St. Matthew's Churches - Operations and Fundraising

Operations and Fundraising

The ministry has been accused of preying on the very low income and the elderly by using census records to target their mailings. Initial mailings often only speak of the "power of prayer"; once a recipient responds and is placed on the church mailing list, they are targeted with letters saying that monetary donations are required for their prayers to be answered.

Although for several years the ministry operated without a church building and conducted its direct mail donation operation through the Tulsa address, a physical location to hold services — a then-78-year-old Baptist church in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood — was purchased in Houston in 2004. St. Matthew's Churches' lawyer says weekly services draw about 1,000 people. According to the Trinity Foundation, an evangelical watchdog group, the physical churches are only associated with the mail-based ministry as a cover that allows the lucrative operation to retain tax-exempt church status. The status was granted by the Internal Revenue Service in 2000 after a 17-year court battle.

One of the organization's mailings consisted of a paper "prayer rug", on which recipients were encouraged to kneel and pray. This mailing, along with others, have been mentioned by the Attorney General of the State of Arkansas, among others, as not providing information about their financial and fundraising practices. While the ministry does hold tax exemption status under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, it has been the subject of numerous complaints to the Better Business Bureau, whose evaluation conclusion was that the organization did not meet two standards for Charity Accountability.