It’s 7 a.m. on a recent Friday and Anna Crenshaw is “feeling alright” in Sydney, Australia. Months after her arrival in the Land Down Under to attend Hillsong College in 2016, though, this pastor’s daughter from Pennsylvania was left in shock after a Hillsong Church worship leader assaulted her.
Anna Crenshaw, 23, a former Hillsong College student and former Hillsong Church volunteer. | Anna Crenshaw
It’s 7 a.m. on a recent Friday and Anna Crenshaw is “feeling alright” in Sydney, Australia. Months after her arrival in the Land Down Under to attend Hillsong College in 2016, though, this pastor’s daughter from Pennsylvania was left in shock after a Hillsong Church worship leader assaulted her.
The now 23-year-old, who spent four-and-a-half years studying and training between Hillsong College and Hillsong Church, says she initially struggled with the decision to report what happened, partly because she was asked to keep quiet. With the help of her counselor in the fall of 2018, however, Crenshaw found the strength to share her story with church leadership.
Hillsong | HILLSONG
Around the time they received complaints about inappropriate sexual relations between staff and volunteers at Hillsong NYC, the embattled Australia-based Hillsong Church was in the throes of investigating the sexual assault of a Philadelphia pastor’s daughter at its headquarters, a new report reveals.
According to a Vanity Fair report featuring interviews with a number of Hillsong volunteers and former congregants, in 2018, Anna Crenshaw, who is the daughter of Victory Church Senior Pastor Ed Crenshaw, reported that Jason Mays, a Hillsong staff administrator, volunteer singer and the son of the church’s head of human resources, sexually assaulted her at a social gathering while she attended Hillsong College in Australia. It took a serious fight from Anna and her father to hold Mays, who is listed as creative director and head of sync at Hillsong Music, accountable.