Hillsong: God He Reigns - Live Worship from Hillsong Church [2005]

Customer Reviews:

Wow, amazing!.......2006-12-07

This is an excellent offering from Hillsong. The production is stunning, with a host of excellent new songs, presented in a highly professional way. Buy it, and you will soon be buying more to give away!

Great music - but..........2005-10-26

Let me say I love Hillsong. They produce some great worship DVD's and CD's and in my opinion are one of the best worship teams in the world. The last few DVD's they have produced "Hope", and "For All You've Done" are awesome, packed with great songs wrapped around a real 'worship' experience, rather than a music 'concert'.

So it was with great expectations that I ordered the newest release "God He Reigns", but now I've played it a few times, I have to say I have very mixed feelings about it. The songs are easily up to the very high standards set by the team in previous releases, but the presentation is VERY different to what we have seen before.

It's very very slick. The fast paced editing, throw focus, freeze frame and jump cuts make this as edgy and contemporary as any cutting edge MTV production. Fine if you are watching a deliberately theatrical Britney Spears or Robbie Williams gig, but seriously distracting if you want to experience praising God. Many of the Hillsong team are now stars in their own right, with 2004 seeing worship leader Darlene Zschech beating the likes of Kylie and new star Delta Goodrem to become Australia's biggest selling female artist. While I would not want to accuse any of the talented singers and musicians in the group of having a 'superstar' ego that needs massaging, the stage is much closer to the audience than in previous concerts and the hands raised by the worshipers to God sometimes look more like they are stretched out in admiration to the band. The players and singers are lit - in quite spectacular fashion - in a way which seems to make them the stars of the show, but events like this are really all about God, or at least, they should be! The computer visuals and editing/direction seriously disctract from the experience, and at times I found myself looking away or closing my eyes so I could be more immersed in the music as worship. I would agree with Jeff from Nevada that the best way to enjoy the concert maybe by getting the CD, not the DVD.

Hillsongs are very contemporary in the way they present themselves and have a very young congregation, and while the substance of what they do remains intact, it has been overtaken by style on this release. If you are new to Christian music and are at home with an MTV style pop/rock concert - you might like this DVD. But if you're familiar with Hillsong's previous releases and are looking for the 'hearts full of worship' experience that has been their charismatic trademark, you may well be very dissapointed with this DVD.

Average customer rating:
God He Reigns: Live Worship From Hillsong Church [2005] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Hillsong
Manufacturer: Sony Music Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

Gospel & Spiritual | Music DVDs | Categories | DVD | Video
All Music DVDs | Music DVDs | Categories | DVD | Video
DVD | Format (binding_browse-bin) | Refinements | DVD | Video
ASIN: 6309591738
Release Date: 2005-09-13

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