HOW KONG HEE IS GAINING FINANCIAL SUPPORT FOR HIS LEGAL DEFENSE
We find the City Harvest Church scandal perplexing. Why are Singaporean authorities allowing Kong Hee to leave Singapore to resume ‘pastoral’ duties? This article will be examining how both Kong Hee and his Advisory Pastor Phil Pringle have been using churches outside Singapore to financially support Kong Hee’s legal battles.
We have been analysing Phil Pringle’s Presence Conferences and what Phil Pringle has been teaching us about Kong Hee’s circumstances.
Thanks to Phil Pringle, we have learnt how Kong Hee is gaining financial support for his legal battles. Earlier this year, Phil Pringle said the following:
“I was in Singapore last week ah- folks with our good friends Kong and Sun Hee, although they are very rarely there when I am speaking because it gives them a chance to get out amongst the Asian community or various parts around the world and share in churches their burden ‘n what they’re facing and keep support happening and maintain a healthier relationship and communion with the wider body. And so that’s part of the reason why I am able to go there and uh- and they’ve just had ah- one really interesting breakthrough in this last week where the Commission of Charities (that’s the organisation overseeing charities in Singapore) has exonerated Sun from all ah- all charges against her so-“
Why is Kong Hee leaving CHC to “share in churches their burden”? Why does he go to other churches to “keep support happening”? Why is Kong Hee heavily involved with Phil Pringle’s Presence Conferences? The answer is very simple.
Back in his 2011 Presence Conference, Phil Pringle prophesied over Kong Hee and then encouraged all the churches gathered to financially support Kong Hee. Not once was it explained to those who attended why he was under investigation. While encouraging people to give, take note what Pringle says,
“Then, I think it was even more for him. I can’t remember the figures. But I know that for- they had to raise seven million dollars for members of staff and others to travel. That’s just that area. If you’ve ever been to Singapore, you know how expensive this place is. To fight the case he has had to employ a legal firm. And I know what the bills are. They are nearly a million dollars each time they come. Between half a million and a million dollars each time those bills come. His church is not allowed to pay one cent of his personal cost that he is incurring in this battle. He has to find it himself.
He’s sold his house. He has scratched together everything he can. One of the things that I’m doing is going there. I’ve made a commitment to be there once every two weeks. Normally it ends up being once every three weeks because of a variety of commitments that I’ve already got and doing things. But when I’m gone, he’s able to travel. And when I’m there, he’s able to travel and preach and find support amongst Asia and other churches.
Uh- I know that he was finding it hard to put some money together to get a cup of Starbucks at one stage. And uh- it’s a challenge. There’s been new legislation passed on the use of commercial spaces in Singapore since this case has come. So the religio- the restriction on his church is severe, ah, in that area [inaudible] after their purchase, go into co-ownership with ah, SunTec. And we’re in there. I will be speaking there in a couple days time. I will be on Friday to speak there happily.” – Phil Pringle, http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=uwNignarJCg, Presence Conference 2011.
If it costs Kong Hee and his team “nearly a million dollars each time they come” to speak at Presence Conference, can you imagine how much Kong Hee is receiving in love offerings? Remember that when Pringle preaches at CHC it allows Kong Hee “to travel and preach and find support amongst Asia and other churches”. So why does Kong Hee travel if it is so expensive? Why go speak at a church event like Phil Pringle’s conferences? What does Kong gain? Pringle answers this above when he says,
“There’s been new legislation passed on the use of commercial spaces in Singapore since this case has come. So the religio- the restriction on his church is severe, ah, in that area [inaudible] after their purchase, go into co-ownership with ah, SunTec.”
What is this new legislation? We can’t find any specific information on this. However Phil Pringle stated,
“His church is not allowed to pay one cent of his personal cost that he is incurring in this battle. He has to find it himself.”
Does it make sense now? If new Singaporean legislation has established that City Harvest Church cannot support Kong Hee’s legal battles, it explains why Phil Pringle is speaking in Singapore so often. It allows Kong Hee to gain financial support from different churches around the world. It explains why Kong Hee is invited back to speak at Phil Pringle’s Presence Conference.
And guess what? Kong can say whatever he wants to whoever he wants… and get away with it. How would Singapore know what his agenda is in other countries? Who would bother keeping him accountable to what he says around the world?
Well we have all the audio we need to prove that Phil Pringle has been allowing Kong Hee to use his C3 Presence Conference to financially support Kong Hee’s financial battles. To confirm that Kong Hee is in fact receiving financial support from Phil Pringle’s C3 Movement, Kong Hee prayed the following at Presence Conference 2012 on the first night (not the opening night):
“Father I just pray even right now from the front to the back, from the left to the right, that tonight you move in a great way. Lord you know that it’s been a tiring time for the last twenty three months. For every step of the way, you’ve been with me, you’ve been with us. And Lord for all that C3 has poured into City Harvest Church, I pray that you multiply back to them, every church –every leader, thirty fold, sixty fold, a hundred fold for your glory we pray. Amen.” – Kong Hee, Presence Conference 2012, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeIYljvQ0G0: 18:11, Day 1.
In this prayer, Kong Hee acknowledges that “C3 has poured into City Harvest Church”. By ‘poured’ he means ‘financially poured’. If you are not familiar with the term “thirty fold, sixty fold, a hundred fold”, it is Word of Faith jargon that means financial multiplication. The idea is that if you give financially, god will multiply your returns supernaturally. The weird thing about this prayer is that Kong Hee said C3 poured money into City Harvest Church. Why does CHC need the cash? Doesn’t Kong need the cash?
While it is debatable if the money above went to CHC or to Kong Hee, the prayer above informs us that Kong Hee IS getting money out of C3 conferences for possibly his benefit. It could be debatable that the money above went to CHC or to himself.
Because Phil Pringle asked people to give money specifically to Kong Hee’s legal battles back in 2011, it is of our opinion that Kong Hee here in 2012 was acknowledging that he received this financial support, using his church as a safeguard rather than saying he received the financial support personally.
Furthermore, in this same sermon we also hear a very one-sided and propaganda-like presentation of Kong Hee’s situation. So we are seeing what Pringle has said about Kong Hee to be true. Phil Pringle’s Presence Conference was a place Kong Hee felt safe enough to “share… their burden ‘n what they’re facing and keep support happening”.
This sermon not only had the above prayer. This sermon is the very sermon that has caused controversy in Singapore where Kong Hee claimed that God apologised to him. This is why we believe some people are outraged with the latest snippet – they know Kong Hee is distorting the severity of the case for his personal and financial gain. Read again what Kong Hee said on the first night of Presence Conference 2012:
“And [God the Father] said, ‘My son, I’m so sorry that you need to go through this alone. But you need to die and you need to go through this to be the Saviour of the world!’ And God the Father had broken and He wept as He turned His face, when His son took the sin of the whole world.
I was saying all this and I’m hearing myself behind the pulpit- and I froze. I could not utter another word. And I sobbed and I shook. Because those were my exact sentiments.
“Father, Father! Why? My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me and thrown me to the dogs?”
And for the first time in eight months, I heard the voice. It is not the voice of a strict angry judge that only want me to perform and build a big church and nothing I do is ever good enough for him. No. It’s not a voice of angry judge. It’s not the voice of a slave driver. That just wants to take and take and wring me dry. But it was a voice of a tender, loving, broken-hearted Father.
For the first time in eight months, God – I heard Him crying. And He said, “My son, Kong, thank you! Thank you for going through this. I need you to go through this alone so that you and City Harvest Church can be the man and the ministry I call it to be. I’m so sorry. But you need to go through with this by yourself, to bring a change to your generation”.
Oh come on! Give the Lord a big hand tonight!
I hear God saying for the first time in eight months, “I love you! I love you! I love you!” Waves upon waves of God’s love- the love of the Father, just, saturated me. All I could say was, “Abba! Abba!! AABBAAAA!!! Daddy! ABBA!!!” And I knew, everything was going to be, alright.
The absolute negligence of Pringle inviting Kong Hee to speak at Presence Conference from 2010 to 2012 was scandalous. He gave Kong Hee the floor to present his propaganda-like stories diguised as sermons. Furthermore, Kong encouraged people in the 2012 Presence Conference to empty their bank accounts so God can financially bless Christians. Not once did Phil Pringle or Kong Hee give an accurate account as to why he was under investigations or why he was facing charges. Why Kong Hee and Phil Pringle are not under severe scrutiny by government watchdogs in Australia, we do not know. Why are they not being scrutinised for misleading thousands of people at these events? Would they be giving Kong Hee financial support or emptying their bank accounts at Kong Hee’s command if they knew the severity of the investigations?
The negligence continued when Phil Pringle allowed Kong Hee to speak at Presence Conference 2013. Recently Pringle asked ignorant Christians attending to once again give sacrificially to financially support Kong Hee’s legal case.
Here Phil Pringle said,
“I would like you just to take a card, an envelope if you’ve got one nearby. And if you’d like to participate in this, I’d like you to consider doing that. Whatever you can do it would be helpful, I know, to them. This will all go completely to Pastor Kong to help with his- costs. He has to pay this week $680,000 I think it is, for his legal fees. He’s covering his whole team’s fees. They have to mount a vigorous defense over three years. Those numbers weigh heavily on- on a person and they have prohibited him from asking his own congregation for any help.
He can not use any of his own church funds. They’ve sold there- they sold the unit they were in. Others have moved to help them in other countries and I would like to think that we can be friends to these people in one of their darkest hours.” – Phil Pringle, http://www.youtube.com/watch? &v=2g-BB9BF7xk , Presence Conference 2013.
The picture again presented is that new Singapore legislation will not allow Kong Hee to use “any of his own church funds”. Instead, just like what was occurring in Phil Pringle’s C3 Presence Conferences, it appears that other churches “have moved to help them [Kong Hee and Sun Ho] in other countries”.
