Anna Crenshaw Alleges Hillsong Asked Her to Sign NDA over Assault by Former Staffer

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Former Hillsong College student Anna Crenshaw alleged that the megachurch asked her to lie and sign a non-disclosure agreement despite reaching an undisclosed settlement agreement earlier this week.

“We were unable to come to a settlement today because Hillsong changed their plan in a ploy to intimidate and silence me. And I will not give up my voice. This has never been about money for me but about justice and accountability, which we’ve not received this week,” Crenshaw told reporters outside an Australian court Thursday.

On Monday, Crenshaw and Hillsong reached an undisclosed settlement agreement after she went public over three years ago about her being indecently assaulted by married Hillsong Church administrator Jason Mays.

The settlement was expected to go into a five-day trial which has now resumed, The Christian Post reported. 

Crenshaw, who is the daughter of Victory Church Senior Pastor Ed Crenshaw in Pennsylvania, lamented that the church asked her to sign an NDA as part of the settlement and also asked that she release a joint statement saying the church had immediately reported her assault to local police when she came forward. The church took five months following the incident to report it.

“There is so much shame that comes with these types of abuses and victims shouldn’t feel shame. I worked so hard in finding my voice in coming forward from my initial report to Hillsong and they have from day one tried to silence me,” Crenshaw said. “That is not what I was seeking in the justice process. It wasn’t to come here, get their money, and walk away without my voice,” Crenshaw said. “It was to get some accountability and a real sense of justice and hope that they would really change in moving forward. I think this is just evidence that despite their new leadership, they have the same tactics.”

As Crosswalk Headlines previously reported, Crenshaw was just 18 years old when Mays, who was then serving as a Hillsong staff administrator and volunteer singer, sexually assaulted her. 

“Jason grabbed me, putting his hand between my legs and his head on my stomach and began kissing my stomach. I felt his arms and hands wrapped around my legs making contact with my inner thigh, butt, and crotch,” she wrote in a 2018 statement reviewed by The Christian Post.

Although she reported the matter to Margaret Aghajanian, Hillsong Church’s then head of pastoral care oversight, that Mays — the son of Hillsong’s then head of human resources, John Mays — had assaulted her, her complaint was diminished.

“I felt like I could not say anything about the Jason incident because his friend had said not to, insisting that he was a good guy, and this was not a normal behavior for him. After the incident until now I feel uncomfortable when I come into the same area as him,” Crenshaw said in her statement to Aghajanian.

In 2020, Mays pleaded guilty to indecent assault and was placed on two years’ probation and mandatory counseling.

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Milton Quintanilla is a freelance writer and content creator. He is a contributing writer for CrosswalkHeadlines and the host of the For Your Soul Podcast, a podcast devoted to sound doctrine and biblical truth. He holds a Masters of Divinity from Alliance Theological Seminary.