Hillsong Church pastors are faced with accusations of financial abuse by its former members and pastor alleging that they are using the tithe money to fund lavish lifestyles.
Just months after former pastor Carl Lentz was fired due to a sexual misconduct controversy, former church members and a pastor revealed that many of Hillsong NYC pastors often spent tithe money on things like designer clothes, weekly manicures, expensive restaurant meals and living in an expensive high-rise building in Brooklyn, The Christian Post wote.
Nicole Herman, a former Hillsong LA service pastor, told the New York Post that she personally loaded the funds onto the debit card-like pre-paid expense (PEX) cards as told by leaders.
"I was instructed to fill them. We had a team count the tithes after every service and they would allocate X amount of money for the PEX cards," Herman said.
Volunteers who made purchases for the church and pastors, including Lentz, were given the reloadable cards. Herman stated that her ex-husband was Hillsong LA's chief financial officer and thus, refilling of the money on the PEX cards were done through him.
"None of that money was coming from anywhere else," she added.
In November 2020, Hillsong Church announced that an independent investigation was launched "into the inner workings of Hillsong NYC/East Coast" after hearing about the issues of individuals connected with this branch of the church.
A former Hillsong member named Jenna Babbitt said that she provided childcare services for some pastors, including Reed and Jess Bogard, who resigned earlier this month from Hillsong Dallas. Babbitt stated that she was also given a PEX card to pay for the food of the children she cared for but was never asked to explain the purchases. She added that the lawyers investigating the Hillsong NYC contacted her too.
Herman, speaking to the New York Post, confirmed Babbitt's claim and said that the church indeed did not seek reimbursement for the cards' personal use. But in 2016, Hillsong LA terminated this practice when the Bogards were discovered to be overusing them.
"The exploitation of free labor while these pastors are making bank is just crazy to me," Babbitt said. She now works at a non-profit organization in Dallas after leaving the church in 2017.
Brandon Walker, a church volunteer who helped Hillsong Church plant a branch in Dallas, also witnessed things he said are "a lot of toxic activity." These include splurging $1,100 a day on Airbnb rentals, expensive clothes and restaurants.
Walker recalled that once when he was out with his two friends and Jess Bogard, she bought them matching $100 jackets and took them to a very expensive Italian restaurant, North Italia. He said that the bill was about $700 and was surprised of her extravagance of spending "$1,000 for no reason."
He also observed that money spent on volunteers are done with manipulation, remembering a time when he was paid for a job. He said that one time when he needed money, Reed Bogard gave him some $600 but "as a favor."
Walker further claimed, "That's a tactic a lot of these pastors use to keep their secrets. Buying us expensive gifts, giving us money, like, 'I got your back, so when I need you to have my back, this is something to remember.'"
Christian Headlines reported that according to Hillsong's 2019 Annual Report, the church gets most of its funds from the tithes. Hillsong East Coast, the branch that includes Hillsong NYC, made $12.7 million during that year, and 88 percent of it came from tithes and offerings. As a church, Hillsong is exempted from paying taxes in the U.S.
More than 66 percent of the church's earnings in 2019 went to a mixture of staff salaries, benefits and expenses ($3.8 million), and operating expenses including venue rentals, staffing and production costs ($4.9 million).