Since Phil Pringle made a video where a number of pastors decided to support Kong Hee, we are starting to see that deeper controversies are growing in this scandal and expanding across the globe. We also observed that Kong Hee spoke at Ed Young’s church in 2011.
Kong also spoke recently at Ed Young’es C3 2013 Conference.
Did Kong Hee get love offerings from these churches after spreading more propaganda about his plight against the Singaporean government? Why are pastors like John Bevere, Mark Conner, Casey Treat, David Yonggi Cho and many more supporting an alleged crook? Are these the churches that Pringle was alluding to when he said that “Others have moved to help them in other countries”?
Men like John Bevere, Yonggi Cho, Casey Treat and Ed Young have already been exposed as false Christian teachers. Is it any wonder they would support someone like Kong Hee? Are we seeing a banding of false teachers being only accountable to their pack rather than the greater body of Christ?
This scandal needs to be addressed by the universal body of Christ. How far must men like Phil Pringle and Kong Hee go before the church starts dealing with these impostors in the church?
__________
Update 08/08/2013: Provided links and sources to Ed Young’s 2011 Conference. NOTE: ALL SCREEN GRABS TAKEN ON 08/08/2013.
The Breakfast Network recently reported the following:
BN Special: The man who posted the God-Kong Hee video speaks to Breakfast Network
The Youtube video clip that went viral showing City Harvest Church founder Kong Hee “speaking” to God was posted by a church member who said he did it to “expose Kong and his lies”.
In an exclusive interview with Breakfast Network, he said that the 3½-minute clip he uploaded was a recording of a sermon the senior church pastor had delivered during a religious conference in Australia in April last year. He said he had obtained the clip last year from C3 Church Watch, a group that monitors the activities of a Sydney-based church, whose founder Phil Pringle is currently an advisory pastor with City Harvest Church.
According to the member, who posted the clip on Youtube under the id “anointedforworship”, Kong had made the same remarks during a church service last year to City Harvest members as well. He said he decided to make it public only now because he wanted to “show the sublimal messages embedded in the sermon and delivered through the pulpit”.
The church member declined to be named as he is still currently worshiping at City Harvest Church. He told BN: “Just to be clear, I’m posting the video not to ‘destroy the church’ but to expose the deception within carried by certain individuals who go as far as to abuse the trust and authority given to them.
“I believe people need to be warned about deception, especially when it happens in church, to protect them.”
Since the clip was uploaded on Sunday, netizens have roundly condemned Kong’s remarks in which he compared his involvement in the ongoing court case to Jesus’ suffering. Along with five other church leaders, Kong is currently on trial for embezzling millions in church funds which he allegedly used to finance his wife’s singing career. The trial began in May and is expected to resume next month.
In the clip, which was recorded about two years after investigations into the alleged charges began in 2010, Kong also claimed that God spoke to him and apologized for putting him through the trial, and that it was necessary to “bring change to your generation”.
“For the first time in eight months, God, I heard Him cry. And he said ‘My son, Kong, thank you. Thank you for going through this’,” Kong told the unseen congregation.
“‘I need you to go through this alone, so that you and City Harvest Church can be the man and the ministry I call it to be. I’m so sorry, but you need to go through this by yourself, to bring a change to your generation.’”
So far, the clip has been viewed more than 69,000 times, with 54 Likes and nearly 2,000 viewers expressing their disapproval. A parody of the clip featuring pop group ABBA was posted by another Youtube user yesterday.
Netizens have slammed the recording as it was shared on Facebook and Twitter over the last two days. Youtube user “soulsessions” said of the clip: “What a load of bullshit”. Another user, “futurelady2k”, called it “Nonsense.”
In a report posted today, Yahoo! News said it had contacted City Harvest Church for a response but had yet to receive one. Other church members interviewed said the clip may have been misinterpreted or taken out of context.
Source: By Yen Feng, BN Special: The man who posted the God-Kong Hee video speaks to Breakfast Network, http://www.breakfastnetwork.sg/?p=6564, 30/08/2013. (Accessed 06/08/2013.)
“Immediately afterwards when that happens, when Warragamba Dam does spill over, that’s the time that the Lord will bring a fresh new move of the Holy Spirit all around Australia. And we’ll see a move of God like we have not seen before”. (Emphasis mine)
In Part 1, we encourage you to watch Pringle prophesy at the C3 Church at Oxford Falls, how revival was going to hit the building. In Part 4 we analysed the prophecy itself. In this final article, we will be looking to see if the prophecy was fulfilled at C3 Church Oxford Falls.
In looking at the above quote, when Warragamba Dam was reported full, was revival immediate? On the 4th of March 2012, Pringle preached a message titled Heartbeat – Servanthood. Their uploaded video showed us… There was no revival at the C3 Service. There is a LOT of seats behind Pringle.
In that night time service on the 4th of March 2012, Mark Kelsey preached a message titled Heartbeat – Servanthood. C3’s uploaded video showed us… There was no revival. Drat!
The following Sunday morning (11/03/2012), Pringle preached a sermon titled the The Engine Room. Was their a revival? Were there queues outside wanting to come into the house of God?
What about that night service on the same day (11/03/2012)? Pringle preached a similar sermon with the same name: The Engine Room.
For Philip Day’s Saturday night session ‘Let there be light‘ (17/04/2012), it looked as though C3 disabled the camera that gave us the shots we needed to see the audience. But the next day on the 18th, while Peter Paauwe preached Breakthrough Part1, we saw… No revival. Empty seats lay scattered around the room. (Note them in the foreground and at the back of the room.)
By now, this prophecy is already looking ridiculous. But just in case someone justifies from C3, “God’s ways are not our ways’, we must continue. Maybe, God was going to move that night? Nope.
By this stage you may be thinking this is tedious. But we have to do this. Either God is going to bring a national revival through C3 or Phil Pringle is a false prophet. The following week on the Sunday morning, 25th of March, Pringle preached a sermon titled ‘The Engine Room: Connect’.
C3 didn’t upload a sermon that night. But we figured if their was a revival in that meeting, they would have definitely filmed it to prove to every other church that their church was the one with God’s blessing. The following week on Sunday morning 1st of April 2012, the joke was on C3 as Pringle preached ‘The Engine Room: Revive’. There was still NO revival.
That night while Pringle preached another sermon, seats were still empty (see them in the background).
A month has passed and Presence Conference is about to hit C3… Was God going to show up at C3 Church so Presence could experience revival? It seems logical that if God was going to move, it would be before the before Presence Conference. Why? So the international audience can bring back ‘God’ to their country God.
This would fulfill the prophecy of Pringle because God told him when the Warragamba Dam floods, it wasn’t just C3 church and all of Australia that were to experience revival. It was going to be a global revival. So when John Bevere spoke on Resurrection Sunday morning… was… there… revival? (Look at all the empty seats behind Pringle.)
That is a LOT of people short of a revival. Cross your fingers for Pringle, tonight God must show up or else…
So there is no prophecy fufillment. None.
… A PROPHECY FAILS…
But maybe God DID move after Presence Conference? If you’ve seen footage from the Presence Conference scattered around C3 Church Watch, you know revival did not turn up. If revival broke out at C3 Presence Conference in Darling Harbour – then God would contradict himself in the prophecy as mentioned in Part 4.
So was there going to be revival AFTER the Presence Conference? Steven Furtick preached that Sunday morning (15/04/2012), a message titled ‘Stay Behind The Guide’. You can see empty seats straight at the back of the auditorium.
No. While the room is dark and smokey, if you look to the seat at back of the room, they are empty. More seats remained empty the following Sunday in Mark Kelsey’s sermon on the 29th of April. There was no revival.
When Mark Kelsey got up the following week to speak Sunday morning on the 20/05/2012, there was no revival.
However, he had this to say to the congregation in the giving message. Was he saying this because people were feeling cheated from Pringle’s false prophecy?
“I don’t know about you but I get frustrated sometimes. We have got one of the greatest churches in the world, one of the greatest worship teams. We’ve definitely got the greatest pastor in the world. We’ve got the greatest pastoral team. The greatest connect leaders, what have you. We’ve been given Christ. We have the bible. We have the New Testament. We have the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. And yet people sit there and go, “Yeah well. It’s not quite enough is it? You know we gotta…”.” – Mark Kelsey, Justin Richards, 35:47-36:19, http://www2.myc3church.net/videos/justin-richards, Night Service, 20/05/2012. (Accessed 11/06/2012.)
Of course it’s not enough Mark Kelsey. Didn’t you hear what the “greatest pastor in the world” prophesied? Didn’t you hear yourself say “I get frustrated sometimes”? Why is Mark Kelsey chastising the sheep in his congregation when it is his prophet that prophesied falsely that revival was going to come?
The following week (27th of May 2012), a speaker by the name of Jamie Haith, spoke at C3’s morning service… Where revival was still a no-show.
Jamie Haith spoke that night where revival still refused to turn up.
Then on the 3rd of June, Pringle gave his morning money fleecing sermon, where revival still remained absent. Ironic that Josh Kelsey made the claim of Phil Pringle “We have the best leader in the world” (23:25), when this was the video camera shot that followed:
In the continuation of Pringle’s groom-a-thon that night, the storm of revival did not turn up.
CONCLUSION
C3 said the dam overflowed on the 3rd of March. We have recorded the ‘spiritual’ status of each Sunday service to the 3rd of June. This is a three month period.
It is safe to say that:
God DID NOT say, ““Immediately afterwards when that happens, when Warragamba Dam does spill over, that’s the time that the Lord will bring a fresh new move of the Holy Spirit all around Australia”
God DID NOT say, “Watch me. That thing is going to overflow. And as it overflows, a revival is going to come through the nation.”
God DID NOT say, “the power of God is gonna touch this city with revival”.
God DID NOT say, “the Spirit of God is gonna fall on this nation”.
