Hill was involved in a church plant in 1988. He entered theological college for ministerial training in 1994 and received the Annual Theological Essay Award (Undergraduate Section) in 1996 for an essay titled "Augustine's Influence on Calvin, Zwingli and Luther".[1] He was ordained and accredited by the Australian Baptist Churches in 2000.[10] After church planting and pastoring in Sydney and Perth, Hill moved into theological education in 2004.[10]
Hill was a lecturer at Burleigh Baptist Theological College in Adelaide from 2004 to 2006.[10][11] Hill was a lecturer, vice-principal and provost of Morling College in Sydney from 2007 to 2019, a theological college affiliated with the Australian College of Theology and the University of Divinity.[12] He presented at a 2013 Baptist World Alliance global gathering,[13] and both the General Secretary and President of the Baptist World Alliance reviewed his books.[14][15] Hill served as interim principal of Stirling Theological College (a member college of the University of Divinity) from February to November 2020 and principal from December 2020 to March 2022.[16][17] Hill was promoted to associate professor of the University of Divinity in 2020.[18]
From 2022 to 2023, Hill was the state leader of Baptist Mission Australia for Western Australia.[21] Since 2024, he is the Mission Catalyst for Church Planting and Missional Renewal with the Uniting Churches in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, and an associate professor and research fellow at Charles Sturt University.[22][4]
Hill reported struggling with alcoholism and depression while working as a church pastor, and stopped drinking alcohol in 2005.[23][24][25]
Hill is the founding director of the Global Church Project.[26] He is chief editor of the Australian Journal of Mission Studies.[27] Hill is a research associate at the Center for the Study of Global Christianity (at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Hamilton, Massachusetts).[28]
In the 2024 King’s Birthday Honours list, Hill was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for "service to theological education, and to the Baptist Churches of Australia".[29]
Personal life
Hill married Felicity Herbert in 1996 and they have three daughters.[30] They divorced in 2022.[31]
Hill married Christianne Shyn Ellamar in 2023.[32]
Research
Hill's first book explored ecumenical and missional approaches to Christian ecclesiology. This work was a revision of his PhD thesis, "An Examination of Emerging-Missional Ecclesiological Conceptions: Missional Ecclesiology and the Ecclesiologies of Miroslav Volf, Joseph Ratzinger and John Zizioulas",[33] and was published in 2012 by Cascade Books.[34]Scot McKnight awarded the book the Jesus Creed Book of the Year in the category Church in 2012, writing "This is the most important book I have ever read on the church."[35]
Hill's book Global Church: Reshaping Our Conversations, Renewing Our Mission, Revitalizing Our Churches was published by IVP Academic in 2016.[36]Global Church and his research into global Christianity have been reviewed in Patheos, Christian Courier, Moody Bible Institute, and academic journals.[37][38][39][40][41][42]Global Church was awarded an honorable mention in the 2015 IVP Academic Readers Choice Awards.[43]
Hill's book Healing Our Broken Humanity: Practices for Revitalizing the Church and Renewing the World, co-authored with Grace Ji-Sun Kim, was named as a Resource of the Year - Culture by Outreach Magazine in 2019.[44][45] The book was examined on ABC Radio National's Soul Search program, with reference to its research into Asian Christianity, and the interview was broadcast on the ABC on 18 August 2019.[46]
Hill's book Holding up Half the Sky: A Biblical Case For Women Leading and Teaching in the Church has been profiled by Scot McKnight.[47][48][49]
^Hill, Graham Joseph (8 September 2006). "Miroslav Volf on church, mission and culture". John Mark Ministries. Published while Hill was a lecturer at Burleigh College in 2006. Retrieved 23 December 2020.
^ abcORCID. "Graham Joseph Hill (0000-0002-6532-8248)". ORCID. pp. See the first entry of the ORCID section (called "Membership and Service"), and pages 1, 2, 5, 9, 13, and 23 of the document linked there, for evidence of service at Torch Trinity Graduate University, Korea Baptist Theological University, Common Grace, Abilene Christian University, and the Bible Society of Australia Leaders' Summit. Retrieved 23 December 2020.
^Hunter, Danny (2017). "Global Church: Reshaping Our Conversations, Renewing Our Mission, Revitalizing Our Churches (Review)". Mission Studies: Journal of the International Association for Mission Studies. 34 (1): 127–128. doi:10.1163/15733831-12341491 – via Academic Search Index.
^Capper, Christy (2019). "Healing Our Broken Humanity: Practices for Revitalizing the Church and Renewing the World (Review)". Mission Studies: Journal of the International Association for Mission Studies. 36 (2): 336–337. doi:10.1163/15733831-12341657. S2CID199182672 – via Academic Search Index.
