Soon after Lentz’s ouster, Ranin Karim, a Brooklyn jewelry designer, discussed her relationship with Lentz on “Good Morning America.” A few months later, Lentz’s former nanny, Leona Kimes, came forward with allegations that Lentz had subjected her to “bullying, abuse of power and sexual abuse,” which a legal representative for Lentz denied at the time. But since Lentz’s firing in November 2020, the NYC branch and Hillsong Global have been embroiled in parallel scandals, with revelations of indiscretions with women resulting in the resignation of Hillsong’s founding pastor Brian Houston last year, as well as ongoing allegations of financial misconduct by the church. Dubbed Hillsong NYC, the church drew as many as 10,000 mostly young New Yorkers to its services at its height. Lentz, a native of North Carolina, was trained at Hillsong College in Sydney, Australia, before being sent to by the Pentecostal powerhouse to plant a Hillsong outpost in Manhattan in 2010. Todd and Transformation Church have become known in Tulsa for their community donations, including $200,000 to each of the three living survivors of the race massacre, part of a $1 million donation given by the church to commemorate the tragedy at its centennial. The arena, purchased by Transformation in 2019 for $10.5 million, was among the nearly $67 million in real estate properties the church has bought in the area in the past four years. Transformation Church, founded in 1999 in the historically Black Greenwood District of Tulsa, home to the city’s 1921 race massacre, now meets in the nearby suburb of Bixby, at the 4,500-seat SpiritBank Event Center, which the church owns. “We are called to be a safe environment for people to evolve and transform,” she added. The two go “hand-in-hand,” she said, pointing to Scripture from the Book of Galatians that includes a message to “restore one another” after sin, mistakes and repentance. McQuarters said the church’s vision to “re-present God to the lost and found for transformation in Christ” includes restoration.
We believe in Carl, his marriage, his skill set, and his restoration,” McQuarters said.
“After two years of Carl being in his own discovery and healing process, he has shown readiness to use his God-given gifts towards the local church again.
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