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Tag Archives: c3global

Guess Which “get-rich-quick” scheming Pastor This Journalist Is Warning Us Against?

26 Wednesday Dec 2012

Posted by Nailed Truth in Associations, Books, Brian Houston's Beliefs, News Headlines

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Brian Houston, C3, c3 church, c3 church oxford falls, c3 global, c3global, ccc church, ccc global, cccglobal, get-rich-quick schemes, Hillsong, Hillsong Church, houston, mesiti, millionaire makers, money magnet, Pat Mesiti, phil pringle, pringle, prosperity, prosperity gospel, sales pitch, scandal, secrets of wealth, wealth

Is this journalist warning us against ‘Pastor’ Brian Houston from Hillsong Church?

Is this journalist warning us against ‘Pastor’ Phil Pringle from C3 Church?

Is this journalist warning us against ‘Pastor’ Pat Mesiti who ministers at both C3 and Hillsong and is close friends with Pringle and Houston?

Houston Pringle Mesiti get rich quick scheme

Before reading the article below, please read how Phil Pringle of C3 Church mentored Pat Mesiti and restored him to be a ‘legitimate’ pastor again in 2006. It’s worth further noting that Pastor Brian Houston from Hillsong Church is close friends with Pat Mesiti and was also with him though this restoration process.

Phil Pringle ‘Restoring’ Pat Mesiti As A Church Pastor

Therefore, ask yourself these questions while reading the below article:

1. If this journalist is asking people to be wary of Pat Mesiti’s “get-rich-quick schemes,” don’t you think it is worth being concerned who restored this Hillsong/C3 pastor back into ministry?

2. If Brian Houston and Phil Pringle see themselves as motivational speakers like Pat Mesiti, use similar ‘money magnet’ language like Pat Mesiti, spread similar teaching like Pat Mesiti and still endorse Pat Mesiti, how are they any different?”

3. How are Brian Houston and Phil Pringle’s prosperity-driven churches any different to Pat Mesiti’s “get-rich-schemes” organisation?

4. Does slapping Christian language on Pat Mesiti’s work and getting people “handing their cash over taking a leap of faith,” make his content 100% authentic Christianity?

5. If Pat Mesiti provides “no audit trails, no published success rates to prove it one way or the other,” then why is it also rare to hear these success stories in Hillsong and C3 Church?

6. What are the chances that Pat Mesiti got his prosperity theology from his ‘pastor’ friends Brian Houston and Phil Pringle?

Please keep these questions in mind as Fairfax NZ News reports the following:

Just who’s getting rich quick?

BY ROB STOCK

Books have always been used by salesmen to enhance their credibility, though a new series arriving in New Zealand takes that to a new pitch.

The nine books in the Millionaire Makers series ($14.99 each) tempt buyers with promises of “$100,000 in 100 days”, achieving “financial abundance for life”, or “Cracking the million dollar sales code”.

But these are really advertisements disguised as books, trying to drum up bums on seats for seminars in Auckland’s Aotea Centre in August, November and February at which the nine authors – some of the biggest names of the Australian wealth seminar scene – will attempt to sell mentoring schemes, high-risk options trading systems, boxed software programs and even franchise-style online marketing businesses to Kiwis who want to barely work at all and yet be fantastically rich.

Each book contains a “free” invitation to a seminar “worth $1994” (a very specific sum derived by comparison to the pricing of the seminars of US motivational speaker Tony Robbins).

In effect, punters who pick the books up from the natty black display stands in bookstores around the country are being asked to buy the advertisement for the seminar.

It’s brilliant marketing really, as befits the man behind the series, former evangelical pastor Pat Mesiti, now a preacher in the secular church of financial abundance.

Mesiti is a fascinating and charismatic man to meet, not least because of his colourful background as a preacher with the evangelical and highly commercial Hillsong church in Australia.

There’s no doubting the energy of the diminutive Mesiti (who is in great nick for a man whose brows now sport receding grey locks) nor his acute awareness that any journalist he meets is a single internet search away from learning about his past.

In fact, Yahoo’s new helpful habit of trying to anticipate your searching requirements suggested I add the word “scandal” to my search command even before I finished typing Mesiti’s name.

Consequently, it is he who brings up his public disgrace in 2001 when he was stood down as a preacher at Hillsong for visiting prostitutes, a scandal that led him to reinvent himself on the wealth-creation speaking circuit.

It’s still a sensitive point. As we talk the phone goes. A current affairs show producer calls as we talk, asking Mesiti to front for an interview. “Are they dirt-diggers?” he asks nervously, clearly weary of constantly revisiting his sexual sins.

Hillsong church and Mesiti still have much in common, including the message that God and Jesus want their believers to be rich, and, unusually, that Jesus was himself wealthy.

Mesiti sums it up for me. He doesn’t believe Jesus was broke. If Jesus was poor why did he have a treasurer? How could he have afforded to keep such a retinue of disciples? How else could he have afforded to take so much time off work?

Mesiti adheres to the school of thought among predominantly US preachers with a penchant for the good life that Jesus was wealthy, and what’s more, the mainstream churches know it, but are keeping the truth from people in order to amass riches for themselves (Mesiti points out that mainstream churches are among some of the biggest landowners in the world).

