ADDRESS TO

HILLSONG’S ANNUAL CONFERENCE

SYDNEY SUPERDOME, SYDNEY

MONDAY, 4 JULY 2005

Well to Bryan and to Bobbie and to the people of Hillsong, it is a privilege

to back here again after your welcome of last year. On behalf of the Australian

Government I want to welcome all of our overseas guests. You will find Australia

has a generous heart and a big welcome for all of you.

And if you wanted evidence that there are people whose faith in Christ is vibrant

and alive and transforms their life, look around you at this wonderful gathering

here tonight.

I get to talk at lots of meetings and in lots of places but I reckon just about

the most famous address I have ever made was here at Hillsong last year.

Wherever I go in this great land, people want to come up and talk to me. A

businessman took me aside in Adelaide to correct some of the things I said last

year. A shopkeeper chased me down the main street of Leongatha in Victoria to

tell me how much Hillsong meant to him. A girl in Nowra on the South Coast a

fortnight ago told me how much this conference had meant to her in her life

and how she was coming back this year.

There is a definite movement and it is having a wonderful effect on the lives

of our young people and on our society.

Well the theme of this year’s conference is strength and we at the Australian

Government level think about that a lot. How do we make our industries strong,

our economies strong? How do we make our schools strong? How do we make our

public strong? And where does the strength of a nation come from? I want to

say it comes from the heart and the commitment and the faith of its people,

that is where the strength of a nation resides.

As you go back to your communities, to your churches, to your neighbourhoods,

to your workplaces and as you live in your community with fellow Christians,

going about your daily business, I hope that you find the strength of God in

your lives because this is the strength of our society and this will be the

strength of our nation.

And if this conference is a blessing to you as it is to me, it will be a blessing

to our society and it will be a blessing to the Australian Nation.

All the best for Hillsong 2005.