A Twisted Crown of Thorns ®

Every body wants a piece of The Big Apple. It is said that New York City is the most linguistically and religiously diverse city in the world. The 8.4 million inhabitants communicate in some 800 different languages across the five boroughs – the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island. New York is also a religious city: 83% of New Yorkers are said to be affiliated to some organized religion.

As the muslims muscle their way in and stake a claim in the heart of Ground Zero with the Cordoba Centre and Ground zero mosque, some body had better warn them.  Look who is riding in from the wings and ploughing into New York too:

Hillsong NYC is now underway following the announcement in March, that Hillsong Church, based in Sydney, be starting a church in New York City. The church, famous for its worship, has congregations in major cities around the world including London, Paris, Moscow, Stockholm, Kiev and Cape Town.
The new church is led by Carl and Laura Lenz and Joel Houston and is the first ever Hillsong Church in the USA. Houston is the world renowned songwriter and worship leader with Hillsong United and the founder of the ‘I-HEART’ movement.
Following the announcement, Brian Houston, the founder of Hillsong, said: “As the story of Hillsong New York unfolds, our mandate will remain the same: We desire to build a church that loves God and loves people.”
He added: “Since we announced our plans in New York City, I’ve learned that in Bible college days, Joel and Carl spoke about a dream to one day work together and build a church in New York.
“With their unique skill sets and capacity for the ever changing, busy, transient and widespread demographic of New York, I could not be more excited for the future of this team, and our newest global campus.” –Christianity Today

Awesome! It’s good to see NYC is going to have it’s first taste of the Hillsong Experience-a creative blend of music, bible and showmanship. I hope we shall be seeing more churches being planted soon. Especially in places that really need this experience  like Las Vegas and Sun City. Or better still like Darfur in Sudan. Where an estimated 300,000 people have died and 2.7 million have been forced from their homes and people are struggling against poverty, lawlessness, ethnic neglect and discrimination. Moreso, a place where prosperity gospel has never really been heard of and lazer light shows and thumping rock music will be a welcome godsend.

Prosperity Gospel