After two-and-a-half years away from Hillsong, Delali is finally ready to share her full, unfiltered story of her experience as the lead videographer of Hillsong NYC, working closely with Carl Lentz and other Hillsong NYC leaders.
After two-and-a-half years away from Hillsong, Delali is finally ready to share her full, unfiltered story of her experience as the lead videographer of Hillsong NYC, working closely with Carl Lentz and other Hillsong NYC leaders. Delali opens up for the first time about the good, the bad, and the moments that brought her to her breaking point, causing her to walk away from Hillsong for good in 2020.
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Find episode transcripts here: https://hillsong-a-megachurch-shattered.simplecast.com/episodes/ep6-truth-to-power
DAN: [00:00:00] This episode may contain explicit language and themes such as sexual assault and violence. Listener discretion is advised.
JANICE: I thought, trying to help move Hillsong New York forward as far as diversity and equality, so fighting to get more women on the platform to get more non-white people on the platform, and then just ended up helping Carl learn how to trick the system.
DAN: I'm Dan Johnstone, and this is Hillsong : A Megachurch Shattered from Discovery Plus
DAN: It had been months of talking with Delali, forming a friendship with her, working on this podcast together, and I'd never heard Delali's full story. Of how she left Hillsong and what finally opened her eyes to the fuckery, as she calls it.
[00:01:00] After devoting 12 years to the church, the prime of her youth, she has struggled with how to put into words her reasons for leaving even to me. So we asked if it would help to record herself alone without any outside opinion, judgment, or follow up questions. This is what she sent me.
Delali: If I'm being honest, the real reason it's taken me so long to record this is because talking about Hillsong and the fuckery is emotionally taxing. It's really hard to explain to people who haven't experienced anything like this. They weren't in it. They didn't give up years of their lives serving, staying up all night. Staying all day on Sunday from sun up to sundown, being asked to do things at odd hours of the night. Of course in the name of God. They weren't there. When we give [00:02:00] up our money, sweat, blood, and literal tears, our youth to what we thought was a good cause, a godly cause, and talking about it has been emotionally draining.
Delali: Why? Because, yes, we eventually left, but before we did, we did call Hillsong home. For some of us it's simple. We were part of a cult. But for some of us that word doesn't quite fit. A word that conjures up images of Jonestown or of Kool-Aid, or simple minded people who fell for con artists. No. This was something else.
Delali: This was something less simple. This is for those of us with scars that are not visible to the naked eye, scars that some have begun to define as
religious trauma. The [00:03:00] aftermath of leaving a place that called itself a church. This is for people who have left organizations like Hillsong and yet struggle to put into words why or what exactly they experienced.
Delali: My story begins at the young age of 17. It's sometimes hard to even conjure up clear memories of what it was like in the beginning, but it easily comes back when I talk to Chloe.
Delali: Hello?
Delali: Chloe. She and I first met when we were teenagers at Hillsong. Our relationship is really more than friendship.
Chloe: Yeah, yeah.
Delali: Every single time we call each other to catch up, we troll each other. We laugh a lot. Friendships like the one I have with Chloe are the only reason [00:04:00] I can say I'm grateful for Hillsong.
Delali: Well, we have to mention that you and I, we were both on the worship team. You remember?
Chloe: Yes. Oh my gosh. I do remember .
Delali: We were on the worship team because we could hold a note. Like it's not like we could actually sing well. Like we could just not, not sing bad.
Chloe: Yeah, totally. No .
Delali: Anyway's, question. Uh, yeah, next question. bad memories. Um, I guess, you know, cuz. There were so many good memories and stuff like that. Like for you, what was the moment where you just realized that something was off?
Chloe: Mm. The thing with me is I always see the best in people. You know, I, I never, I'm really naive.
Delali: Yeah.
Chloe: I was so in the thing that I didn't see everything around me.
Delali: Yeah. [00:05:00]
Chloe: And. And when everything, uh, blew up, you know, I was like, oh my gosh, I cannot believe that. I didn't see that, and that, and that and that.
Delali: Mm.
Chloe: Um, probably when, uh, when I, um, became a mom seven years ago, I really saw that something was off. Um, it was on the Sunday morning. Uh, and it was the day, uh, I started to have my contraction.
Delali: Mm.
