Wednesday, 10 March 2010
AS Brian Tamaki’s Destiny Church comes under the spotlight for its funding practices, it has been revealed the church’s Whakatane branch collected a cool $325,225 from members in the 2009 financial year - a staggering $89,652 more than the $235,573 donated in 2008.
Registered with the Charities Commission as the Destiny Church Whakatane Trust, the Valley Road church collected an average $1300 from every man, woman and child in its congregation of about 250.
Though it is one of the country’s poorer districts, Whakatane ranks fifth in New Zealand among Destiny’s charity-registered churches for the total amount of donations it receives and comes after Hamilton which collected $422,331.
However, Whakatane pastor Andre Nicholas would not reveal how many church members complied with the church requirement for them to tithe 10 per cent of their income.
And he would not be drawn on the appropriateness of Destiny’s money-gathering techniques, which in Auckland includes the use of ATMs and eftpos machines.
The Destiny Church, headed by self-appointed bishop Brian Tamaki and his wife Hannah, hit the headlines recently when Brisbane church pastor Andrew Stock walked out, followed by a large percentage of his congregation
The church has previously attracted much criticism for its money-making methods, with disenchanted ex-members claiming the church extracted more cash from members’ pockets than many could afford.
Disapproval has also been directed against the highly-paid Tamakis, who operate wide-ranging business ventures associated with their church, own a luxury home and drive expensive cars and motorcycles, including a new Audi, the base model of which costs about $127,000, according to a TV3 report.
Mr Stock is said to have staged his walkout in protest at a recently-introduced covenant that clashed with his beliefs.
The covenant encouraged members to buy a $300 signet ring, stop buying coffee and give up Sky TV so they could afford to increase their contributions to the church.
The covenant said about $1.3 million would be put aside so Bishop Tamaki could appear on his own television programme every weekday.
According to its statement of financial performance, the Whakatane church last year spent $77,285 on salaries and wages, but the cost of “service provision” (excluding salaries and wages) was $156,712.
“Other expenditure” swallowed $70,995 - more than double the $31,038 recorded the previous year.
But Mr Nicholas declined to discuss what percentage of donations ended up in the hands of the Tamakis, referring the Beacon to national church spokeswoman Janine Cardno for information.
The large increase in donations “probably” reflected an increase in church membership, he said, although he was unable to specify how many new members had joined in that time. About 60 per cent of church members were Maori, and the congregation was made up mostly of family groups.
Describing the latest media reports about Destiny as inaccurate, Mr Nicholas said the church only wanted to help people “do well” in their lives.
He had “not really” received any negative feedback about the latest controversy, because he and his wife were deeply involved in the community and local people valued the work the church was doing with young people.
The Whakatane church attracted members from as far afield as Gisborne and Te Puke, he said.