Hillsong Worship's First Worship Pastor Geoff Bullock Retires

Hillsong Church's first worship pastor Geoff Bullock has retired.  Bullock now lives on Scotland Island, a water access only island, in Pittwater, NSW in Australia.  And he visits Port Stephens regularly. With all his notoriety, Bullock says that he prefers to be known as "Geoff from the Island."

He lives a peaceful life, sailing, gardening, walking and loves socialising with friends. When asked about how he feels about his musical success, he answers quite humbly. "It's a funny thing, my songs are like my children," Mr Bullock said. "They are more well known than me, I was just privileged to be there at their birth."

In August of 1983, Bullock was on a team led by Brian Houston, together they pioneered the Hills Christian Life Centre (later part of Hillsong Church). Aside from Bullock and Houston the initial pastors were Pat Mesiti, Mike Murphy, Donna Quinn and Michael Smith. Bullock was appointed the worship pastor for Hillsong Church in Sydney and was the convenor of their annual conferences from 1987 to 1995. 

He left Hillsong Church in October 1995. In August 2004 he told David Adams and Lloyd Harkness of Sight magazine, "I burnt out, I suppose. At the time I was so convinced that God was asking me to leave and (now) I'm just not so sure... I just knew I had to go and I think, in a way, it was escaping a damaging spirituality that I'd allowed to happen. I don't want to blame those guys for it - it was my problem. Now I have become a very different person and so you can see that there was a divergence of style and theology and concept that came from it."

During Bullock's time at Hillsong Church, six albums were recorded and released by Hillsong Music for which he wrote many songs, including "The Power of Your Love", "Refresh My Heart", "Have Faith in God", "You Rescued Me", "I Will Never Be the Same Again" and "This Kingdom". He co-produced some of the albums with Russell Fragar and / or Darlene Zschech. He also wrote articles for various religious journals.

Bullock was succeeded by Darlene Zschech as worship pastor of Hillsong Church. 

 

 

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