Chloe: And, uh, and it was, uh, it started on the morning and I, um, I gave birth to my first born, um, the day, the day after that.
Delali: Mm.
Chloe: Uh, but, you know, all of the day during the, the, the whole, the whole day I had my contraction. Mm-hmm. and my husband worked for church and. The day after that, uh, my husband served that church and I never thought [00:06:00] once to, to call my husband and ask him to, to come home.
Delali: Mm.
Chloe: To come home and be with me. So during the morning, I had, uh, the few contraction. It didn't hurt, but I was like, okay. Um, I'm just, I, I need to, to, to go away because I cannot stay. By myself, uh, all alone. So I went to church and I, I did all the services, but it's starting on the morning at maybe eight, 8:00 AM and I saw my husband at maybe, uh, uh, 3:00 PM because it was serving, he knew that, that I had contraction and, uh, neither him or me say okay. We need to find a solution. Uh, we are gonna have a, a baby.
Delali: Mm-hmm.
Chloe: We need to be together and, you know. Mm. And wow. Before that, my, one of my very good friends, she told me she's not okay. This is wrong the way they [00:07:00] treat us. Uh, I could, um, hear her. I could hear her, I could hear her, but I couldn't. To what she was saying. Even I gave us my, uh, second baby. My husband served that church because nobody could replace him, you know? About that time I was like, okay, maybe this is not right. .
Delali: Yeah.
Chloe: When I, when I think about it, I'm like, girl, seriously?
Delali: Yeah. I feel like most of us who have been part of this organization for like basically half of our lives, it took us a long time, as you said, to kind of like have that moment to be like, Hey, something is not right.
Delali: For me, it took 17 years. 17 years to realize things were not right. Probably because in the beginning it was great. It was everything I needed. It was 2005. Geographically [00:08:00] home for me was in France. That was a place for me that presented its first opportunity to be part of Hillsong. At the young age of 17, I walked into the doors of the very first service held at Hillsong Paris.
Delali: It was a Friday night. All I could see was an eclectic group of young men and women just like me singing cool worship songs and having the best time and not being ashamed of their desire to serve God. Then I had heard the song, Shout to the Lord sung around the world
MUSIC: Shout to the lord all the earth hear us sing.
Delali: And had it on repeat on my CD player. Dealing with [00:09:00] teenage angst that brought up so many questions about the future. This felt like an opportunity for me as a young woman to finally own my Christian faith outside of my parents' influence. Initially, Chloe, me and some of my new friends had a blast at Hillsong Paris. We were part of the worship team who went to Hillsong conferences together in London. And she was with me on that Sunday morning in February, 2010 when I watched a Vision Sunday video that had been made in Sydney.[00:10:00]
Brian Houston: What if we were able to start a brand new Hillsong church that would have significant impact in New York City?
VIDEO VOICE: This is a story about a city, this city.
Delali: I saw that video and instantly I knew that I had to move to New York City to be part of what they were doing over there. I knew that that was where I was gonna find my new home.
Carl Lentz: The mission from Heaven that we [00:11:00] are to follow. We know why we're in this city, and it is to be a church in the wild. We believe that
we will absolutely be a church in the wild, getting the gospel to people, or we will die trying.
Delali: I remember landing in New York on a Thursday night and that Sunday, sure enough, I walked through the doors of Irving Plaza. Ready to serve at any capacity. If you're not helping, you're not helping, was a popular phrase that we, the attendees, were quickly introduced to. And I was happy to help wherever I was needed.
Delali: My skills were in video production and editing, and I quickly found myself being placed as a leader of the video and film team. It was fun. Me and my fellow volunteers slash friends [00:12:00] were part of something great. We were part of building God's Kingdom in New York City.
Carl Lentz: When we dreamt of this vision, we were on a, a, like a stoop in an alleyway in New York City. We call it a house that has many rooms
Delali: Fast forward a few years. The church is growing rapidly.[00:13:00]
MUSIC: Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders. Let me walk upon the waters. Wherever You would call me
Delali: The song Oceans from Hillsong United came out and had become so big that it surpassed Shout to the Lord in its popularity. It was everywhere. Imagine thousands of people at Hillsong conference singing that song that had broken records and sold millions of copies. That song that actually ended up on several Hollywood trailers, those songs that gave us a feeling of closeness to God that felt so real.
