And this is why you should not sing Hillsong music.
“Hillsong Publishing’s Steve McPherson said the latest data from Christian Copyright Licensing International showed that a quarter of all contemporary songs heard in Australian churches in 2011 were written by Hillsong.
The licensing fees, including a ”growing demand” from Catholic churches, accounted for between 35 and 45 per cent of all its total undisclosed musical royalties, he said.”
Sydney Morning Herald reports,
Money Christmas: Hillsong ensures show in tune with spirit of season
EBENEZER SCROOGE, the season’s most famous miser, proved no match for the glossy production values of Hillsong’s Christmas Spectacular at Baulkham Hills yesterday.
The free tickets for six sessions across two days were snapped up weeks ago, before close to 20,000 people headed to the Pentecostal mega-church to watch a reimagining of Charles Dickens’s tale of redemption, A Christmas Carol.
Lead pastor Joel A’Bell said the tale was about learning to be generous. ”There’s a bit of Scrooge in all us,” he told the crowd in one of the breaks in the production used to lead prayer, distribute gifts and hand around buckets for tithing.
A predominantly volunteer cast and crew of 150 worked on the spectacular, which included a cameo from Santa Claus and a giant toy panda as a ghost of Christmas present. It was staged at the church’s Brisbane and city campuses earlier this month, with Nutbush City Limits and Wham’s Last Christmas part of its music score.
”They just put on a great show. It’s fabulous,” said Shirley Pyke, who travelled from Newcastle to attend the event, which also included food stalls and rides. Her sister-in-law had made the journey from Lithgow.
Mr A’Bell said the message of Dickens’s classic story was consistent with the values of Hillsong, despite its senior pastor Brian Houston once penning a book called You Need More Money.
”This is the message we keep talking about … Any resource you’ve been blessed to have, you should use to build lives,” he said. ”People who criticise don’t come here and listen.”
But thousands of Australia’s Christians who have never set foot inside the church are likely to have heard from Hillsong, which outdid Lady Gaga and Beyonce earlier this year on the ARIA charts.
Hillsong Publishing’s Steve McPherson said the latest data from Christian Copyright Licensing International showed that a quarter of all contemporary songs heard in Australian churches in 2011 were written by Hillsong.
The licensing fees, including a ”growing demand” from Catholic churches, accounted for between 35 and 45 per cent of all its total undisclosed musical royalties, he said.
Its latest November release, a Christmas EP Born Is the King was selling well at the Hills campus. ”I had a lady who came in yesterday. Her daughter wanted one for every friend and every teacher, so she bought quite a few,” the resource centre manager, Linda Verne, said.
Source: Leesha McKenny, Money Christmas: Hillsong ensures show in tune with spirit of season, Sydney Morning Herald, http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/about-town/money-christmas-hillsong-ensures-show-in-tune-with-spirit-of-season-20111218-1p0vd.html, 19/12/2011. (Accessed 14/02/2014.)
Hillsong Church Watch 
Absolute lies from hillsong superstar…catholic churches do not use ‘charismatic/pentecostal’music or ‘rock bands’ in their worship. I would like the author to prove this ‘growing demand’…that..evidently will never happened.
“Hillsong Publishing’s Steve McPherson said the latest data from Christian Copyright Licensing International showed that a quarter of all contemporary songs heard in Australian churches in 2011 were written by Hillsong.”
That’s just ridiculous! Has he BEEN in every church in Australia and listened to what they are playing? Where do they get their statistics?
Having said that, I have been in quite a few churches in Brisbane this year just trying to find a church to attend, and I must say they all play Hillsong stuff, so maybe he isn’t far off. Its pretty pathetic. I asked one young musician at a Baptist church we attended if they ever play any of their own compositions and he looked at me as though I had two heads. Its as though he had never even thought of the idea. When I used to attend a Baptist church regularly in the 80s, it was common for people to play their own compositions. It was also common to sing the good old rollicking hymns like “How Great Thou Art” or “Amazing Love”. In fact, if you go to Youtube, you will see a number of absolutely fantastic renditions of these songs in Acapella which leave Hillsong in the dust. Ironically, one young guy in particular is reticent about proclaiming his own beliefs and seems to have chosen to sing hymns because they are so popular. The reason they are popular is because they are simply not being sung anymore, especially in evangelical churches. We have all been seduced by the tuneless, theologically vacuous and darned annoying Hillsong sound machine.
If you are looking for beautifully written, theologically rich contemporary Christian music, you cannot find better than that written by Stuart Townend or by the Gettys.