God DID NOT say, “the power of God is gonna pour down out of heaven”.
God DID NOT say, “If you will build my house, if you will commit yourselves and not give yourselves comfort but will build the house, I will fill this place with my glory”.
God DID NOT say, “these [c3 church] seats will be full!”
God DID NOT say, “Every service you come, you will queue in line to be in the house of God”.
This prophecy is a lie. A scam. We have thoroughly examined in all five articles that Phil Pringle prophesied falsely. There is no escape room for Pringle.
Not only did he mislead his entire church, he mislead thousands of Christians around Sydney. Not only did he also mislead thousands of Christians around Sydney but also across Australia. Not only did he deceive thousands of Christians across Australia, he also mislead thousands of Christians across the world who attended his Presence Conference 2012 and watched him falsely prophesy online.
To recap all that we’ve explored in this series of articles, in:
Part 1 – we looked at how C3 purposely distorted information at their Sydney Presence Conference, taking snippets and screen grabs fromNews Articles and blogs to portray the world as wrong and Phil Pringle as some Godly prophet.
Part 2 – we looked at how C3 and Pringle mislead people to believe that God used Pringle against media and ‘false prophets’ to prophesy that the Warragamba Dam would be full again. We examined how C3 and Pringle used this prophecy twice to advertise and elevate their movement to Christians and churches locally and globally. We explored that it was highly likely that Pringle prophesied out of reaction against those he dislikes and pride.
Part 3 – we looked at Pringle’s further insight to his Warragamba Dam prophecy to help us understand the actual prophecy itself and what he thought this meant. He informed us that C3 met the conditions God said through him so C3 can experience revival.
Part 4 – we analysed the Warragamba Dam prophecy and proved it to be false.
Part 5 – we examined every service for three months to see if revival would break out “immediately”. This was from the time Warragamba Dam overflowed (03/03/2012) to June (03/06/2012). We have proven that the prophecy has not come to pass with it’s promise of a revival.
The right thing for Pringle to do is to humble himself, apologize and step down, admitting he has done Christianity a massive disservice. How many Christians will have their faith shaken or shipwrecked because C3 convinced them to put their faith and hope in the words of a false prophecy?
We would like to know if any information in our articles is wrong. If you find any information that is misleading in our investigation of Phil Pringle’s false Warragambe Dam prophecy, please Contact us at c3churchwatch@hotmail.com.
Part 1 contains the video of the Warragamba Dam prophecy. We encourage you to watch it. If you read Part 2 of this series, it is possible to understand why C3 tied this prophecy with Presence Conference 2012. If you read Part 3 of this series, you’ll see Pringle explain this prophecy a bit more for clarities sake which helps us understand this prophecy better for this article. This article will provide a transcript of Phil Pringle’s Warragamba Dam prophecy. We will pull apart the prophecy and examine it’s message.
WARRAGAMBA DAM TRANSCRIPT
The video records the ‘Warragamba Dam prophecy’ as follows:
“I’ll tell you another thing. That as I was standing here tonight, God spoke to me about a really weird thing. He said, “People have said that the Warragamba Dam will never be full again”.” – Phil Pringle, C3ChurchWatch – C3 Presence 2012 Exalts Pringle As A Prophet (Makes False Prophecy): 3:32, 15/06/2008.
Pringle continued his prophecy,
“He [God] said, “Watch me. That thing is going to overflow. And as it overflows, a revival is going to come through the nation. It’s like a sign. The power of God is gonna touch this city with revival. The Spirit of God is gonna fall on this nation, is gonna fall on this city. The power of God is gonna pour down out of heaven. Rains are gonna come. A storm is coming.
Two storms are coming on the earth. One storm is the storm of revival. One storm is the storm of the glory and the power of God. Another storm is the storm of nervous anxiety, of terror and of fear. But my glory will fill my house,” says the Lord.
“If you will build my house, if you will commit yourselves and not give yourselves comfort but will build the house, I will fill this place with my glory,” says the Almighty God.
“My power will fall on this place. My Spirit will fall on this place! My power will fall on the people. I will raise up an army of preachers and teachers and church buildings. I will raise up a people who will expand this house! These seats [motions with hands to seats in C3 OF building] will be full! Those [motions with hands to seats in C3 OF building] seats will be full! Every service you come, you will queue in line to be in the house of God! There will be playing many, MANY singers, musicians and people who will pronounce the glory of God! My glory will fill this house! I will fill the earth with all of my glory,” says the Almighty God.
Come on people! It’s time to shout!” – Phil Pringle, C3ChurchWatch – C3 Presence 2012 Exalts Pringle As A Prophet (Makes False Prophecy): 4:01, 15/06/2008.
THE STORM CONUNDRUM
Pringle claimed that God said,
“Watch me. That thing is going to overflow. And as it overflows, a revival is going to come through the nation. The power of God is gonna touch this city with revival. The Spirit of God is gonna fall on this nation, is gonna fall on this city. The power of God is gonna pour down out of heaven. Rains are gonna come. A storm is coming.”
This idea that a storm is coming seems to suggest a double meaning. On one hand, there is going to be a literal storm of rain to cause the Dam to overflow, and on the other hand, there is going to be a spiritual storm which will bring revival…
Pringle seems to confirm this idea as he continues to prophesy…
“Two storms are coming on the earth. One storm is the storm of revival. One storm is the storm of the glory and the power of God.”
Ok, yep. Seems straight forward enough, now here’s where is gets confusing….
“Another storm is the storm of nervous anxiety, of terror and of fear. But my glory will fill my house,”
Err… what? A “storm of nervous anxiety, of terror and of fear”? This doesn’t seem to make any sense in light of what came before it. Based on the previous imagery, everyone is expecting the other storm to be a literal storm of rain to overflow the dam.
Chris Rosebrough from Fighting for the Faith (who reviewed this prophecy on Kong Hee’s Fleecing of the Masses), was also confused by this. Responding to Pringle’s “storm of nervous anxiety, of terror and of fear,” Rosebrough states:
“Well that’s kind of a convoluted prophecy. I mean, he said two things. And which one was does the dam again?” – Chris Rosebrough, Kong Hee’s Fleecing of the Masses, Fighting For the Faith, http://004f597.netsolhost.com/fftf/F4F041112q.mp3, 1:16:44, 11/04/2012.
Good question. Now, do we have two or three storms? The storm of nervous anxiety makes no sense. Where is Pringle going with this? Has he simply lost his train of thought? Or is he suddenly second guessing himself and going back on his original statement that the Dam will literally overflow? After all, we heard Pringle in Part 3 point out that,
Can we claim this is a legitimate prophecy after Pringle’s performance already?
THE CATCHMENT AND THE CATCH
Pringle quickly derailed from prophesying about “the storm of nervous anxiety” and jumped straight into ‘prophesying’,
“If you will build my house, if you will commit yourselves and not give yourselves comfort but will build the house, I will fill this place with my glory,” says the Almighty God.”
Chris Rosebrough examined the prophecy and made this observation about the above ‘prophetic’ statement,
“Yeah! Now we got a condition!” – Chris Rosebrough, Kong Hee’s Fleecing of the Masses, Fighting For the Faith, http://004f597.netsolhost.com/fftf/F4F041112q.mp3, 1:17:00, 11/04/2012.
Pringle describes the revival,
“My power will fall on this place. My Spirit will fall on this place! My power will fall on the people. I will raise up an army of preachers and teachers and church buildings. I will raise up a people who will expand this house! These seats will be full! Those seats will be full! Every service you come, you will queue in line to be in the house of God! There will be playing many, MANY singers, musicians and people who will pronounce the glory of God! My glory will fill this house! I will fill the earth with all of my glory,” says the Almighty God.”
First off, if God was speaking to Pringle, God was using Pringle’s hands to point out that revival was going to hit the C3 Church building (‘Gods house’). This revival describes that all the c3 church auditorium “seats will be full”. Not to mention that every service C3 members attend, they “will queue in line to be in the house of God”. Indeed – that would be an impressive sight to see at the C3 Oxford Falls campus.
Secondly, because this prophecy is defining what is happening at C3 church, God specifically says He will raise an army of preachers, teachers and church buildings (ever seen a building join an army?). Pringle also says that there will be “many, MANY singers, musicians” … “AND” a convoluted “people” who will “pronounce the glory of God”.
So it is clear that this prophecy will happen at C3 Church and NOT at Presence Conference 2012. But what was the condition for all this? Commitment. The big ‘if’.
If people committed themselves to C3 Church, God will bring revival.
This is legalism. This is works. This is not the Spirit of Grace speaking to Christians. This is an insult to Jesus Christ and His finished work. Only Christ is perfectly obedient. Is any man perfectly obedient and committed to being in contract with God? The bible records that God couldn’t find one person who was faithful except Jesus.
But contrary to scripture, Pringle made the following claim to c3 a few days after the dam overflowed:
“Every week we turn up… seeing your faithfulness, your strength… those who’ve come through all the stuff and being faithful to Him and being true to Him – in spite of difficult circumstances and- I’m believing that there is definitely a breakthrough day coming up ahead of us.” (read fully in Part 3)
CONCLUSION
After reading Part 3, it seems clear that once the dam floods, ‘IF’ C3 was faithful to God, revival will come. Now Pringle has told his congregation revival WILL COME because he has seen his church’s “faithfulness” and “strength”. The reason their will be queues is because the church will have every seat full. And this amazing revival (glory) “will fill this house” (C3 Church) and trigger God to “fill the earth with all of my glory”. We will examine the ‘Revival’ that came to C3 in part 4.
