NEW YORK – Carl Lentz, the celebrity magnet of a pastor who brought the global megachurch Hillsong from Australia to the United States, has been fired, acknowledging on Instagram that he cheated on his wife.The leader of HillsongNYC, who once ministered to Justin Bieber and a bevy of other celebrities and sports stars, wrote: “When you lead out of an empty place, you make choices that have real consequences.
I was unfaithful in my marriage, the most important relationship in my life and held accountable for that.”Lentz and wife, Laura, who met as students at Hillsong's training college in Sydney, arrived in New York in 2010 to spread the church's style of mass gatherings, a slick online reach and Grammy-winning Christian rock music.