After years of scandal and leadership upheavals, Hillsong Worship released three new singles on October 23, with plans to release a new album February 2027. Hillsong Church was originally founded in 1983 by Brian Houston as Hills Christian Life Centre before eventually being rebranded as Hillsong in 2001, expanding across the country to include locations in the United States. It attracted big celebrity names, most famously Justin Bieber and Chris Pratt.

Hillsong, however, has faced a long fall from grace since 2020. At that time, the church announced it was parting ways with pastor Carl Lentz for “moral failures.” Lentz revealed that he’d had a months-long affair. Further investigations claimed Lentz had had a series of affairs. He would also be accused of sexual and emotional abuse. The Lentzes have remained married despite the accusations. In 2021, Darnell Barrett, a married pastor for Hillsong in Montclair, New Jersey, resigned after sending explicit photos to a church volunteer. In March 2022, founder Brian Houston resigned after facing an internal investigation for inappropriate conduct with two women. He also faced a criminal charge of concealing evidence that his late father had sexually abused a child, a charge he was found not guilty of in August 2023. Houston’s exit spurred on a leadership overhaul within the ministry.

Hillsong Worship’s Jad Gillies spoke with The Christian Post about the uphill battle Hillsong is facing. “The season that we’ve been through, and upheaval, and there’s been some disappointments in there. What I think this new season represents is a real opportunity to kind of reset,” said Gillies, who has served in Hillsong for 24 years. While admitting that the scandals and scrutiny had been painful, he said he was also thankful. “It was really just: Are we still supposed to be doing this? Are we supposed to? Is this something we should still do? We get to reset and say what’s important to us, who are we, who does God want us to be, and if this is who God wants us to be, then this is how we must behave.” When the church was in turmoil, Gillies said he held on to what mattered. “I just watched a bunch of that unfold one morning, and it was right in the midst of everything that was going on,” he said. “Our church is made up of these people that just love God and they’re doing their best for their family. … [I thought], ‘Well, we can serve our church in this season.’”

Of course, there are those who feel doubtful of Hillsong’s redemption arc, with many urging churches to stop singing worship songs made by the ministry. “Hillsong music is the primary, and profitable, way Hillsong culture imports itself to churches the world over,” wrote Katelyn Beaty for The Beaty Beat. “At some point, Hillsong became a business and not a church — a business more interested in global expansion and protecting its brand than ministering to all people in its midst. It hurt unknown numbers of people in the process. Hillsong’s evangelistic wreckage is vast.” She called the Hillsong brand “damaged” from the scandals. “Let’s use our worship time together to communicate in word and deed to others that the church is a place that loves truth, that protects vulnerable people, that uses resources rightly, and that seeks integrity in its leaders. It seems to me that dropping the Hillsong connection would be a place to start.”