Former Hillsong Pastor Carl Lentz and his wife Laura recently posted a video on social media teasing a “new chapter” on June 4. The video, posted on their Instagram accounts, featured a montage of scenes from the New York City subway, shadowy images of Carl Lentz, ominous clouds, a burning tree, a car in motion, and more. “JUNE 4… new chapter”, the words appeared at the end of the video.
In November 2020, Lentz was terminated from his position at Hillsong NYC due to “leadership issues” and moral failures, including cheating on his wife with multiple women, including a staff member at Hillsong NYC. According to an internal investigation shared with The Christian Post in 2022 that was conducted on Hillsong Church by the New York City law firm Zukerman Gore Brandeis & Crossman, LLP, found that Lentz manipulated some former staff and volunteers to the point where they would suffer mental illness. Last year, Lentz returned to ministry as a “strategist” at Transformation Church led by Pastor Michael Todd in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
"After two years of Carl being in his own discovery and healing process, he has shown readiness to use his God-given gifts towards the local church again. We believe in Carl, his marriage, his skill set, and his restoration,” Transformation Church’s Executive Pastor Tammy McQuarters said in a statement reported by CP at the time.
“We pray that Carl, Laura, and their family experience not only their own restoration but help others experience restoration by using their triumphs and failures to create resources for the body of Christ at large. We believe that this is part of what it looks like for the church to be the church,” she added.
In May 2023, however, Lentz wrote in a public letter that he was “no longer in ministry” and confessed that his sins led him to some “dark places.” He also explained that he and his wife appeared in FX’s four-part docuseries “The Secrets of Hillsong” last year as part of the healing process.
“Part of the healing from that heartache led us to the decision to be part of a documentary that we do not control, that we don’t have any say in, and that we haven’t even seen yet. We’ll see it when the world does. We were not interested in blame shifting or responsibility deflection, we focus on my mistakes and the context for what transpired,” Lentz said.
“I can honestly tell you that when you get to a place of honesty and freedom in your life, when you’ve gone through hell, and you realize God is still with you ... It is so freeing. It’s the freedom I wish for all of the many people that I know that are called by God and wrestle with secrets and the feeling of not being worthy. Trust me, it led me to some dark places.”
Photo credit: ©GettyImages/Charley Gallay / Stringer
Milton Quintanilla is a freelance writer and content creator. He is a contributing writer for CrosswalkHeadlines and the host of the For Your Soul Podcast, a podcast devoted to sound doctrine and biblical truth. He holds a Masters of Divinity from Alliance Theological Seminary.