With churches in 28 countries attracting hundreds of thousands of regular attenders, Hillstone

Global has become one of the most influential evangelical movements in the world.

But lately, the church has been rocked by scandal, and my guest today helps explain why.

Welcome to the Roy's Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting

the truth and restoring the church. I'm Julie Roy's. And joining me today is Janice Legata.

Janice is a writer, a spoken word artist, and a podcaster. But what's most relevant to our

conversation today is that Janice was part of the team that launched Hillsong, New York City.

And a couple of months ago, she wrote this extremely revealing blog about her time at Hillsong,

revealing this toxic underbelly of the church. If you've followed the unfolding scandal at

Hill Song, you know that it started in New York with the pastor there, Carl Lentz. In November, Hillsong founding pastor, Brian Houston, fired Lentz for breaches of trust and moral failures. Lentz then publicly admitted to an affair, and now sources have come forward saying they reported sexual misconduct by staff members at Hillsong, New York City years ago, but nothing was done.

Hillsong has launched a supposed independent investigation into what happened at Hillsong, New York City,

but as you'll hear, that investigation isn't so independent. And as if this all isn't bad enough,

now we have an exodus of pastors from

Hillsong. Two of them, Blaze and Desiree Robertson, resigned without any announcement from

Hillsong, Connecticut. Now it appears they've been hired by another church in Greenwich, Connecticut,

and the Robertsons have scrubbed their entire social media accounts of any mentions of their years at Hillsong.

Similarly, Reed and Jess Bogart, the lead pastors of Hillsong, Dallas, resigned earlier this month.

In their brief announcement to the church, the Bogart said that 10 years of church planning

had taken a toll on them and their family, and they added that they needed to transition off staff

to get healthy. Friends, churches are supposed to be places where sick people go to get healthy,

not places they flee to get healthy. So what's going on at Hillsong? Is the culture there so toxic

that people need to leave the movement? Can it be redeemed?

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