Ex-Hillsong pastor Carl Lentz on ‘sobriety’ and ‘humiliation’ after cheating scandal
Disgraced Hillsong pastor Carl Lentz is keeping his fans up to date about his life following his firing from the megachurch in 2020 amidst a public cheating scandal.
Ahead of the new FX documentary series “The Secrets of Hillsong” — premiering May 19 — Lentz, 44, wrote a long post on Instagram and revealed where he stands with his wife, Laura.
The former pastor admitted he cheated on his spouse of 20 years back in November 2020.
“For the last 3 years my entire focus has been fighting for my wife and my kids,” he began his social media memo.
“In order to do that, seeking sobriety and healing had to run parallel with those goals,” wrote the celebrity pastor.
Lentz went on: “All I wanted was to prove to my wife and kids that I could show up for them like I had never done before.”
“Although we have a long way to go, with a lot of work, a lot of honesty and a lot of prayer, we have found ourselves in a beautiful, happy and deliberately honest place,” he said.
He then shared that he and Laura celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary on May 5.
Lentz and his family are featured in the FX series in which he confessed that the marital commemoration couldn’t have occurred without “humiliation, embarrassment and heartache.”
“Part of the healing from that heartache led us to the decision to be a 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,” he said.
He added: “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 also divulged that he is no longer preaching and his “role is to help give perspective and insight where I can.”
“I can say I understand it and my relationship with Jesus in a way that I couldn’t from the pulpit. Repentance and life change is proven over time with consistent choices and that’s a road I look forward to,” he scribed. “It truly makes me wonder if this is what all of this pain was all about.”
The scandalous and controversial church was also explored in The Post and Discovery+’s 2022 documentary, “Hillsong: A Megachurch Exposed.”
The show took a deep dive into the history of the church and its founder Brian Houston.
Houston, 69, also had a rough year and was accused of embezzling funds and covering up child sex abuse.
Houston also stepped down as Hillsong’s director last January and formally resigned from the organization two months later following a misconduct investigation.
The internal inquiry came to the conclusion that Houston had behaved in an inappropriate manner towards two women.
Houston founded Hillsong back in 1983 in Australia and crossed paths with Lentz in 2010.
Hillsong has attracted celebrity devotees such as Justin and Hailey Bieber, Selena Gomez, Kendall Jenner and Chris Pratt over the years.
