DESTINY CHURCH

PRESS STATEMENT FOR RELEASE

29 October 2008

Destiny Church Response To TV3 News Item

TV3 News ran a story tonight creating the impression that Destiny Church was building an exclusive housing community for church members.

This assertion couldn’t be further from the truth.

Last weekend Destiny Church celebrated 10 years as a movement. Our membership is derived of many thousands, predominantly of Maori and Pacific descent, who have benefited through the ministry and life of the church and today contribute positively towards their families and our communities.

The church recently obtained the status of an Urban Maori Authority, which gives the church the ability to build far greater capacity around the social programmes it has been delivering to the local community for many years. These programmes have been purely self-funded and involve many thousands of hours of voluntary community service at no cost to community or government.

Evidence of success was demonstrated by a number of testimonies presented over the weekend from former Black Power and Mongrel Mob members, drug addicts, and people who have emerged from severely disadvantaged backgrounds, who through the work of the church have turned their lives around and have their own track record of employment, stable family life and positive contributions towards their families and our communities.

The multi-faceted vision of Destiny Church involves education, social-service programmes and family and parental support. The Auckland church has outgrown its present facility and is looking at moving its operation to Manukau to cater for growth, and increase its operations, a major part of which involves social helps programmes.

As such, the church has conducted its own fundraising initiatives to relocate and upgrade its facilities and build on its current capacity to deliver programmes. South Auckland is not only home to many members, but is also where positive community initiatives are desperately needed.

As part of building greater capacity in Auckland, the church has given the opportunity to its members who currently reside outside of Auckland, who have the skills, experience and qualifications to assist with taking the Auckland operation forward, to relocate to Auckland to help. There is absolutely no obligation on the part of any member or their family to shift to Auckland or financially contribute.

In addition, contrary to the assertion in the TV3 news item, there is absolutely no intention to build an exclusive housing community to house church members. Destiny Church members have always been active members of their local communities and this will always be the case.

Destiny Church prides itself on contributing positively towards the lives of its members and our local communities and wishes to continue this tradition.

ENDS

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