United Front
Hillsong Australia's youth band has rapidly become one of the most sought after groups in today's modern worship, but they know to keep ministry the focus of the movement.
by Andree Farias | posted 6/18/2007
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The contrast is striking. Hillsong United—the youth arm of the worship pioneers at Hillsong Australia, and one of today's hottest worship groups—is about to play a gig at an olden Victorian church near historic Asbury Park in New Jersey. The cavernous venue is Ocean Grove's Great Auditorium: a majestic, spacious wooden structure built in the 19th century by a group of Methodist ministers. Fans seem unmoved by the sense of awe the place evokes. They swarm the aisles and crowd the pit area, roaring every so often as they wait for the Aussie band to hit the stage. As soon as they do, pandemonium breaks out. Bodies jump, arms go up, and a cacophony of voices fills the sanctuary. The concert has all the makings of a big rock show, and yet United knows it's not about them, but about God. By evening's end, they've got everyone and their mother literally singing his praises, and not the band's. Before and after this intense time of worship, Christian Music Today caught up with band principal Joel Houston to talk about the group's growing ministry.
Joel Houston (far right) is only one of the leaders behind Hillsong United and the growing worship movement stemming from the band.
Considering how overcrowded the American modern worship "scene" has become, your group has managed to grow in popularity. How did you get to this point?
Joel Houston Consistency. Just doing it. We don't even see ourselves as a band as much as part of a movement—I guess maybe even a mouthpiece for that. All of that starts at home, with our church, a local community. Now that we've come to [the States] and united with the people here and all over the Earth, [we're all discovering] that we share the same faith, the same passion, the same heart. What we're doing is fluid. I don't think it's something that we do for five years, and then United becomes dismissed. Ideally, it's something that goes on, something that we build over time.
Your impact continues to gain momentum as we speak. Do you think it will one day become so big you won't be able to manage it?
Houston I think for sure there are certain things we need to think about. But our hope is to keep the main thing being the main thing. And if the main thing is creating music that people can sing in church and that young people can connect to God through, I think it's fine. As long as we're always committed to our call to serve the church and keep that the basis for why we do what we do. We could tour 365 days a year, but we don't, because that's not our call. Record labels will tell us to do it 'cause it will help sell more albums. But at the end of the day, it's not what we do.
Houston and the rest of United avoid temptations of rock stardom by keeping the focus squarely on worshiping God.
So being at the top of the charts isn't your thing.
Houston The desire is to reach as many people as we can, so that's probably demonstrated when more people buy the albums. But that's not the business of what we're doing. What we're doing is reaching as many people as we can with the message that we have.
You mentioned your strong ties to your local church. Who places the limitations on how much autonomy you have in terms of touring and outside commitments?
Houston It's all very amiable in that we don't want to be away—we don't want to miss too much. There's never any conflict. That's a real blessing from our leadership and senior pastors, who have the ultimate say. If there's something we feel would be a good thing to do, we'll say, "We're going to be away for these days. Is this going to work with our church calendar?" Before we even check, before we even ask, we look at what's going on in the church: who's away, who's home. So everybody works together to pull this off.
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