But after examining the prophecy, we’ve highlighted two reasons why this is false:
1. The stuff up in prophesying about a third storm (which makes no logical sense).
2. The condition that C3 must fulfill to bring revival.
In closing, Chris Rosebrough states,
“You know, even if this was a so-called fulfilled prophecy, that doesn’t make him a prophet of God. Because according to the biblical test of a prophet, number one, they have to be one hundred per cent accurate in all of their prophecies. Period. Somebody who says “Thus sayeth the Lord” and the “Thus sayeth the Lord” doesn’t, well, come about- that person is a false prophet and they’re to be rejected. ” – Chris Rosebrough, Kong Hee’s Fleecing of the Masses, Fighting For the Faith, http://004f597.netsolhost.com/fftf/F4F041112q.mp3, 1:18:17, 11/04/2012.
Pringle has a track record of prophesying falsely:
“But there’s another test too. Even if what they prophesy comes true, the bible tells us in the book of Deuteronomy “and they have you follow after false God’s or false doctrine”, that is not a prophet of God. That’s somebody that God has sent to test.
See, just cos somebody can predict whether or not a dam’s gonna have water or not in it, doesn’t make him a prophet of God. What makes them truly a prophet in the biblical sense, is whether or not when they open their mouth, they rightly handle and proclaim God’s Word and preach Christ and Him crucified and raised again on the third day for our justification- salvation by grace alone, through faith alone by Christ’s work alone. If that’s not what the so-called prophet is preaching, he’s a false prophet.” – Chris Rosebrough, Kong Hee’s Fleecing of the Masses, Fighting For the Faith, http://004f597.netsolhost.com/fftf/F4F041112q.mp3, 1:18:43, 11/04/2012.
That’s alright. C3ChurchWatch has a page recording every single scripture Pringle has mangled, so far.
Can Phil Pringle or anyone in C3 claim they were faithful all the way to the end for God to go, “Yep! They’ve done what I told them to do – now I’ll do my part”? In spite of his prosperity gospel, false doctrine and bible garbling, Pringle thinks so. After all that we’ve researched on Phil Pringle, why should we trust him on this prophecy and coming revival?
“… We are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming…” Ephesians 4:14
Pringle says,
“Now here’s the thing, without wind that boat is going nowhere. A boat is just a boat going nowhere until its got wind in it; a Christian is just a Christian on earth doing nothing until the wind hits you. To get that wind, you gotta position yourself in the right place. And you know exactly what I’m gonna say: I mean, be in Presence, amen! If you’re there, it’ll happen! The touch of God can come on your life. Mark out all the other stuff, nothing is more important than you getting fresh wind in your life as a believer! And getting yourself carried by the greatest wave that you can ever have in your life! So suddenly you become effective and you’re doing things that you never did before.– Phil Pringle, “Get Ready For God”, Sunday 6pm Service, Oxford Falls Campus, 20/03/2011.
C3 pastors convert their sermons to bible study notes (connect notes). Here is a solid critique of Pringle’s appalling teaching on this sermon in 2011:
In video 1, before his sermon, Phil Pringle prophesies revival . As you watch this sermon, he is linking both the prophecy and sermon to the 2011 Presence Conference. A few months later in his sermon ‘Financial Excellence’, his outburst exposes that his prophecy regarding Presence Conference did not come to pass.
In video 2, Phil Pringle teaches he is a John the Baptist ushering in Jesus Christ to bring revival at His Presence Conference. Pringle the Baptist states that Jesus says to John, “I want to do it. I want to do what you’re doing. I want to get with the program. I want to get on the same page. I want to come to Presence. I want to be in church” (4:43).
In video 3, he tells people to catch the winds and the waves (thus the scripture above).
In video 4, Phil Pringle belittles Christians who are like doubting ‘whinging’ Thomas’ (6:32). Thus he butchers John 20:24-29 to market (and guilt) his congregation to attend Presence 2011, (3:44). Constantly throughout the sermon he is connecting his prophecy of revival to the Presence Conference. The scriptures are right in prophesying that “children [are] tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine”, by men like Phil Pringle who use the “the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming”.
NOTE: THE SCREEN GRAB WERE TAKEN BEFORE THE 11/02/2012.
To tackle the Warragamba Dam more fully, we will now be examining what Pringle said in his morning serviceon the 4th of March 2012. This commentary was made by Phil Pringle on the first Sunday after Warragamba Dam reached it’s full capacity.
Pringle says,
“On Wednesday morning, ah, we had our staff meeting (and because we were having a board meeting afterwards, Paul Macken was on our board). Ah, he ah. He was in the ah, staff meeting. And ah, he reminded me of something that ah, I had apparantly said three years ago in the middle of our seven year drought in New South Wales when Mr Flannery ah, announced that there was- the Warragambah Dam would never be full again. We could only ever hope for it to get to about 70% and so we better build a desalination plant at huge cost to the tax payer. Apparantly it’s a hundred dollars a year for everybody in New South Wales, ah, added on.
He should have come to church amen because, apparently I uh, (and I can remember this), uh standing up and I saw ah, Warragamba Dam overflowing.
Just ah, not long before that, I had been in a situation where the Lord had shown me something. And it was just very challenging to say it, because I was in a- I was in a huge auditorium of one hundred and fifty thousand people and I was about to ah, pray in that meeting. And as I stood up to pray the Lord said, “Prophesy the sun is gonna to shine”.
I said, “Give me a break God! We’ve been sitting in this freezing rain for eight hours and it’s been raining for days and it’s pouring down”. Black skies. I said, “There is no way it’s going to shine”. And he said, “Say it’s going to shine”. You know I couldn’t get rid of this conviction. So I stood up and I kinda did a mealy-mouth prayer and said, “Oh Lord! Let the sun shine! You know I’ll, you know, [fist pumps] I’ll believe God You’ll- North Korea will have revival, amen!” It was a great moment but then the- but when I opened my eyes, the whole sky had parted and it was shining. And I thought, “Awww! I should have said “Shine!” Amen”.
So. They called me the prophet of sunshine from then on up in Korea because, [word fumble] you know the guy from Australia brings the sunshine. And a- and so umm.
I made a commitment, “Lord, I’ll just say the stuff that I see and” and uh. And uh- And so that, you know, prompted me in that meeting and I said, “I can see Warragamaba Dam. It’s gonna flood over”. While I’m saying this I’m [like], “What are you saying? It’s like – we’ve been in this drought and it looked like it was never going to happen again”.
But on Friday, I think uh, Friday night, it overflowed. And uh- amen! That was- uh – got one hundred per cent full. And uh- we flowed over. Obviously if it hadn’t happened I wouldn’t be telling you this story but um… Haha. But thankfully it did.
But here’s the thing. Ok. So. Ah- You know occasionally- definitely- I see things and – it’s a gift that God gives to people, called the gift of prophecy and seeing things in the future. Ah, I find that most happens within individuals. I can see something going on in their future and whatever. But ah- with this, ah- that- the reason I tell you that is not for the sake of just telling you. You know like, “I said so”.
Because there was an addendum to that. Ah, that, ah, was quite ah, quite interesting for me. And, you know ah, in 1998 you’ll recall we had in an OZFIRE meeting, (Presence Meeting), I gave a similar thing about the two tallest buildings in the world coming to the ground and after that, a financial melt down. And ah- then streams of people would start coming into the house of God. And that actually happened in all kinds of ways.
But the point of the physical occurrence of these things was to indicate another thing that God was actually about to do. And I remember when I- when I actually announced that, that ah, “Immediately afterwards when that happens, when Warragamba Dam does spill over, that’s the time that the Lord will bring a fresh new move of the Holy Spirit all around Australia. And we’ll see a move of God like we have not seen before”.
And ah, with all my heart, I believe that we’re about to enter into all kinds of new days and a fresh anointing, a fresh oil- And I’m just so thrilled with you guys. Every week we turn up – you know seeing your faithfulness, your strength, you’re – we’ve been through so many different pieces of the landscape and the terrain of God that when we get to this point, when God’s about to do something He will build on, those who’ve come through all the stuff and being faithful to Him and being true to Him – in spite of difficult circumstances and- I’m believing that there is definitely a breakthrough day coming up ahead of us. And I think you and I have got to get ready in all kinds of ways. One of the new ways that will come upon us is the use of screen technology. And God will use that in all kinds of- and we’re getting ourselves very ready for that ah, in- which I’ll explain later in a later date. More about that.
But one of the things we are doing in our college, it would be one of the few colleges in Australia, (I don’t know anybody else, who’s got courses that train students in media and graphics and ah- short films and the acting and the presenting for all of that), so it’s such a great time to get ready, to actually uh, get ready for that new day. That new move of God. You might be watching on TV right now or ah, online and ah- just consider that. Think about actually getting yourself ready for- because, because God will be looking for people who are not gonna to get ready but who are actually in position, ready to catch the ball and run with whatever He’s gonna do.
We’re excited, man! I’m excited about you! I’m excited for all the great things that are gonna happen to some of you. Cos eventually, you gotta understand, trials finish. I know some of you have been in trials that seems like, forever. But eventually trials come over and then the blessing- the day of blessing comes through, when you get your breakthrough. Eventually, God does answer prayer. And ah- eventually it does come through. You can’t keep praying and praying and praying and praying and praying and nothing ever happens. Eventually the day comes when the sun comes up! And your days of mourning are over and the turtle dove sings in the land, amen!” – Phil Pringle, Ps Phil Pringle: Heartbeat – Servanthood, 34:09-40:41,http://www2.myc3church.net/videos/ps-phil-pringle-heartbeat-servanthood, C3 Oxford Falls, Morning Service, 04/03/2012.
Above in his own words, Pringle gives us very valuable insight. Before we continue, we encourage you to watch the Warragamba Dam prophecy in Part 1 in this series of articles before reading onwards.
ISN’T THIS DISDAIN?
1. “… when Mr Flannery ah, announced that there was- the Warragambah Dam would never be full again. We could only hope for it to get to about 70% and so we better build a desalination plant at huge cost to the tax payer. Apparantly it’s a hundred dollars a year for everybody in New South Wales, ah, added on.
