On the heels of its star pastor Carl Lentz’s fall from grace, celebrity church Hillsong is now facing fresh accusations of behavior by former members.
“Being at Hillsong was really traumatizing,” former Hillsong member Noemi Uribe told Business Insider in a damning exposé.
While at the Australia-based megachurch’s Boston branch, Uribe came out as bisexual, to which her pastor reportedly responded by telling her that if she “were to start practicing” her homosexuality, “that’s where there’s a problem” — while also preaching that “everyone is welcome” at Hillsong.
Uribe said she already suffered from clinical depression and anxiety, but her pastor’s alleged unaccepting response to her sexuality and her experience at Hillsong further distressed her to the point where, in June 2019, she said she considered killing herself. Following a harrowing night where she thought about purposefully overdosing, Uribe said she was admitted to a psychiatric inpatient program — “none of the pastors ever [visited] from Hillsong” — and left the church five months later.
“If I would’ve stayed, I would have probably attempted suicide again,” she said.
The Post has reached out to Hillsong regarding these accusations.
An anonymous lesbian former children’s ministry leader at Hillsong Boston told Business Insider that she also reportedly received backlash for her sexuality and experienced suicidal thoughts as a result. “I re-closeted, dated men, and I really committed to it,” she said. “I was so terrified of displeasing God — that it was like a demonic attachment that made me want to be with women.”
Uribe, who is Mexican American, said she also allegedly faced racial discrimination while at Hillsong. She claimed one pastor, Donnie Mainellis, repeatedly referred to a 2018 group Uribe started for Spanish-speaking worshippers as the “Rosetta Stone group,” despite Uribe’s protests. “I corrected him several times, saying ‘Spanish-speaking connect group!’ and he would just laugh,” she alleged.
In a statement to Insider, Hillsong Boston pastor Josh Kimes said: “Noemi Uribe’s account does not align with my experience. What I can tell you is that Hillsong Boston welcomes all people.”
Multiple people also accused Kimes of numerous instances of race-related discrimination. Volunteers of color claimed they were rarely invited to gatherings at Kimes’ waterfront apartment, and he only had black female stage managers bring him water when he was onstage, according to Jessica Lim and Tiffany Perez, who led Hillsong Boston’s communications team from 2017 to 2018. When Lim approached Kimes about the issue, he wouldn’t acknowledge that his behavior was problematic, they alleged.
“He engaged in a clumsy form of gaslighting, telling me I didn’t understand what was going on and that he, and Hillsong Church, cared very much about diversity,” she said.
Kimes told Business Insider, “Our Hillsong Boston team has taken some intentional steps to improve racial diversity and equity at Hillsong Boston since we launched and we’re committed to make further strides as we continue to listen and learn.”
Perez also experienced what she describes as exploitative work expectations for volunteers. “We paid to get an education, but we also paid to basically do free labor,” claimed Perez, who graduated from the church’s Hillsong International Leadership College in Sydney in 2017 before being recruited to Hillsong’s Boston branch. There, she claimed she was often asked to baby-sit Kimes’ then 4-year-old daughter for 25 hours a week, for which she was paid $150 — or $6 an hour — in addition to working 60 hours a week as an unpaid Hillsong administrative assistant.
“Hillsong refers to it as ‘honoring,’ ” Perez said of her labor, “but over the years I wondered, is it really honoring or is it that you’re just being taken advantage of?”
The free and severely underpaid work, which other former volunteers claimed to being made to do as well, was allegedly done to the benefit of pastors, including Lentz, whose demands could be quite excessive. “He had to have his coffee hot,” former Hillsong New York City member Janice Lagata claimed to Business Insider of the “spoiled, pampered and coddled” 42-year-old’s posh caffeine habits. “People would be running errands all day, back and forth to Starbucks to make sure he had his fresh coffee.”
In November 2018, Kimes informed Perez that he had heard rumors she had criticized him — which she denies — and reportedly fired her via text, which Business Insider reviewed. The following month, she said she became suicidal and checked herself into an ER. “If I did proceed with ending my life at that point, it would’ve been because of everything that had just recently happened with Hillsong,” Perez said. “Being mistreated and let go the way that I was.”
In a statement to Business Insider, Kimes said: “Hillsong Boston is committed to diversity — we consider it a foundational value of our church. As our Global Pastor Brian Houston said, ‘Hillsong Church is and has always been a church that celebrates diversity, abhors injustice and welcomes all.’ In this cultural moment, Hillsong Boston leadership is committed to listen and learn.”