How Hillsong Church conquered the music industry
I went to a few Hillsong events about 10 years ago, when the church was becoming very obvious cultural influence Australia-wide. There is a lot that&#x27;s very entrepreneurial about this church. They also started Gloria Jean&#x27;s, a big, international Starbucks competitor. Like the music stuff, this had to do with youth culture and creating social aspects to the movement.<p>In Australia a lot of people called the denomination &quot;charismatic churches&quot; which is largely overlapping with &quot;evangelical&quot; in the states, where it comes from. The larger family of denominations has been growing and internationalising at a serious pace.<p>In any case, when it comes to religion, opinions are.. sensitive. But, I think the recent history of this religion is worth learning about, for those interested, just because they&#x27;ve been &quot;<i>making things happen</i>&quot;. Religions are pretty diverse structurally, from one another.<p>Hillsong and related movements (mostly descendants of American evangelical denominations) tend to be quite decentralised. The Church (institution) and the church (building&#x2F;parish) are almost the same thing. They don&#x27;t have a traditional, top-heavy hierarchy (bishops, cardinals) and they don&#x27;t have a traditional local parochial structure.