Hillsong Church NYC — Attraction in New York

Update: Been attending for 2 years now. Hillsong is not a "bad" church, its just catered to a different demographic of people. Many leaders here seem to be born-again Christians who came from rough backgrounds (the streets etc) Hence they have great worship energy, they are not afraid to be expressive, unlike more serious/stoic congregations. Pastor Carl drives home solid teaching points condensed into very easy-to-remember quotes, i usually am able to digest the main essence of the sermon much more so that the 20+ years of attending 2hour long sermons at a bible-based church with more "intellectual" sermons. As i mentioned, this church speaks to a certain type of people. If you're looking to study and chew on the Word, join a bible study connect group instead of a social one. A great connect group will allow you to share/do life with like-minded individuals who want to help each other align their spiritual walk. Some of my best growth happened with the connect group here. Original review: Great place to worship, it is always uplifting and i come out of the service feeling refreshed... after attending for awhile i found their sermons lacking in depth. For new christians this church is a GREAT place to build new relationships and get acquainted with the basics of faith, but it may not be for people looking for a deeper understanding of the Word by just attending sermons alone. I understand that its catered to a more "millennial" audience...with funny jokes and anecdotes. It's true young people have shorter attention spans these days, and dry deliveries would only cause your audience to lose interest quickly. It's a tricky balance, hence the sermons are usually a hit or miss with different pastors. As someone who is in my late 20s, I feel like it is catered more to attendees ranging from high school to mid 20s. I've observed that emphasis on discipleship is not really there (getting into a bible study group's more of an optional thing). Recently they do place emphasis on the importance of Community. Which is why you can find connect groups all over the city. I have attended two bible study groups and it was quite amazing, a lot of smart thought-provoking questions asked by members really hungry to learn but i found it hard to develop lasting relationships because people come and leave the group. Honestly the only thing keeping me at Hillsong was the bible study group, which got closed recently :( This place is wonderful for worship, filled with truly passionate people, but as a Christian I wished this church could fulfill what it means to "be fishers of men" and help believers develop christlike characteristics. Nevertheless Hillsong is still a light of...

At Hillsong, you will find great stage production, captivating music, an encouraging message, and, if you intentionally seek it out, a community to meet friends.

At the core, though, what is a church? There are certain things you won’t find at Hillsong: there are no creeds or confessions of faith, and there is no expository preaching of the word. These are, arguable, the most important parts of a church, for what does a church believe and how does it stand out from among other so-called churches if it does not confess any creed (there’s no Nicene or Apostles Creed, and in fact you can raise a child in Hillsong and they will not know the Lord’s Prayer). Vagueness, such as "Christ is our creed" or "Only Jesus," is not good enough when there are specific creeds that outline specific beliefs that churches universally confess.

Preaching is a generous term to describe the messages. It is feel-good and like a TedTalk. It is meant to be humorous and it is meant to uplift you – but at the cost of a very shallow understanding of the gospel and sparing use of the Bible. There are plenty of other places to turn to hear an uplifting message; YouTube is filled with them. A solid, Biblical church, however, needs to deliver solid, Biblical lessons, and the pastor’s duty is to preach the Word and not to entertain the crowd.

Hillsong does certain things well, but if you strip away those unnecessary things, they do not do the necessary things well. If you are looking for a solid, Bible-believing church, this would not be one you choose to feed...

I love coming here for the music and worship of God. Their worship is amazing, but this church is filled with too many people trying to be "trendy" and not enough true worshippers. I came to church today and there were kids playing music talking about drugs and alcohol inside the church! I was appalled. I've met some nice volunteers and I volunteered for a day but the community is not here. They are nice on the surface cause that's their job that they're doing. They make you come 90 minutes to the service to just stand around. They spoke to us and told the volunteers where to go which took maybe 10 minutes and then there was nothing else for us to do so we all stood around like we were in high school chatting. I stood around awkward cause I didn't know anyone and no one made me feel comfortable. I pictured volunteering to be way more warm and not just a hey welcome to church but actually trying to get to know each person. Knowing who's coming in broken and reaching that hand out, but I really don't see that here at this church. Some of the pastors do make me laugh and the worship is great. I wish they would get an old pastor one day though. Once I tried sitting on a floor seat once and a volunteer told me I couldn't sit that it was reserved with a nasty so I said okay so where can I sit? She said idk but this is reserved. Very rude. She could have pointed me in the right direction. This church needs some...