He should have come to church amen because, apparently I ah, (and I can remember this), ah standing up and I saw ah, Warragamba Dam overflowing.”
Pringle clearly gets cocky about his prophecy and suggests Mr Flannery “should have come to church amen because, apparently I … remember … standing up and I saw ah, Warragamba Dam overflowing”. Should this be the attitude of a ‘prophet of God’? Does the spirit behind the prophet point us to God or the prophet? We looked at this attitude of Phil Pringle in Part 2, where Pringle also had a go at Flannery again on the last day of Presence Conference.
ISN’T THIS DISOBEDIENCE?
2. “And as I stood up to pray the Lord said, “Prophesy the sun is gonna to shine”.
I said, “Give me a break God! We’ve been sitting in this freezing rain for eight hours and it’s been raining for days and it’s pouring down”. Black skies. I said, “There is no way it’s going to shine”. And he said, “Say it’s going to shine”. You know I couldn’t get rid of this conviction. So I stood up and I kinda did a mealy-mouth prayer and said, “Oh Lord! Let the sun shine! You know I’ll, you know, [fist pumps] I’ll believe God You’ll- North Korea will have revival, amen!”. It was a great moment but then the- but when I opened my eyes, the whole sky had parted and it was shining. And I thought, “Awww! I should have said “Shine!” Amen”.
So. They called me the prophet of sunshine from then on up in Korea because, [word fumble] you know the guy from Australia brings the sunshine. And a- and so umm.”
Pringle points out another prophecy he made in Korea. If Pringle WAS a genuine prophet – his attitude is abysmal towards God. He was disobedient in three ways.
His attitude. (If you read His book ‘Faith’, Pringle will teach you that your PMA faith is what connects you to God. Negativity disconnects you from God. So what is speaking to him?)
Pringle didn’t do as God said and did it his way.
When God supposedly said, “Prophesy that the sun is going to shine” – Pringle not only disobeyed that instruction, he ‘prophesied’ saying, “I’ll believe God You’ll- North Korea will have revival, amen!” This only goes to show that Pringle wants to see revival happen in spite of God NOT even saying revival will happen.
How can C3 trust their prophet if Phil Pringle adds to God’s simple instruction like this? Did this revival come to North Korea?
This insight from Pringle only reveals that Pringle is a very disobedient prophet (even if he was somehow legitimate). However, if Yonggi Cho’s church called Pringle “the prophet of sunshine from then on”, then Pringle must have portrayed himself as a ‘prophet’ to them somehow. This is probably because he prophesied revival.
What was bad with Pringle’s approach to ‘prophecy’ was his comment that “North Korea will have revival”. He seemed to associate this revival to when the sun was meant to shine again in Korea. So did that prophecy of the North Korea revival come true? We will conclude that the answer is a fat out ‘no’ based on Pringle’s personal account on revival here:
So if Pringle was somehow a legitimate prophet, would you trust Phil Pringle who is openly disobedient to God in more ways then one, in regards to prophecy? Would you believe a man who prophesies ‘revival’ on everything, even if some-how God tells him to prophesy issues that aren’t connected to revival?
ISN’T THIS DISCOMBOBULATING?
3. “I made a commitment, “Lord, I’ll just say the stuff that I see and” and uh. And uh- And so that, you know, prompted me in that meeting and I said, “I can see Warragamaba Dam. It’s gonna flood over”. While I’m saying this I’m [like], “What are you saying? It’s like – we’ve been in this drought and it looked like it was never going to happen again”.”
It is interesting to note that while Pringle said earlier that he “can remember this”, he, “saw… Warragamba Dam overflowing”. After his prophetic account in Korea he says, “Lord, I’ll just say the stuff that I see”. He then goes on to describe what he saw in the Warragamba dam prophecy.
But now we have two different stories.
In the actual video, he said, “as I was standing here tonight, God spoke to me about a really weird thing”. In the video, he was continually speaking on behalf of God and not once mentioned a vision.
Above he says, “I can see Warragamaba Dam. It’s gonna flood over”. In fact, in his above blurb – Pringle has said continually he saw a vision of the Warragamba Dam full.
For someone who remembers giving this prophetic encounter, Pringle is giving us two very different stories. Did God speak to Pringle audibly or did God give Pringle a vision to speak from?
ISN’T THIS DISHONEST?
4. “Obviously if it hadn’t happened I wouldn’t be telling you this story but um… Haha. But thankfully it did.”
While Pringle treats this as a joke, this is what happens at C3. When a supposed vision from God does not come to pass or a prophecy fails to materialise, then it is swept aside by C3. They hope people don’t notice. We have. Expect more articles on these topics down the track.
ISN’T THIS DISPROVED?
5. “Because there was an addendum to that. Ah, that, ah, was quite ah, quite interesting for me. And, you know ah, in 1998 you’ll recall we had in an OZFIRE meeting, (Presence Meeting), I gave a similar thing about the two tallest buildings in the world coming to the ground and after that, a financial melt down. And ah- then streams of people would start coming into the house of God. And that actually happened in all kinds of ways.”
There was indeed an addendum to the Warragamba Dam prophecy. In relation to the dam prophecy, Pringle brings up an old prophecy he made in 1998. He still insists that the twin towers in New York were “the two tallest buildings in the world”. They were not. We proved this prophecy to be false here.
This is clearly a false prophecy. Why would Pringle use a false prophecy to say that this Warragamba Dam prophecy is legitimate?
ISN’T THIS DISASTER?
6. “But the point of the physical occurrence of these things was to indicate another thing that God was actually about to do. And I remember when I- when I actually announced that, that ah, “Immediately afterwards when that happens, when Warragamba Dam does spill over, that’s the time that the Lord will bring a fresh new move of the Holy Spirit all around Australia. And we’ll see a move of God like we have not seen before”.” (Emphasis mine.)
Saying the above is risky on Pringle’s behalf. Phil has made this VERY clear by now stating “Immediately afterwards when that happens, when Warragamba Dam does spill over, that’s the time that the Lord will bring a fresh new move of the Holy Spirit all around Australia”. He has NOW set a time when revival is going to come.
It’s not a few months away. It’s not next year. This revival will be immediate. If this revival does not come, this could be disastrous to peoples faith.
ISN’T THIS DISAPPOINTING?
7. “And I’m just so thrilled with you guys. Every week we turn up – you know seeing your faithfulness, your strength, you’re – we’ve been through so many different pieces of the landscape and the terrain of God that when we get to this point, when God’s about to do something He will build on, those who’ve come through all the stuff and being faithful to Him and being true to Him – in spite of difficult circumstances and- I’m believing that there is definitely a breakthrough day coming up ahead of us. And I think you and I have got to get ready in all kinds of ways. One of the One of the new ways that will come upon us is the use of screen technology. And God will use that in all kinds of- and we’re getting ourselves very ready for that ah, in- which I’ll explain later in a later date. More about that.”
In the Warragamba Dam prophecy in Part 1, Pringle says in his prophecy that the dam will overflow and revival will come with a condition on C3. We will look more at this in Part 4. However, Phil Pringle also has explained the status of this condition very clearly in the above blurb.
Pringle said, “Every week we turn up” and praised C3 for their “faithfulness” and “strength”. He talks about C3’s endurance and how “God’s about to do something He will build on, those who’ve come through all the stuff and being faithful to Him and being true to Him”. Pringle is FULLY convinced that C3 has fulfilled their ‘if’ commitment to God. And the proof of their commitment to God is the Warragamba Dam overflowing. This means if the revival doesn’t come, Pringle does not have his congregation to blame. If the revival does not come, many who came expecting and fully convinced they were faithful, will become disappointed when the promised revival does not turn up.
This is dangerous on his behalf. Why? He cannot now back out and blame C3 church for not being committed. If he didn’t say the above and revival didn’t happen, Pringle could pull an Andrew Kubala by blaming the congregation for not being faithful. This means he could escape the consequences of prophesying falsely.
He didn’t.
ISN’T THIS DISPOSABLE?
8. “I’m believing that there is definitely a breakthrough day coming up ahead of us. And I think you and I have got to get ready in all kinds of ways. One of the new ways that will come upon us is the use of screen technology. And God will use that in all kinds of- and we’re getting ourselves very ready for that ah, in- which I’ll explain later in a later date. More about that.”
Pringle makes it clear that he is convinced that revival is coming because of C3’s faithful commitment. This means they need to “to get ready in all kinds of ways”. We will be looking more into this in Part 4 & 5.
Even by analysing the content of Pringle’s Warragamba Dam message on the 4th of March, it is clear this prophecy is false. Remember that C3 showed this prophecy at their C3 Presence Conference on the 10th of April and the 13th of April. That is more than a month later after the dam overflowed. If they were still waiting for the “breakthrough day coming up ahead of us”, then they ignored Pringle’s words that the revival was to be “immediately”.
Is it not clear enough already that this is a false prophecy? Why did C3 bother to pick up something that is disposable and parade it at Presence Conference 2012 in front of thousands of Christians? If it hadn’t come, why flog it?
In closing, we wish to thank Phil Pringle for his insights. He has helped clarify his ‘prophetic office’, how we should understand the Warragamba Dam prophecy and how it should work out.
Pringle has made it clear: if the prophecy is not fulfilled it is either God who got it wrong or Phil Pringle is a false prophet. Either way, this will be a disaster to C3 if revival does not come soon. What will happen to all those expecting revival who are getting “ready in all kinds of ways”?
These articles are tackling the false Warragamba Dam prophecy made by Phil Pringle. At Presence Conference 2012, C3 aired this Warragamba Dam prophecy twice on video.
THE DELUGE
It’s worth highlighting some articles that were published in 2007 onwards.
Reporters were pointing out how Flannery’s predictions were falling flat. Two years later from 2005, the media and other sources made the following reports. In 2007, news reports recorded Sydney and parts of NSW were deluged.
