New season of Secrets We Keep takes listeners inside Australia’s most secretive doomsday church

In the new season of LiSTNR’s podcast docuseries Secrets We Keep, listeners will be taken into a secretive religious group where every aspect of members’ lives is tightly controlled by their hardline pastor.

Secrets We Keep: Pray Harder, a new nine-part investigation hosted by award-winning Australian investigative journalist Richard Baker, reveals the sinister truth about the pastor who led the Geelong Revival Centre (GRC), a regional Victorian church with tentacles across Australia.

Survivors and ex-members bravely blow the whistle on abuse, violence and sexism from inside the group, which operated under the late Pastor Noel Hollins.
Available now exclusively on LiSTNR, the series exposes how Pastor Hollins led the GRC, which has affiliated assemblies around the world, blended the racist doctrine of the “British Israel” movement with doomsday predictions that Armageddon would soon be upon us.

Pastor Hollins dedicated his life to the movement and convinced followers he had a direct line to God. Under his leadership, members were encouraged to use physical punishment to discipline their children, women and girls were routinely oppressed, and abuse was not reported to authorities.

Secrets We Keep: Pray Harder showcases exclusive audio obtained by Baker as part of his two-year investigation of Pastor Hollins’ teachings.

Baker also secured testimony from ex-members who share intimate details of their lives growing up in a highly controlled environment, where a culture of intense surveillance meant everyone reported on each other and normal human urges such as affection and attraction were suppressed and replaced with rules, judgement, fasting and prayer.

According to Pastor Hollins, the answer to any hardship, ailment, fear or desire was simply to ‘Pray Harder’.

“It’s astonishing what these former members have shared with me,” said Richard.
“The amount of human wreckage, particularly within families, is shocking and I’ve come away from several interviews kind of numb and in a daze.”

All allegations and experiences in this podcast pertain to those under the control of the assembly of Pastor Noel Hollins.

They do not relate to or represent the church under the current leadership of the Geelong Revival Centre. Pastor Hollins died at age 93 earlier this year.

All nine Secrets We Keep: Pray Harder episodes are now available exclusively on LiSTNR.