A little bit of internet research yields much about St Matthews Churches. Let’s start with their website. It looks innocent enough. But digging through the contact information results in an interesting fact.
“Mr. JC Joyce, Esq., advised Saint Matthews Churches to have the churchs (sic) mail and seed faith offerings sent to a post office box in Tulsa, and to have the mail and seed faith offerings delivered to a secular firm, completely independent of Saint Matthews Churches. In accordance with that advice, St Matthews Churches did hire a secular company to open each church letter and seed faith offering under video security cameras. Following the highest caliber recording and accounting procedures, the secular and independent company deposits every seed faith donation into a bank, and records of the checks with which Saint Matthews Churches pays church bills are kept impeccably. Not a single member of Saint Matthews Churches clergy is ever near the church tithes or seed faith offerings. There is not now, nor has there ever been, nor will there ever be a Saint Matthew’s Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma.”
The ministry is based in California, not Oklahoma. They specifically address those like me who call their ministry a “scam”.
Some estimate that as much as $6,000,000 flows into the “ministry” each month.
This series of articles from The Tulsa World is a good summary of Saint Matthews Churches.
If you get these kinds of letters, please, throw them away.
Pondering Pastor
3 responses so far ↓
-kf // October 15, 2007 at 12:10 pm
I received one of these once. I sent them a scathing reply and sent it back to them in the postage paid envelope they provided
Jason // February 5, 2008 at 9:37 pm
I actually got suckered into this. I thought that I was sending money to a good charity. I wish I would have done some research, but at the time I fit into the demographic. I was living in a cheap apartment. If there is a lawsuit against this man, I would like to know about it. I would like to get my money back to give to a good charity.
Jason // February 5, 2008 at 10:10 pm
Does anyone know if there is a good flyer that we could put out to warn people of this scam? I will keep looking, but it would be helpful. Preferably with the man’s face on it and a curse to put on him.
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