Bolt’s 2007 article ridiculed Flannery on another topic saying, “And forecasters in the US, meanwhile, downgraded predictions for hurricanes this year; for the second year contradicting claims by noted alarmist Tim Flannery that warming was making hurricanes worse.”
So it is clear that in 2007, (Flannery either taken out of context or not), many predictions Flannery made were wrong. The Australian media weren’t buying his claims. The rains came down and the floods came up. Journalists, bloggers and critics had their say on Flannery, climate change and how his predictions were wrong.
THE DELUSION
So Phil Pringle got a ‘prophecy’. So what? What was the point of broadcasting this twice at Presence Conference 2012? The Dam was brimming with water on the 3rd of March. So revival should have broken out the next day at C3 Church, right?
Not so. Phil Pringle and C3 seemed to link this prophecy to being fulfilled at C3 Presence Conference 2012. (We will examine the faults with this in Part 3.)
We have reason to believe that Pringle WAS involved in the editing process. In our article ‘Who Is The Liar? Phil Pringle Or God?‘, we have a screen grab of a tweet from Pringle saying,
“Can’t believe what our media guys have put 2gether to help with my mssg this wknd”.
This reveals Pringle has a say in how things are presented before being shown at church events. Obviously Pringle would have endorsed the Warragamba Dam Prophecy video before it aired. However, he also may have been with his “media guys” in the editing process.
In a below video snippet captured on the last day of Presence Conference 2012, you will see Pringle clearly pitting the news and Flannery against himself and God – they were wrong, he was right. It seems Pringle’s understanding of this entire escapade is what C3 portrayed in the Warragamba Dam video. We shall dare ask the question in this section: Was this really a reaction to something Phil Pringle doesn’t like OR an opportunity to make Pringle look good? Before tackling this question we need to look at what was said on the last day at Presence Conference 2012.
The Piper Playing The Sniper
On the last day of Presence Conference Pringle showed the prophecy video again. A bit later, Pringle then spoke in reaction to Flannery and the media. It is worth watching Pringle’s behaviour towards Flannery here:
“You’re thinking, you’re going to die. You’re thinking it’s impossible. You’ll never gonna make it through. But He’s got higher and deeper purposes going on, so that you can be a carrier of a power from another world. And the capacity to carry that power into people’s lives means that you need to flow with Him. So that when He tells you to do something ridiculous, like to say- when you’re looking everyday at the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald and saying, “The dam is empty. The dam is empty. We’re never gonna have it again…”
Mr Flannery says, “Guys. The governments paying me a hundred and eighty thousand a year to let you know what’s gonna happen in the future. It’s never ever gonna be full again. So we need to build a one billion dollar desalination plant (which they did build and now is in moth balls), and we need to tax everybody an extra hundred bucks to actually build the thing in Sydney.”
People should come to church. [Applause] People should come to church.
We got greenhouse people predicting all kinds of stuff today. But we need some prophets who are carrying a presence on them that can see into the future. People who can work miracles and break a drought. Who can speak to seas and storms and tsunamis and say “Stop!” Men and women of enormous power.” – Phil Pringle, Presence Conference 2012, Day 4, Day Sermon, Friday, 13/04/2012.
Did Pringle Prophesy Out of Reaction?
Did Pringle hide his prejudices and his own opinions behind the supposed prophecy of God?
Pringle believed that people had said that the Warragamba Dam would never be full again. With the failed predictions in 2007, it seems safe for Pringle at best to prophesy out of reaction that the dam would be full.
He is not happy with Flannery at all. To treat Flannery the way that Pringle did in the conference was VERY rude, critical and condescending. (The irony is Pringle vehemently opposes critics and those who judge him and his ministry. So who is Pringle to now criticise and judge?)
[On a side note, we observed that Pringle used powerful imagery with his words when he referred to the desalination plant as being “in moth balls”. Over the hundred sermons we’ve examined, that turn of phrase seemed foreign to his speech, so we did a quick check to see if Pringle relied on his critics to glean this terminology. We found this:
Malcolm Holland reports in his article Professor Stuart White saying that “the desalination plant “should be put in moth balls until the next severe drought”.” Did Pringle refer to a critic’s comments in his criticism to Flannery?]
Even away from the outburst, Pringle was pitting himself against the “greenhouse people”. He clearly doesn’t like “Greenhouse people predicting all kinds of stuff.” So someone like Pringle had to come along to save the day.
We know that Phil Pringle has strong associations with the Liberal party. He’s expressed his liberal views from the pulpit before. Even in the above snipe, Pringle has shown disdain to the Liberal Party’s opposition. There is a good chance this prophecy was spoken out of irritation and reaction against his politically prejudice views against the “greenhouse people.”
Therefore, one has to ask the question: how could he make the claim he made in 2008?
“That as I was standing here tonight, God spoke to me about a really weird thing. He said, “People have said that the Warragamba Dam will never be full again”.”
The above comment in the prophecy video contradicts his outburst above. How is what God’s said “weird” when Pringle clearly was irritated continually by “the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald and saying, “The dam is empty. The dam is empty. We’re never gonna have it again…”?”
Why would God say “People have said that the Warragamba Dam will never be full again,” when it’s fairly obvious that the media DID ridicule claims that the Warragamba Dam will never be full again? C3’s own media sources they used IN THEIR VIDEO proved this for us. For Pringle to be this narrow minded only highlight’s that he really had a bee in his bonnet; a bone to pick with the political spectrum he often disdains. It seems plausible he prophesied out of reaction against those he didn’t like.
Did Pringle Pridefully Prophesy?
It is evident that Pringle uses the prophecy to elevate himself.
In the above outburst, Pringle personally alludes to himself being the reason people should come to church (he was the one who gave the prophecy). The evidence suggests above that Pringle sincerely believes he broke the drought, otherwise he wouldn’t have said, “we need some prophets who… can work miracles and break a drought”. The connection Pringle made was that ‘prophets’ like himself. can break droughts.
It’s also worth noting that at Presence Conferences and giving messages at his own C3, Pringle does teach people he is some amazing prophet, or even an ‘Elijah’. It is possible, he is glorifyng the fact in his mind that he broke the drought as Elijah did in the scriptures.
This year on the opening night Presence 2012, Pringle aired the Warragamaba Dam video. This only provided another reason why people should give money to ‘prophet’ Pringle.
It becomes quite clear when you watch the prophecy video in his Friday session, that Pringle uses the prophecy to elevate himself and the C3 Movement. Don’t believe us? Watch the sermon here:
We will even further make the claim that this convenient prophecy helped market C3 Church to gullible Christians and churches who were enticed to the Presence 2012 event. Why? We recorded Pringle saying this in 2011.
It makes a lot of sense why Pringle wants C3 to “become more cross-denominational, not parochial about just being C3.” In pushing the video the way Pringle did at his Conference, his motive becomesmore and more questionable. One “motivation that [C3] have” is that other churches and Christians from other churches “get involved in what ]they’re] doing.” Pringle wants C3 Presence Conference to “be a blessing” to other churches alright! On the first Presence 2012 night, Pringle checked what denominations were present.
The question should then be asked: if the prophecy was of God, why is Pringle using it to elevate himself and his movement? Isn’t the Spirit of God behind the utterance of a prophecy meant to point us to Jesus (as Jesus Himself said in John 16 & as Pringle himself said in the sermon above)? Why is this spirit elevating Pringle and C3? Why is this spirit not pointing to Jesus?
THE DELAY
The video said that on the 15th of June 2008, according to Phil, God decided to act out of character. In the Warragamba Dam prophecy video at Presence Conference 2012, (in front of thousands of Christians around Sydney (and online webcasts)), Pringle said:
“… God spoke to me about a really weird thing. He said, “People have said that the Warragamba Dam will never be full again”.” (3:32)
Who exactly was saying “the Warragamba Dam will never be full again” after the deluge the previous year? As we covered in the previous article, no media that C3 covered said straight out “the Warragamba Dam will never be full again”. Flannery was quoted by Sheehan saying, “There’s only two years’ water supply in Warragamba Dam”. So we have Flannery (and his followers?). The above media articles in 2007 put to rest the Warragamba Dam fear.
But Phil Pringle said that God came to him in June 2008. Why?
Why did God delay to give His prophetic message to Pringle? Did Jesus really miss the boat here?
To demonstrate how absurd ‘God’s’ behaviour was to Pringle, observe the timeline in this diagram. This should help explain why ‘God’ delayed his message for so long.
It is rather a convenient prophecy to make don’t you think?
Tim Flannery’s prediction failed the year before. In Part 1 in this series of articles, we demonstrated that C3 mislead people by pitting the media and Flannery against Pringle’s Warragamba Dam prophecy. But when you examine when Pringle ‘prophesied’, there was no media or Flannery to oppose him. The media didn’t believe the predictions. 2007 came about and the rain came instead. Warragamba Dam didn’t dry up. The media criticised Flannery and all moved on… Except Pringle.
As we now see, the timing of this prophecy was very convenient. Instead of prophesying in 2005 when Flannery’s ‘predictions’ were initially made, he waited until 2008, several months after the critics were already having a go at Flannery. Prophet Pringle’s a bit late to the bus don’t you think?
This delay makes the prophecy that ‘God’ gave Pringle pointless and irrelevant. Anyone could say that one day that Warragamba Dam could be full. It doesn’t take a prophet of God to say that.
But this does raise the question: Does that make the media prophetic like Pringle? Of course not. They were on the case BEFORE Pringle prophesied in the first place (see articles above) and continued to do so after he prophesied (in the following articles below).
It seems that the Warragamba Dam prophecy video made Pringle out to be the only one opposing Flannery’s predictions. But all the above articles clearly demonstrate that this is simply not the case. He seemed to speak out of reaction and pride. In light of this information, Pringle’s ‘divine’ prophecy seems almost redundant.
