ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how Hillsong brands itself not only as part of a global community but also as a global community in its own right. It examines the Hillsong Network—the complex associational web of people and places that constitutes the sociocultural entity ‘Hillsong Church’. The chapter discusses the problem of global translation that Hillsong faces, as well as some of the advantages of and limitations to the use of branding as a method of cross-cultural communication. It explores how participants at Hillsong London imagine the places and people in the Hillsong network and how this in turn informs their experiences of Hillsong’s worship music vis-a-vis the ‘Hillsong Sound’—the sonic sign of the brand. The chapter suggests that because the ‘sound’ is important to the efficacy of the music and brand, Hillsong actively positions both the church network and also the city of London within an evangelical Christian discourse that both demarcates and transcends notions of the global and local.
