World renowned and multi-awarded worship leader Darlene Zschech and her husband Mark announced recently that they will be leaving their megachurch to work as senior pastors at a Pentecostal church.

Darlene, who gained world fame because of her powerful voice and strong singing style, and her husband Mark, who is known for his work in missions in the developing world, will be leaving Hillsong Church after 25 years of service, to work as senior pastors at Church Unlimited in New South Wales, Australia. They will officially join the church in January 2011, according to Christian Today.

Celebrity evangelist Brian Houston has defended his Hillsong ministry against allegations it is a “cult-like” organisation as the Sydney megachurch opened a “campus” church on Brisbane’s southside recently.

Houston is interested in expanding further into Europe, where Hillsong already operates in London, Paris, Kiev, Stockholm and Moscow.

Hillsong describes Shine as a “practical, life-equipping, values-based course” and its website is awash with glowing testimonials from young women whose lives have been improved by learning about “being a good friend” and “learning about myself”.

But serious concerns have been raised by teachers, adolescent developmental experts and parents groups. They say the program is inappropriate for troubled young women, that the under-qualified facilitators are reinforcing gender stereotypes. and that some parents have not been properly informed.

When a former member of the Hillsong congregation started asking hard questions, she was thrown out…

The poster adorning shopping malls across suburban Sydney showing the perennial party girl Katie Fischer knitting seems incongruous given her reputation for painting the town red. But James Packer’s former fiancee admits she is a changed woman, or rather the socialite who found God.

With themes of unity, courage, justice and freedom, this year’s opening of the annual Hillsong conference had the ring of a United Nations convention rather than a church gathering.

Members of Sydney’s Hillsong Church lost millions of dollars in an illegal property investment scheme, a court has been told. The businessman behind the project, Robert John Orehek, is accused of illegally issuing securities, and of using investor funds to buy his $3.05 million harbourside home.

The news that the Federal Government has registered the welfare arm of Hillsong Church as the state's - and possibly the country's - biggest charitable provider of financial counselling services to indigent unemployed people has raised alarm bells in some quarters.

The welfare arm of the Hillsong Church will be the biggest non-government provider of services to unemployed people in NSW under a new Federal Government welfare-to-work program.

Sections of the Labor party are moving to placate Hillsong Church, fearing attacks over funding scandals could result in political retaliation from the evangelical church.

Hillsong Church's benevolent arm has parted with its third source of federal funds in a month, amid allegations the organisation misused millions of dollars in grants intended for Aboriginal communities.

The Hillsong Church's benevolent arm has been dumped from a second federal funding relationship amid claims it spent indigenous development grants on itself, rather than on the Aboriginal entrepreneurs for whom it was intended.

A federal department failed to check whether an Aboriginal group, named by the Hillsong church in a grant application, supported the project.

An Aboriginal community association in Sydney's west says it has been misled by the charitable arm of a prominent pentecostal church over grant funding from the Federal Government.

Hillsong Church's benevolent arm has been stripped of a $414,479 federal grant following allegations it obtained the funds by exploiting and deceiving the Aboriginal community that was supposed to benefit from it.