Delali: That feeling was almost one of invincibility. Yeah, we [00:14:00] felt Invincible Hillsong felt invincible. It was normal for us to see A-listers attend our services on a weekly basis. Volunteer numbers were through the roof. All
was going well. We felt like we were part of something huge. It sounds silly to say, but we felt like we were changing the world.
Delali: At least we were trying, and then things got weird. This growth and popularity came at a cost at the expense of us volunteers. For me and my team, the quality of video and social media content had to be pristine. Instagram had just started becoming a thing, so we were utilizing the platform to spread the good news and the quantity of what we had to produce on a weekly basis kept on growing. Soon, spending sleepless nights in order to finish content for church had become the [00:15:00] norm.
Carl Lentz: One of our favorite church phrases is, if you ain't helping, you ain't helping, because it takes an army, it takes a, um, you know, a collected group of individuals that share the same vision.
Delali: We volunteers. We're starting to feel the weight of that sacrifice, but we were happy because we were in it together. The first thing you see right as you're welcomed into the Hillsong service is that sign, welcome home. We were home. It took us years to realize that that idea of Home at Hillsong was an illusion.[00:16:00]
Delali: Janice, how you doing?
JANICE: I'm all right. You know?
Delali: Yeah.
JANICE: And I am as well as a black woman can be in America in 2022.
Delali: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's, let's , let's, uh, you know, start slowly for these people. We can't just jump on them like that.
JANICE: Do you want the truth or not?
Delali: Janice was a fellow NYC volunteer. She was there the first day they opened the doors.
Delali: Just remind me, remind us of like what you were doing at the time?
JANICE: So I was, you know, running the stage managing team, uh, writing the connect group studies that were being used by all of Hillsong New York and then, you know, ghost writing. For Josh Kimes, for his sermons. [00:17:00] Yeah. And yeah, so those were my top three, I guess, official jobs. And then from like 20, 2014 until I left, I was, you know, the Black Whisperer for Carl, um, .
Delali: Okay. Wait, , could you tell, could you tell me what that means?
JANICE: So basically just, I, you know, I thought trying to help move Hillsong New York forward as far as, you know, diversity and equality. Um, so fighting, you know, to get more women on the platform, to get more non-white people on the platform. Yeah. Um, and then just ended up helping Carl learn how to trick
the system, I think in dealing with particularly, Black, the black congregants, the black people. Yeah. Um, and you know, [00:18:00] saying,
Delali: so what do you, what do you mean by trick the system?
JANICE: Just learning how to say, just enough to make it seem like he cared about making changes. Um,
Delali: yeah.
JANICE: And, and tricking us just into giving him more time and way more credit, um, for his little efforts.
Delali: Yeah. Um, let's talk a little bit more about the discrimination as it was very much racist, obviously homophobic and all of that stuff, right? The thing that's hard for me to put to words is that it wasn't blatant right. So it was, I mean, sometimes it was, sometimes Kane was very much blatantly racist. What am I saying?
JANICE: So it wasn't blatant except for it was.
Delali: Except that it was, but it wasn't like the obvious way. JANICE: What it was for me, and like when [00:19:00] I finally left. Delali: Mm-hmm.
JANICE: it wasn't that it was worse than anything I dealt with right in day to day life. But it wasn't better. It's not like, you know, I go to work all week and have to deal with microaggressions and deal with whatever, and then I come here and it's like this safe haven. And in some ways it's worse because at least your workplace has, you know, We have affirmative action. We have the DEI we have like, they at least have to pretend, right?
Delali: Yeah.
JANICE: Or there are at least there's, there's HR, there's, there is recourse. You know, it's like, okay, and things get really bad here. At least I know I can go here or do this.
Delali: Mm-hmm.
JANICE: At Hillsong there was just, there was nothing. So it's the exact same experience you're getting out in the regular world, except you have less protection here and these people are going to. Are putting this off on God, right? So you don't have to say, you don't have to call me the N word. You don't have to say, well, I think less with black [00:20:00] people, all you have to say is, no, we're not. We're just choosing who God is choosing. So it's not us. It's God who keeps choosing this same white man over and over again. And I, I, I wish, I wish I could put someone else up there, but...
Delali: But don't worry. The best is yet to come. Maybe try again. JANICE: The best is yet to come.