While writing this article, our hands were continually connecting with our foreheads rather forcefully, in utter disbelief. The amount of distortion that occurred in Phil Pringle’s three minute at the C3 Presence Conference 2012 was mind-boggling. The more we examined the video, the more stunned we became in how deceiving this video really was. This is part 1 of a series of 3 articles, addressing the brilliant con artistry of Phil Pringle and the C3 Movement. And when we say con artistry, we really mean it. If anyone can show us how any of this was accidental, we would love to know. E-mail us at c3churchwatch@hotmail.com or feel free to discuss this article below.
C3 PITTING MEDIA & FLANNERY AGAINST PRINGLE’S PROPHECY
At the C3 Presence Conference 2012, Phil Pringle had a video made of himself about a ‘prophecy’ he spluttered on the 15th of June, 2008. In the video, C3 pitted Phil Pringle against the ‘voice of the media’ and Tim Flannery. However, the way they presented the information made it look as though Tim Flannery made the majority of the comments in support of the media. Here is a picture from the video:
We will be looking at the transcript, each snippet (from 1-5) to see if C3 Church gave a correct view of the information they presented and finally looking at a number of sources and a timeline of the prophecy that Pringle gave.
First off, C3 said this about Tim Flannery (3:00):
“In 2005, [Snippet 4B background of ‘article’ appears behind Flannery] Professor Tim Flannery predicted that [snippet 1] Sydney’s dams could be empty in as little as two years due to global warming. [Snippet 2]
Audio excerpt: “Mr Flannery has warned that Sydney will soon be facing extreme difficulties with water.”
[Snippet 3] Climate change expert Tim Flannery has sad that even the rain that falls isn’t actually going to fill [Snippet 4A] Sydney’s dams and river systems. He’s also stated that we are running out of water [Snippet 5]– and time.”
By reading the above transcript, we will demonstrate not only what is wrong with the 6 snippets but what is also untrue with the audio statements. Flannery did not say, “we are running out of water – and time”. Paul Sheehan did. Read ‘Snippet 1’ for more information.
Flannery did not say that, “even the rain that falls isn’t actually going to fill Sydney’s dams and river systems”. While he said something like it – Flannery did not specify that these dams and river system were either Sydney’s dams and river systems or specifically Warragamba Dam. What’s even worse is that this is a quote taken out of context, which will be addressed in ‘Snippet 5’. At best, C3 misrepresented Tim Flannery (Chief Commissioner of the Government’s new Climate Commission), in front of thousands of Christians. Watch the video below at 2:57 to see the ‘prophecy’.
SNIPPET 1
C3 had the snippet alongside the face of Tim Flannery,
“Running out of water – and time
April 25, 2005″
This was the shock-jock title of an article by Paul Sheehan from the Sydney Morning Herald. If there was anything C3 could have used, it could have been Sheehan’s article. This article quotes Flannery saying,
“There’s only two years’ water supply in Warragamba Dam,” says Flannery, “yet Frank Sartor [NSW Minister for Energy and Utilities] is talking about the situation being stable … If the computer models are right then drought conditions will become permanent in eastern Australia.” – Paul Sheehan, Running out of water – and time, http://www.smh.com.au/news/Opinion/Running-out-of-water–and-time/2005/04/24/1114281450815.html, 25/04/2005.
They could have quoted Flannery saying the above. However, C3 didn’t. It was also Sheehan that made the claim,
“The water restrictions now in force in Sydney are never going to be lifted, except after a run of freak conditions, just as Warragamba Dam is never again going to be full unless there is a freak period of high rainfall unlikely to be sustained.” – Paul Sheehan, Running out of water – and time, http://www.smh.com.au/news/Opinion/Running-out-of-water–and-time/2005/04/24/1114281450815.html, 25/04/2005.
Observe how Sheehan used the word ‘unless’ in the above quote. This article is speculative at best. This article did NOT say that the Warragamba dam will be empty. C3 simply grabbed the shock jock title to push their agenda for ‘Prophet’ Pringle’s sake. They distorted information for their gain.
SNIPPET 2
C3 also had up next to Tim Flannery the quote,
“Sydney’s dams dry in just two years.”
This may have been something Tim Flannery said. But once again lets look at the context,
“Leading environmentalist Professor Tim Flannery has warned that Australia is now entering long-term climate change, which could cause longer and more frequent droughts.
He also predicts that the ongoing drought could leave Sydney’s dams dry in just two years.
Professor Flannery, who is the director of the South Australian Museum, has told ABC TV’s Latelinethat global warming is threatening Australia’s chance of returning to a regular rainfall pattern.
“Three major phenomena are depriving Australia of its rainfall,” he said.
“One of them is just simply the shifting weather patterns as the planet warms up, so the tropics are expanding southwards and the winter rainfall zone is sort of dropping off the southern edge of the continent.”
He says the second phenomena is disturbances in the ozone layer.
“That is causing wind speeds around Antarctica to increase and, again, drawing that winter rainfall to the south,” he said.
The third phenomena, which Professor Flannery says is the most worrying, is the recurring El Nino weather pattern.
“That’s occurring as the Pacific Ocean warms up, and we’re seeing much longer El Ninos than we’ve seen before and often now back-to-back el Ninos with very little of the La Nina cycle, the flood cycle, in between,” he said.
Professor Flannery says that all adds up to back-to-back droughts, and if he had a say he would ration water use.
“If you think there’s only a 10 per cent chance that this rainfall deficit’s going to continue for another few years, you’d be pulling out all stops to preserve water,” he said.
The ABC reported Flannery supposedly saying, “ongoing drought could leave Sydney’s dams dry in just two years.” This could be ABC referring to Flannery’s out-of-context claim made on Lateline (read Snippet 3). Or it could be that ABC could be referring too Sheehan’s article. Flannery explains in this article, just like in Landline the importance of the ‘if’.
“If you think there’s only a 10 per cent chance that this rainfall deficit’s going to continue for another few years.”
“Professor Flannery says that if Sydney’s dams dry up, the city’s ground water supply would last just 10 days.”
There is nothing wrong with Flannery giving listeners a probability on drought conditions and hinging possibilities on an ‘if’. If Australia does’t behave resourcefully towards water, we naturally should expect water shortages. After examining the way the interview is conducted – the article comes across as speculative at best, especially with Flannery exploring, “the worst case scenario for Sydney”. Speculation after speculation.
At least with this article, C3 could have possibly claim one news article explored the option that the drought could be prolonged because of global warming. The article however, did not say that the Warragamba Dam would not be filled again. Global warming or not, C3 misquoted an article again. This article was not saying Warragamba Dam was never going to be full again. Once again, they distorted information for their gain. Strike 2.
SNIPPET 3
C3 then published another quote, this time not from Tim Flannery but from the Herald Sun:
“In 2005, Flannery predicted Sydney’s dams could be dry in as little as two years because global warming was drying up the rains, leaving the city “facing extreme difficulties with water””
Here is the context:
“Small problem, though: after so many years of hearing Flannery’s predictions, we’re now able to see if some of the scariest have actually panned out.
“And we’re also able to see if people who bet real money on his advice have cleaned up or been cleaned out.
So before we buy a great green tax from Flannery, whose real expertise is actually in mammology, it may pay to check his record. Ready?
In 2005, Flannery predicted Sydney’s dams could be dry in as little as two years because global warming was drying up the rains, leaving the city “facing extreme difficulties with water”.
Andrew Bolt possibly misquoted Flannery from Lateline. McKew posed a hypothetical question to Flannery:
“MAXINE McKEW: Well, I’m not asking you to be alarmist, but in fact, what would you say is a plausible worst-case scenario that you and, say, other scientists in the Wentworth Group have come to agree on?
TIM FLANNERY: Well, the worst-case scenario for Sydney is that the climate that’s existed for the last seven years continues for another two years. In that case, Sydney will be facing extreme difficulties with water, and of course, large cities are the most vulnerable of all structures to water deficit because you’ve got 4 million people there who need water just for everyday survival, and in the case of Sydney, there’s very few back-up reserves. Sydney’s ground water supplies are only about 13 gigalitres, which is about 10 days’ worth of supply. So there are not many options for Sydney and, of course, without water you can’t make power, you can’t wash, you can’t clean your food, you can’t have industry. So there are some quite severe problems if the current trend continues. I really do hope that that doesn’t happen, but as I say, something will have to change in order for Sydney to get out of that predicted future.” – Landline, Flannery warns on global warming, http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2005/s1389827.htm, 10/06/2005. (Accessed 29/05/2012, Emphasis mine).
Flannery answers the hypothetical. He is speculative in this piece. C3 also ‘reported’ that Flannery said, “Sydney will be facing extreme difficulties with water”. They too, like Bolt, took Flannery out of context.
As you can see, Andrew Bolt from the Herald Sun was also taken out of context by C3 Church. Bolt’s article was criticising Flannery’s ‘prediction’. C3 misquoted Andrew Bolt’s misquote. It’s also worth noting that Bolt’s article was not written between 2005 and 2007. It was written in 2011.
Bolt’s did not write to promote Flannery, rather to criticise him and his prediction. C3 took this critics criticisms against Flannery by misquoting Bolt AND gave the impression that the was written in 2005. C3 used this visual aid along with the other misquotes to mislead Christians to believe their outstanding ‘prophet’ Phil Pringle is powerful against the oppositional media.
Fancy C3 Church twisting the words of a critic to validate Pringle’s office of ‘prophet’. AGAIN, C3 distorted information for their gain. Strike 3.
You’ll notice straight away that C3 grabbed this segment from a blog. The blog is JustMEinT’s General Blog.
We know they grabbed their quote from this blog because it is the same font, same italics, same linkage.
