Another Hillsong Affiliated Church has Left the Fold

A month after 9 out of 16 Hillsong churches in the United States announced they were either cutting ties with the global church or disassociating from them, representing a third of the megacorp’s US locations and 10% of their worldwide locations to close in the last year, another church has joined the fray, with Grace City Church in Lakeland, Florida announcing they were distancing themselves from the toxic brand.

Though not one of the official churches within the network, they were strongly associated with the Australian mothership, which acted as their spiritual covering and who they would go to if their own pastor found himself in deep sin. This loss represents another blow after 6 congregations within the Nevada network, along with Dallas, Kansas City, and Atlanta permanently closed their doors, with only the East and West coast locations remaining.

Pastor Andrew Gard said it wasn’t the Hillsong documentary that informed his decision, according to The Ledger, though it did have an impact, but rather the misdeeds of former Hillsong founder and Global Senior Pastor Brian Houston who was fired after it revealed that he was embroiled in his own sex scandals, with at least two instances that we know about.

One of these involved sending a staff member flirtatious messages about a decade ago. “It was along the line of, ‘If I was with you, I’d like to kiss and cuddle you,’ words of that nature.” The second one was more recent, and it involved a visibly intoxicated Houston spending almost an hour in a woman’s hotel room alone with her, after a Hillsong conference at Qudos Bank Arena in 2019, with Dooley explaining that Houston violated Hillsong Pastor’s Code of Conduct.

Gard explains:

(The documentary) It impacted us in that these are people I love. Carl Lentz was and is a friend. So it’s devastating, it’s heartbreaking. We feel bad for everyone that is involved…(but) For us, it wasn’t really about the documentary. It was about the news that came out about Pastor Brian.”
…We’re heartbroken and sad like everybody. I don’t think it’s reflective of not just our church but churches in general. I think there’s a lot of amazing people doing a lot of amazing work.
…Decisions have consequences, and we understand that. Character matters in what we do, and rightfully so. Our church for the last few years has operated in a way that’s above reproach and above board.”