Ben Houston had plenty of reasons to choose his words carefully when he sat down with Carl Lentz. But a conversation between two longtime friends soon moved into deeply personal territory: his parents' treatment, his own departure from Hillsong, and the friendship Lentz says survived when others pulled away.
In an October 17, 2024, episode of Lights On, Houston described the strain of watching the church his parents built move into a different chapter. Lentz was considerably less diplomatic, calling the treatment of his friend at the end of his Hillsong tenure "disgusting" and saying he believed Houston deserved an apology.
For anyone expecting a carefully polished reunion, the exchange offered something more revealing. Houston remained protective of the church, while Lentz openly voiced grievances about how people were treated when their time in leadership ended.
Houston, who helped establish Hillsong Los Angeles, explained that his connection to the ministry reached back to infancy. Having spent his life as a founder's son and then a pastor, he said leaving Hillsong's employment briefly brought an unfamiliar freedom: the feeling that he could speak without carrying the weight of representing an entire institution.
That freedom, however, came with lingering caution. Even during the interview, Houston acknowledged that he still worried about how his words might be interpreted.
The conversation became particularly pointed when Lentz asked about watching the fallout as a son. Houston defended his parents' decades of work and said it felt as though the leadership then in place almost wanted to overlook their existence.
"It breaks my heart," he said.
That was Houston's personal assessment of the situation, rather than an established account of the leadership's intentions. The supplied conversation does not include a response from Hillsong to that characterization.
Lentz went further when discussing Ben's own departure. He said he believed his friend had been caught in circumstances that were unfair and argued that supporting him should have taken priority over moving him out.
"I think you're owed it," Lentz told Houston while discussing an apology.
Houston resisted turning the exchange into an outright attack. He acknowledged that every story has multiple sides and said he was trying to understand that people who failed to support him might also have been struggling themselves.
Then came a revealing detail about their friendship. According to Lentz, Houston visited him in California during an especially difficult period, despite people telling Houston not to go.
"You came anyway," Lentz recalled.
For Lentz, the visit stood in sharp contrast to other experiences of isolation. He described reaching out to someone nearby for prayer and receiving no response, making Houston's willingness to show up particularly meaningful.
Yet the interview also moved beyond questions of loyalty and institutional fallout. Houston disclosed that serious physical symptoms and deteriorating mental health had affected him during his years leading in Los Angeles, well before the conversation was recorded.
He described insomnia, vertigo, fainting, and pain that sometimes left him curled up in his car between services. Houston said he first expressed doubts about his ability to continue leading in 2016, but remained in the role as his difficulties intensified.
He also spoke about experiencing suicidal thoughts during a particularly severe period around 2019. His account emphasized that recovery involved several forms of support, including time with doctors and mental health professionals, changes to his workload, and attention to his physical, emotional, and spiritual health.
By the time of the 2024 interview, Houston described renewed energy and enthusiasm for helping others. He said working with pastors who needed somewhere to speak honestly had become an especially fulfilling part of his life.
Despite the pointed criticism, neither man used the conversation to reject everything associated with Hillsong. Lentz acknowledged his own contribution to the fallout, while Houston continued to express love for the church and a determination to resist bitterness.
The revealing tension was between those loyalties and their disappointment. Houston still wanted to honor the ministry that shaped his life; Lentz wanted someone to acknowledge how painfully his friend's chapter there had ended.
