have sufficient data to address this issue or even know who the individual is, not to mention the assets to fittingly manage the issue on an individual or peaceful level."

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