Delali: This person over me who has zero experience with talking to people. JANICE: Anything
Delali: With anything, um, and they are my pastor. And they don't have a single friend or a single colleague who does not look like them. All the people that they surround themselves, are white male around the same age. And when things were, when people were careless with their words, with their actions, with their hands, their touch, you know, [00:21:00] it would just be like, Oh, well, they didn't really mean that because like hey, we're home and we love you. You know, and you're gonna be fine. Right? And like, just wait.
JANICE: Right. Right. And it, and it like, and looking back on it now, I'm like, we. I mean we were assuming their intentions were good.
Delali: Yeah.
JANICE: You know, with all the best intent, just overlooking stuff. Cuz I even think back to, you know, even some of the, the best leaders, some of the good, the good people, right? Like thinking about like Gabe and Shannon Kelly, um, and you know, people would be like, yeah, yeah, they were great and they were
Delali: mm-hmm.
JANICE: But also, you know, when they were having their creative team nights, you know, so they would weekly have all the creative leaders over. I'm not invited. How does stage managing not count for that? Had I been a white leader over that team? I'm pretty sure I would've been.
Delali: Oh, of course. Yeah.
JANICE: You know, and it's just, yeah, things like that [00:22:00] where... Delali: Right.
JANICE: But at that point, like you can't say anything and then... Delali: Right.
JANICE: You know, you're always taught first to, to look within and check your own heart. So then it becomes, well, who do I think I am? Why does this matter to me? So this, this is a me issue now, right?
Delali: Right.
JANICE: So I have to just forget about their racism cuz this is a test, this is a test for me and my heart, and why do I think I should be there?
Delali: Wow. Wow.
JANICE: Now knowing what I know and be like, oh no. They were grifting from the beginning, um, and never had any intentions of doing anything more than they absolutely had to.
Delali: As you said, like right now, obviously hindsight is 2020. Right. But one thing about us like women and black women is that we're so quick to give people like grace and so quick to like, you know, give people so many [00:23:00] chances. So there are a lot of things that we had noticed way before we actually decided to be vocal about it.
JANICE: Mm-hmm. Yah when I got to the end,
Delali: Yeah.
JANICE: I still had to be like, okay, this, this place I think is hurting me. Um, I don't like the way women are treated here. I don't like the way black people are treated here. But now I seriously, I have to go look in the Bible and I have to do my study because I don't know, I could be wrong about this. Maybe. Maybe this is God's will and maybe. Maybe God does feel this way. So then, then it's gonna become a question of I either have to leave this church or I'll have to leave this
religion cuz if, if this God is this way, then I can't, then it's not for me. So I had to do that and had, and then had to come to the point where I'm like, no, I do think, I do think God cares about these things.
Delali: Yeah. Yeah.
JANICE: And that if there, if there [00:24:00] is a side to be on, it's not even that God is on my side. I think I'm on God's side with this. So. I gotta go. I got, this is not, this is not healthy for me. Um, and kind of realizing, ooh, like I would never want to, I would never wanna raise a child in this environment. Like this would not be good for a black child. I don't think so. If it's so, then it can't be good for me, so I gotta go.
Delali: Yeah. We walked in thinking that we found a home, we found a church. What do you feel about that term home that's associated with a church? And where are you now looking for, if, you are looking for a home or something else, like what does that look like for you?
JANICE: I mean, I find home where I think I always would've if Hillsong hadn't gotten the way, which is, you know, in art, in storytelling, in music. Home is, is community and church [00:25:00] says no, we're the only community that counts and we're the one you have to have. And it's just not true. Cause I mean, I've been in church long enough and, you know, I'm writing sermons, I'm writing the Connect Group study. So I think I know enough about the Bible. I, I don't need to go hear some man's thought of the week. I can give myself a thought of the week if I want one.
Carl Lentz: When we say welcome home at Hillsong New York City, we really mean it. When you're at home, you can kick your shoes off. When you're at home, you can be yourself. When you're at home, you can cry. When you're at home, you can laugh.
