Hillsong Music

Well, what happened? What happened to Bill Hybels? Sexual, moral scandal, the whole thing But this was the big freak show.

What happened to Hellsong in Sydney, Australia and in New York? Financial and sexual scandals with the Houstons.

And we're talking here not just Brian Houston, but his father, Frank, who was a horrible man, a pedophile, a homosexual pedophile.

And then Carlin in New York.

And they found that 35 of those 38 songs came from four mega churches.

Bethel, Hillsong, Elevation, and Passion.

So it's all concentrated in these four specific churches.

And the songs that were written that did not come from those churches only made it into the top 25 once one of those four churches covered it.

And so now what's happened is you've got these guys that are worship leaders within these four churches, and they're kind of co-writing together.

You know, a Bethel writer may collaborate with a Passion writer.

A Passion writer may collaborate with a Hillsong writer.

And remember, these guys have their Mike Pence rules, too, where they can't hang out with women.

I, meanwhile, became a Belieber in the power of social media long before book talk became a thing.

Returning to my laptop, I answered an email from the head of Hillsong Music.

The Grammy Award-winning band from an Australian megachurch had sold more than 12 million albums, regularly topping Billboard charts, and their songs were sung by an estimated 50 million people in 60 languages each week.

The band's music was so popular, the church established its own denomination, with churches in 30 countries, attracting more than 150,000 attendees.

And I did social media for Hillsong Conference.

I started doing stuff for Hillsong Music.

And I was like,

oh my gosh, this is crazy.