ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
A local woman who grew up in hedge fund-turned-megachurch Hillsong is still able to absolutely belt one out when she wants after spending her childhood and adolescence honing the craft.
Sources close to Kelly Johnson report that the decision to leave the megachurch was a difficult one, as she had been a devoted member for several years. However, she began to question some of the church’s teachings and found herself increasingly at odds with the leadership’s conservative views.
Now that the organisation is teetering on the brink of collapse, the 24-year-old feels vindicated by her position.
“I’m glad I got out when I did,” she said.
“My parents are still in there, but yeah, hopefully they’ll wake up one day. Growing up in that organization had some positives. Like they taught us all how to sing. They taught my brother how to play the guitar,”
“A lot of those Hillsong songs have a great melody. Some pretty solid songwriting if I’m honest. My new friends think it’s funny when, like, say we go out for lunch and get a few bottles of white wine and a few gins into us, and they make me belt out ‘This I Believe,’ or as it’s known in the church, ‘The Creed,'”
“I can sing that underwater. I can sing the shit out of that song. I believe in God our Father, I believe in Christ the Son, I believe in the Holy Spirit. Our God is three in one!”
Kelly’s de facto life partner, Greg Doyle, had a much different upbringing, but nevertheless, he is impressed at Kelly’s ability to just take a sharp breath in and go wang.
“I’m no muso, but she’s got range,” he said.
“Like she can do all the trills and shit. It’s wild, hey? Pretty crook that place, but fuck a brown dog, they can teach people to sing and dance and strum a guitar. It kind of wigs me out a bit when she starts, like, really getting into her work. She starts swaying and clapping, she’s singing Fleetwood Mac. Creeps me out, it does. Fleetwood Mac only sung about shooting dope and laying pipe, not God or his moody son Jesus Christ,”
“Anyway.”
More to come.
