Prominent Atlanta Pastor Announces Divorce Amid Infidelity Allegations
Sam Collier, who once was lauded as being the first black lead pastor of Hillsong Atlanta before stepping down to found his own church, shared on Instagram in a since-deleted post that he is divorcing his wife; something he’s tried to do seven times but never committed to, until now.
Early Friday morning, Toni Collier shared on Instagram that she was seeking a divorce from her husband, citing “discovering and enduring repeated acts of infidelity” over the course of years, and writing that “despite seasons of hope, attempts at reconciliation, and counseling, after recently discovering more infidelity, I realized this wasn’t a sustainable or God-honoring marriage anymore.”
Within minutes, he rejoined with his own statement accusing her of sustained abuse towards him, which he quickly deleted.
He later released a more measured statement, writing: “I would like to apologize for my earlier comments regarding my divorce. It did not reflect the leader I am or my sincere feelings. I was emotionally overwhelmed and angry at the highest level. These past two months have been extremely exhausting.”
The couple have two children.
In late 2021, Hillsong Atlanta launched with Sam Collier as pastor. Collier has a wild theological past, including spending years as Youth Choir Director in a church where the Senior Pastor was the openly pro-choice, openly pro-LGBT, heresy-spewing, Planned-Parenthood-endorsed Democrat Senator, Dr. Raphael Warnock, and then several years at Bishop Eddie Long’s megachurch – a prosperity gospel heretic who preaches wretched blasphemies about name-it-and-claim-it, speaking realities into existence, little god theology, and multiple sex scandals. Later he joined up with Andy Stanley for several years until he was tapped by Hillsong head honcho Brian Houston to lead the new plant, even though Collier has no seminary training and a horrific Christian pedigree.
Hillsong gave them $762,000.
Once the news that Brian Houston was ousted from Hillsong, Collier also announced that he was leaving Hillsong and starting his own church, which he did three weeks later. Like seemingly every other Hillonsg Church, they too had questions about financial impropriety. The report reads:
“Although Hillsong Atlanta was intending to commence operations with only 5 staff members, $18.8k was allocated for the staff picnic/retreat. Yet, zero was allocated to CityCare Program Costs and zero for Bibles and Literature.
When Sam Collier decided to separate from Hillsong in early 2022 due to the Brian Houston scandal, the $762k USD Hillsong had invested into this fledgling campus was also lost. This included $82.5k in venue break costs.
Hillsong Atlanta’s Year One budget was approved with an operating deficit of $608,646. This included a salary of USD 145K for Senior Pastor Sam Collier (more than twice of the salary of the COO), Sunday Catering expenses of $60k, and executive meals, travel and accommodation totaling $43k.”
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Hmmmm. Take the money and run. In almost every circumstance where you have so called “pastors” and other so called leaders who are affiliated with Hillsong, Bethel, etc…. almost all have one thing in common. They are all on a trajectory that leads them to moral failure and or exposing that they were never Biblically qualified per 1Timothy3.