Delali: Hillsong calls itself a home, but what they don't mention is that home is also supposed to be a place where you find safety. No matter what's going on in [00:26:00] the world, home is a place you can always run to and find rest, comfort, healing, a place where you can just be, safely. We believed that we were family. Unfortunately, when it was time for us to say to that same family, hey, something doesn't feel quite right, or I'm drowning here. I'm hurting, I'm being overworked. I actually don't have enough money to pay my tithes and also to eat. Or your actions and words are actually hurting me. I feel disrespected. One of your leaders have been and appropriate with me. Unfortunately, our words fell on deaf ears. Their response would be, oh, you're overreacting. It's
not us, it's [00:27:00] you. Well, no one is perfect. No church is perfect. And eventually, well, you know what? We don't need you anymore anyway, so actually let's just get rid of you. That form of betrayal is debilitating for.
Delali: It had been close to seven years of serving on the film team and being on call and available at odd hours had become my norm, and all of this for free. Of course. My team was grateful to share some cold pasta with our fellow volunteers at the end of a long night of serving a church on Sunday. While, by the way, pastors in their green room enjoyed hot catered gourmet meals. I had mentioned to my creative pastor at that, the demands on the film team had become too much and we just couldn't keep up. So one day we had agreed to meet at a cafe to come up with a solution. I left that [00:28:00] cafe grateful that we were working together to find a solution to alleviate some of this pressure. We headed back to the church office with someone else who would help us execute our newly devised plan. Once we got to the office, the creative pastor went to the restroom while me and this person made some small talk while we waited. When the creative pastor eventually came back, he closed the door behind him, turned to me and just said, I'm gonna go with my instinct. You're out, and the new guy is in. And just like that, I had been fired from my volunteering position. Right there and in front of the new guy. I didn't say a thing. None of us would've expected that after years of giving up our time, our talent, our money, et cetera, that we would've been dismissed once we [00:29:00] became an inconvenience or once we became a little too vocal about our experience. What I learned that day was that the level of honor and respect that I was expected to have for my leaders was never gonna be given to me. I can't wrap my mind around why I didn't leave when I was humiliated more than once, why I didn't leave when my body was constantly in a fight or flight mode every single time it was Sunday. Or why I didn't leave when I was talked at like a dog in a group of people I considered my friends at a dinner party. I can say that there was a straw that broke the camel's back. I had just lost a close family member of mine, and I was disappointed to find that although the news had been communicated to that pastor, I [00:30:00] wasn't met with words of, I don't know. I'm sorry for your loss. Nothing. No. When I brought it up with him a few days later, he looked at me right in the eyes and claimed that he does not know what I'm talking about, because yes, he had hugged me and expressed his condolences. It's hard to describe, but I saw something in his eyes that day that made me question if I had ever known this person, who I had once called pastor and friend. And so I left. And like many like me, I had to find home elsewhere and it wasn't easy. My formative years have been shaped by Hillsong and some really harmful theology, and when I say that I was looking for home elsewhere, I wasn't looking to join another church, and so I'll end with this. For me. Leaving Hillsong [00:31:00] did not mean that I left my faith. I haven't lost faith. It was just misplaced. I have now found home in my new relationship with
the Divine and in the people in my life whom I love and cherish. The best is yet to come. And I agree. This is probably the only thing I agree with what was said on the pulpit. Yes, the best is yet to come. For those of us who have left Hillsong, who have begun the healing process, who have found the divine elsewhere, yes, the best is yet to come.
DAN: It's impossible for me and others outside of it to imagine how it felt to second guess your own experiences in Hillsong and to wonder if the [00:32:00] abuse, the discrimination, was imagined, or if you were somehow to blame. To be betrayed by your family. Hearing her story in full made me sad. It made me angry and it made me even more determined to get Carl to speak with me because for every Delali, for every Chloe and Janice at Hillsong, there is a man, most often a white man, who's hunger for power, praise, and control ruined what could have actually been what it claimed it was. Home. At Hillsong NYC, that man was Carl, and I believe he needs to answer for that. For months, he's avoided my contact. Emails, texts, dms, phone calls, as well as many others that have reached out. The only words he's offered are from behind the veil of social media. Those aren't words at all. So I decided to go to Florida where he now lives and see if I could cross his path. And I invited Dali along with me.
DAN: I'm just gonna [00:33:00] try and walk by and just see if he is there. Okay. I'm fairly sure they're watching us.
Delali: Okay.
DAN: Yeah, so it's, I think we should probably get outta there.