‘Hillsong: A Megachurch Exposed’ Executive Producer on How the Famous Church Became a ‘Cultural Phenomenon’ (EXCLUSIVE)

variety.com:

Kate Aurthur editorHillsong is best known as the international church that has attracted a flock of A-list attendees, including Justin and Hailey Bieber, Chris Pratt, Katherine Schwarzenegger, Kevin Durant, and Kylie and Kendall Jenner.

When Dan Johnstone first approached making a documentary about the church — the three-part Discovery Plus docuseries “Hillsong: A Megachurch Exposed” — however, his interest was far more wide-ranging.“I was a child of the ‘80s and ‘90s,” Johnstone said in his first interview about the project, which he executive produced. “I was, like, a huge sneakerhead; I’m into music, I’m into fashion.

I grew up in a religious household. And so I sort of followed Hillsong, and I just saw this church that had crossed through all of those barriers.” Having worked with Discovery on two previous projects, Johnstone and his company Breaklight Pictures set out to tell the story of how Hillsong — the popular, scandal-plagued church founded in 1983 in Australia by Brian Houston — had become “a cultural phenomenon,” as Johnstone put it, and “crossed over from religious culture into pop culture.”The resulting docuseries, which premieres on Discovery Plus on March 24, will explore the full, tangled history of Hillsong.

That includes Houston founding the church as an offshoot of his father Frank Houston’s Sydney-based Pentecostal church; the rise and fall of Carl Lentz, Hillsong’s most famous pastor; and Houston’s recent announcement that he’s stepped down from Hillsong for the rest of the year.