CNLP 793 | Carl Lentz On Preaching While Having Sex Outside Marriage, How the Pressure of Church Growth Got To Him, And Warning Signs for Other Church Leaders
The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
Carey Nieuwhof
4.8 • 2.3K Ratings
🗓️ 24 March 2026
⏱️ 148 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Former Hillsong NYC pastor Carl Lentz opens up about the factors that led to the collapse of his ministry.
He discusses the core issues that led to his breach of trust, what it was like to preach while he was having an affair, the relentless pressure of rapid growth, what rehab taught him about addressing core issues, his regrets, and warning signs for church leaders facing the pressure.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Art of Leadership Network. |
| 0:02.7 | Man. |
| 0:04.2 | And I have so much reverence for it. |
| 0:07.2 | And it's fair for a critic to go, really, did you? |
| 0:10.6 | Cool. |
| 0:11.1 | You can judge me all you want. |
| 0:12.0 | I'm telling you that I counted it a high privilege to leave people in that platform. |
| 0:18.0 | High. |
| 0:18.9 | Reverend. |
| 0:20.3 | So to violate that in private and not handle it correctly in any way, it's horrible for |
| 0:28.6 | myself. |
| 0:33.1 | Welcome to the Kerry Newhoff Leadership Podcast, man. |
| 0:35.7 | I'm so glad you've joined us. |
| 0:37.1 | And we're in for a conversation today. I'm so glad you've joined us. And we're in for a |
| 0:38.8 | conversation today. I sit down for a couple of hours with Carl Lentz. And we talk about it. We talk |
| 0:45.5 | about everything, absolutely everything. And I have one request today, and that is that you listen |
| 0:51.2 | to the entire conversation before you drop a comment. Carl has talked a lot |
| 0:58.0 | about the journey to Hillsong, his fall, his moral failure, the journey back over the last few years |
| 1:07.0 | through his podcast lights on, many other podcasts including Mel Robbins and others and then we just |
| 1:12.5 | sat down and I kept thinking the conversation was over and it kept going and we've got kind of a |
| 1:18.4 | false ending that and then we talked some more and I want you to hear that so um here's my unedited |
| 1:27.4 | conversation with Carl Lentz, and please give it a full listen before you make up your mind. |
... |
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