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Thanks for all the support in here, worms. This week has made me feel really angry and frustrated. Reading these comments gives me some encouragement.

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Mar 9, 2023Liked by David Farrier

DO NOT STOP DAVID. Make Megachurches your next doco please (but maybe not while living in America 😳). It’s time they start paying tax like everyone else or better yet, shut down ASAP. And I agree with the comment - where is their code of ethics? Where is their formal training? DO NOT STOP THIS REPORTING! And thanks for being brave enough to do it. And go Andrew Wilkie. We need 5,000 more of him in parliament.

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Mar 9, 2023Liked by David Farrier

You know what - sometimes I wake up in the morning and read too much news and my heart is heavy with the amount of fuckwittery out there, but it always restores my faith in the world that you and other journos are driven to highlight this bs. To force positive change and to provide a voice to people damaged by these organisations. Thanks so much for all you do David 👏

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I said yesterday that they’re more like corporations than churches and should be treated as such, but after reading this I’ve revised my opinion - they’re organised crime and should be charged as such 😒

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Mar 9, 2023Liked by David Farrier

This is only scratching the surface. It's like a thread hanging from a jumper sleeve, and as you keep pulling it, the entire thing starts to unravel.

The H$ (Hillsong) and Life network goes back to buddies in Lower Hutt, Houston and deJong being mentored by the old boy himself, Frank H at Sydney Christian Life Centre, then both going off to plant and grow their own empires.

The "gift giving" is massive amongst them and all of their networked "boys club" churches around the world - it's ingrained as "honour culture" so the congregation are conditioned not to see it as dodgy. Think of the massive H$ church network, but then add in many of the other mega churches over there: Casy Treat, Rick Godwin, Kevin Gerald, Steve Kelly - the list goes on and on and on and on.......... It's nothing for PdJ to have a paid "sabbatical" and head off overseas on wages, while collecting massive honourariums over there.

This expose has been decades in the making, with thousands of hurt, used and abused people discarded along the way. The church however has had ample opportunity to reflect, repent and mend broken relationships over the years, but chose instead to favour the machine over the individual. I cannot tell you how many times we were told that we were "dispensible." They were not prepared to clean house, so now that house is exposed to the world to be cleaned.

* Christian believer here proudly supporting Webworm with my subscription. If you get to check your presumably overflowing mailbox David, I have written you a far lengthier message, following on from a brief email conversation we had last year. Thank you for being the voice to bring this rubbish to the surface.

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I think they seem to have confused "40 days in the desert", with "40 days of desserts". But then, a lot of these pastors seem to have spelling difficulties.

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This is so fascinating, and again the line “you can’t make this stuff up” comes to mind - especially the leaked documents.

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😳😳😳 it just gets better and better (worse and worse). Why am I not surprised though? 🤔

Thanks for your ongoing work David. There’s quite a few megachurch leaders sweating because you care so much

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Mar 9, 2023Liked by David Farrier

This story has been picked up by the abc here in Aus now.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-10/federal-mp-accuses-hillsong-money-laundering-tax-evasion/102077080

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Mar 10, 2023·edited Mar 11, 2023Liked by David Farrier

On Life’s latest email to you, the whole thing makes me so mad. I was very involved at Life for a few years.

So while Phil’s name is at the bottom of the email (and as manager he’d be the first person to say he’s responsible for it) ... it very much reflects the attitude of Life leadership. So arrogant.

I believe what they mean is: “We don’t want to engage with you on this topic because we don’t believe we are accountable to you.”

But what about their congregation?

I think at the heart of it, the individuals in leadership at Life feel accountable to each other (and their ‘spiritual oversight’) rather than to their congregation. I would dearly love to be wrong on this.

And I think what the leadership at Life don’t seem to realise is that David is a kind of proxy/advocate for their former congregation members, who went to him willingly and openly with their stories.

Are Life accountable to David? No. But is he asking questions that any congestion member would have a right to ask and get a straight answer on? Absolutely. And would congregants have got any kind of communication about these issues without David’s questions? Probably not.

Just like the initial Arise responses (who finally issued a proper apology after maybe ten months of idiocy), what’s missing from the Life response is that focus on the welfare of those affected, plus what steps they have taken / will take to ensure they are taking good care of their current congregation. It’s PR 101.

How did Arise lose so many members? It refused to acknowledge the extent of the problem; ring-fenced issues; victim-blamed, put the needs of survivors (and congregants) at the bottom of the list, well below protecting the organisation and senior leaders’ image; all while pumping out social media and Sunday services as though everything was fine.

And the effect? Trust was broken.

That’s why people left.

I’m not sure those in Life leadership realise this, but currently they’re following the Arise playbook pretty closely.

It’s their move.

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I quite enjoy this Web Log, or blog, if you will. It is informative and entertaining. And, most importantly, it maintains high levels of journalistic ethics that I crave from other mastheads which maintain Web Logs on The Internet, which some people call the World Wide Web. I am always delighted to receive this Web Log via the medium of Electronic Mail, some call this E-Mail, a communications protocol which I hear is catching on with people who want to exchange knowledge on the Information Superhighway (another popular term for The Internet). One can only assume that the name of this blog, "Web Worm" is derived from the term World Wide Web, and the author, David Farrier, envisaging himself as a giant member of some species of Clitellata burrowing through the depths of cyberspace (yet another inventive description of The Internet). Whether Farrier turns out to be more like an Earthworm or a tapeworm — he is a known associate of Serj Tankian who famously wrote a ballad about the violent removal of Eucestoda from ones body — awaits to be seen. We can only hope, and pray, that our lord and saviour, Jesus Christ, descends from heaven and blesses Farrier so these “Megachurches” finally see the error of their ways and cast aside their profit driven, fart-cupping ways etc.

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Paul De Jong and Chris Hodges... where have we heard those names before? Oh wait, they're the guys who were on John Cameron's 'oversight board' that John always said had the ability to fire him (but turns out that was maybe a lie?), and then denied having anything to do with John as soon as Arise started imploding.

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Crikey,

“Hillsong followers believe the money they put in the poor box goes to the poor, but these documents show how that money is actually used to do the kind of shopping that would embarrass a Kardashian” –Andrew Wilkie, in his speech in parliament on Mar. 9, as quoted in the Guardian.

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I am continually surprised and disgusted by the absolute corruption of these institutions who brain-wash and harm so many; and how they continue to just get away with it all. So thankful I began to question all the things and walked away when I did, before even more harm could occur in my own life.

Thank you David for continuing to report on these places and staying on top of all the madness of it all.

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It has once again been 0 days since last church based fuckery

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"blog, etc"... ahem "cult, etc"

I cannot unsee NZers saying something nice before going into their negative reply now since your reporting alluded me to it! Webworm journalism is top notch.

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