Mesiti’s stance is not far from Hillsong head man Brian Houston’s claim that true Christians are money magnets. “If you believe in Jesus, he will reward you here as well [as in heaven],” he once told a Sydney Morning Herald reporter.

Mesiti claims that despite having left Hillsong, he has a similar mission to the wealth- dispensing God. “I tell the people, their prosperity is my passion,” he says.

The nine authors of the Millionaire Makers series share that mission, Mesiti claims. That’s handy, because it is the only way to address the key paradox of the motivational speaker/ professional mentor: If they are so wealthy and successful, what are they doing on the speaking circuit flogging their books and mentoring systems?

“Those that can, do. Those that can’t, teach,” is the old saw that comes to mind, particularly for a journalist who has met many financially successful people.

The standard response is that they have a mission to teach and to free humanity from the shackles of society/poor schooling/bad parenting, which all combine in a malign conspiracy to keep us from the secrets of wealth.

Of course, the way to break free from the shackles and achieve wealth quickly and painlessly, according to the Mesiti school of thought, is to buy the book/the mentoring scheme/the software. Such mentoring brings “wisdom without the wait”, he tells me.

For the record, this cynical journalist for one is deeply sceptical about get-rich-quick schemes. I have no doubt they work – the problem is, I think they work for those selling them, not those buying them.

There are no audit trails, no published success rates to prove it one way or the other.

That leaves those handing their cash over taking a leap of faith.

I wouldn’t dispute that speakers like Mesiti can be a powerful force to motivate people to get out there and improve their lot, but it’s hard not to see that as secondary to the sales pitch. Pick your gurus carefully.

Source: Rob Stock, Just who’s getting rich quick?, Fairfax NZ News, http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/2548780/Just-whos-getting-rich-quick, Last Updated 29/06/2009. (Accessed 02/12/2012.)

proof_stuffNZ-Mesiti_02-12-12NOTE: SCREEN GRAB TAKEN ON THE 02/12/2012.

Amway, Hillsong & C3 – The Mesiti Connection & Restoration

16 Sunday Dec 2012

Posted by Nailed Truth in Associations

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

amway, amway organisation, Brian Houston, c3 church, c3 oxford falls, c3global, c3i, ccc, ccc church, ccc oxford falls, ccci, christia city church, every believer evangelism, hill$ong, hill$ong church, Hillsong, Hillsong Church, hs, hs church, mesiti, Pat Mesiti, phil pringle, pringle, youth alive

It is uncomfortable to note that Hillsong ‘Pastor’ Pat Mesiti was restored to ministry while the Hillsong worship leader Geoff Bullock was left with no help, having his image maligned by Hillsong.

Why was Hillsong and Phil Pringle of Christian City Church (C3) more concerned about restoring immoral Pat Mesiti and not others like Geoff Bullock (who were not immoral)? Below is an excerpt that examines Pat Mesiti, Hillsong and another victims story more closely.

The following is an interesting extract from a book titled ‘A life of unlearning – a journey to find the truth‘ by Anthony Venn-Brown. (We do NOT endorse the doctrinal content of this book.) Emphasis ours.

“It was time to find someone else to take on Youth Alive and so I approached Mark, an experienced youth leader, who was managing a Christian organisation in New Zealand. As I’d been supporting myself through Every Believer Evangelism, Youth Alive had no salary to offer him and he declined. Pat Mesiti, the youth pastor of an Italian congregation in Sydney, had been my enthusiastic assistant, so he was my next choice. Pat did a tremendous job and under his dynamic leadership, Youth Alive continued to grow, opening up opportunities for him to preach around Australia and overseas. Seeing the potential in Pat, Brian Houston, the senior pastor of Hillsong Church, invited him to join their team. Basing himself at the large church in Sydney, Pat became a very popular speaker and sold thousands of tapes, videos and books on youth topics, as well as speaking regularly at multi-level marketing conferences for companies like Amway.

It hurt me when I heard, not long after I had fallen off the radar so to speak, that Pat had taken on the title of ‘founder’ of Youth Alive NSW. My teenage daughters were finding it difficult enough to come to terms with what had happened to their dad, but hearing Pat regularly acknowledged for what their father had done caused them even more pain. My sense of pride and achievement in founding a successful youth organisation, eventually growing to events of 20,000 or more people, was now, along with many other things, also to be taken from me.

However, Pat would eventually discover himself what it’s like to have your humanity become public knowledge, with all the pain and grief this brings to your family. In 2002, Pat was stood down from all ministry in the Assemblies of God because of misconduct, the result of a sexual addiction. I’m sure he was unaware how blessed he was to have a pastor like Brian Houston support him and his family in counselling and other ways. This support meant Pat could focus on getting his life and marriage back on track in order to be restored to the ministry. Sadly, even with that support, Pat’s marriage didn’t survive. Phil Pringle, the Senior Pastor of another mega-church in Sydney, willingly took Pat’s healing and rehabilitation in hand. In his new church home and with his new wife Andrea, Pat was re-instated as a preacher on Sunday 19 February 2006 and serves God with a new awareness and humility.

The Christian Church—a place of love, forgiveness and restoration—proved to be so for Pat. His repentance opened doors and people came to his rescue. Why hadn’t it worked like that for me? I wondered. Was my sin so unforgivable?” – Anthony Venn-Brown, A life of unlearning – a journey to find the truth, 15/11/2007. 

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