SNIPPET 4B (B for Background)
C3 Church not only twisted the article for their gain, they also used JustMEinT’s General blog article for the background of their portrayal of Tim Flannery and the five snippets in their video. In the below picture, you can see the segment of text C3 used for the background of their video on Pringle’s Warragamba Dam prophecy. The body of text that makes up the background is the following:
“He was chosen for this $3,000 a week (3 days a week) job for his expertise, his communication skills, and his track record in the competitive business of sounding alarms about the dire consequences of our “carbon polluting” ways. His alarms, he claims, are based on an anthropogenic global warming theory that has been confirmed by an overwhelming consensus of scientists to be ninety per cent probable – the implication being that there is only one chance in ten of him being wrong.
But how can his teachings and preaching ever be tested? Most of his apocalyptic prophesies are projected far enough into the future for him to be well and truly beyond accountability when they are proved right or wrong.
When it came to Australia’s rainfall, however, Flannery threw caution to the wind and declared that the apocalypse is now.
Compare the above text from the critics blog to the background of C3’s expose of Flannery and the media.
To make matters worse, the hyperlink on the snippet C3 took, takes you to Andrew Bolt’s article, ‘An excuse from Flannery and his dud prediction’, (written on the 01/03/2012). The link on the snippet takes you to Bolt’s article that is ridiculing Flannery. Strike 3 and 4.
This blog article was also published on the 2nd of March, 2012. This article was NOT written between 2005-2007. This contradicts the C3 report that Flannery (and others?) in 2005, were saying that the Warragamba Dam will never be full again. This article is NOT saying that the Dam will be empty. It is ridiculing Tim Flannery. They visually misrepresented the quote and the slab of text that made up the background.
C3 has no excuse for their distortion and misrepresentation of the facts. They are not afraid to mock, criticise and condemn bloggers and critics. So why are they now stooping lower then those they condemn, twisting their words and articles to elevate the prophetic status of their leader, Phil Pringle? AGAIN, C3 distorted information for their gain.
Who knew C3 Church would twist the words of a blogger and the bloggers article to validate Pringle’s office of ‘prophet’? Strike 5.
SNIPPET 5
C3 quotes,
“even the rain that falls isn’t actually going to fill our dams and our river systems…”
This is a quote from statement C3 used was taken from the ABC show Landline. The transcript reads:
“SALLY SARA: What will it mean for Australian farmers if the predictions of climate change are correct and little is done to stop it? What will that mean for a farmer?
PROFESSOR TIM FLANNERY: We’re already seeing the initial impacts and they include a decline in the winter rainfall zone across southern Australia, which is clearly an impact of climate change, but also a decrease in run-off. Although we’re getting say a 20 per cent decrease in rainfall in some areas of Australia, that’s translating to a 60 per cent decrease in the run-off into the dams and rivers. That’s because the soil is warmer because of global warming and the plants are under more stress and therefore using more moisture. So even the rain that falls isn’t actually going to fill our dams and our river systems, and that’s a real worry for the people in the bush. If that trend continues then I think we’re going to have serious problems, particularly for irrigation.” – Sally Sara, Landline, Interview with Professor Tim Flannery, http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2006/s1844398.htm, First published 11/02/2007. (Emphasis added. Accessed 20/04/2012)
An article that C3 could have used could have been the following:
Instead, we are given distortion after distortion for their gain. Strike 6.
Visual imagery is powerful when handled either correctly or incorrectly. How C3 and Pringle presented the information was deviant at best. Each media snippet was NOT saying (as the video suggested), that the Warragamba dam will never be full again.
Could this be an accident? If it was an accident somehow, C3 and Phil Pringle failed spectacularly. If anyone can prove this was an accident, we would be very keen to hear your take on this. It’s hard to fathom this was an accident at all. It seems more than reasonable to say this was deliberate. (Would C3 honestly think someone would record this video, go through their claims individually with all the hype going on and critically examine the snippets presented?)
We think it is personally safe to say that Phil Pringle and the C3 Movement went out of their way to handle these articles FALSELY to exalt the prophetic office of Phil Pringle.
They disregarded the dates these articles were published and took material out of context for convenience-sake to elevate Pringle before other churches. They wanted to parade their prophet. Instead – they paraded an amazing series of distortions before other church denominations on Presence Conference 2012 open night. But it get’s worse (and more absurd). Get ready for part 2.
From ‘Thoughts From My Reformed Self‘, Stokes writes this review on Chris Pringle’s Presence Conference Session on 13/04/2012.
C3’s Chris Pringle Butchers the Gospel In Job to Teach Prosperity Heresy
I’ve already reviewed one message from the Presence Conference in Sydney and have already seen enough to convince me that no one should attend this conference unless as a rescue mission to evangelize the lost that can only become more lost than they were before by believing anything that’s taught here. But we are building a case and making an argument and, keeping that goal in mind, there can never be too much evidence.
For more on the entire C3 Church Movement headed up by Phil Pringle and his wife, a great source is C3Churchwatch blog.
So this time I am reviewing a “sermon” that makes Steven Furtick seem like a breath of fresh air. Chris Pringle already has a strike against her as I consider her preaching because she is a woman who is not only defying the biblical mandate against women teaching groups including men, but further defies God’s word because she holds the office of co-pastor of C3 Church in Sydney with her husband Phil Pringle. Since the Bible clearly forbids women from holding this office in the church, we know right off what low regard Ms. Pringle has for the authority of God’s Word.
But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet, 13 For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve.” (1 Tim. 2:12-13).
“Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach (1 Tim. 3:2)
So there’s one strike, but she has enough strikes to finish off a full lineup through all nine innings! These are the big strikes, which accompany the strikes against her throughout the sermon. First, this message is not about Jesus. It is not taken from the Bible. It is not about the gospel. It is, however, packed with narrative of the history of C3 church, with a heavy dose of anecdotes from the life of Phil and Chris Pringle.
The title of Chris Pringle’s message is “The Scent of Water”. Before you write off that title as ridiculous, in all fairness, that phrase does appear in Job 14, but she fails to present a message that really has anything to do with water or anything that water represents. Instead, she centers the message around the idea of seeds and trees. Sometimes the seed is a dream, sometimes it’s a person. Sometimes the tree is your dream, sometimes it’s you and sometimes it’s the church. Sometimes you’re supposed to bury your seed and let it die. Sometimes you’re supposed to be the seed and reach up to the “scent of water”. Sometimes you’re supposed to shut it in a woodshed and forget about it. (You think I’m kidding, don’t you. Just wait and see for yourself.) As erratic as her imagery may be, her speaking style is more so. I lost count of the times she interrupted herself. Chris Pringle is a world class bunny trailer.
I also sense much untruth in her little stories. I would lay bets that the anecdote supposedly pulled from their early marriage in the middle of this message is more of a yarn or a tall tale. I will make a case for that notion, but admittedly can’t prove it. But my suspicions are not unfounded.
Sidebar to Address an Annoying Habit Among Modern Worship Bands.
I’ve been told by my husband, who used to play keyboard for a worship band, that what I witness at the beginning of this video is called “vamping”. Here is what I’m talking about. The video opens with the end of a worship song. There is no telling what song, because the way they draw out the finale always comes out sounding the same. The female vocalist always wails emotionally above the sound of the band, following no particular melody and maybe repeating stock phrases such as “Oh, Lord” or “We love you, Jesus”. The guitars are pounding one or two chords over and over and over, and the drums draw out a final cymbal-crashing finale over several minutes. All of this is provided with a backdrop of a video of a glittery waterfall pattern, designed to mesmerize. Everyone on stage is most definitely caught up “in the Spirit” because they have their eyes squinched tight and hands raised. So this is called “vamping”? That’s appropriate, I think, considering it’s obviously designed to seduce.
vamp2 [vamp]
noun 1.a seductive woman who uses her sensuality to exploit men.
verb 2. to use feminine charms upon; seduce.
Here I’ll start the “play-by-pay” of Chris Pringle’s morning session. I started out making links that go straight to certain spots in the video, but that started becoming too time consuming so they cease about 20 minutes in:
0:40 Music leader asks everyone to pray for floodgates to open on their neighbor. Sounds dangerous! C3′s hazard insurance premiums are going to go through the roof!!
1:15 Music Leader starts speaking in “tongues”. No interpreter. And I know from personal experience that this is a skill that you can learn to exhibit on demand. Not buying it though he’s making it more believable than some do. Chris Pringle’s efforts, which are on display towards the end of this video, display a need for more practice to be convincing. The music leader follows his burst of babble with a series of bumper-sticker phrases back to back – altogether lacking in meaning or grammatical sense.
2:52 Finally winding down the “vamping” to outline agenda for the evening.
3:43 Encouraging crowd to applaud a pastor in the audience from Lausanne, Switzerland. Ahhhh, Lausanne, hometown of the ecumenical movement. He’s being congratulated for breaking 600 in attendance at their particular C3 site. These interludes between music and message are giving me flashback to my days in sales. They sound suspiciously like they’re conducting a sales rally, complete with shout-outs to the regional managers who put up the best numbers, etc.
Good grief. Pastor from Lausanne being called up to the stage and asked to pray for everyone, but could he do it in French.
5:22 Swiss Pastor prays in French. I guess we’re going back to the Dark Ages, where it’s acceptable to lead worship in a language the congregation doesn’t understand. He does follow with a separate prayer in English, not a translation, just a different prayer in English. He was way more excited while he prayed in French. Too bad we’ll never know what he was excited about. This was followed up with much silliness from the worship leader about how cool French sounds. Music leader actually instructed audience to make a silly French sound in unison.
8:03 Introduces “Pastor” Chris, listing her many amazing qualities.
10:20 He finally finishes praising “Pastor” Chris, who now takes the stage. She proceeds to pay it forward and praises the crowd for theirmany worthy qualities, and becoming verklempt out of love for her people.
11:30 ”I believe in you, all that God has for you,” she declares. Then she has a moment where she says something more honest than maybe she herself realizes: “This is not a teaching session so put away your notebook.” Kind of begs the question, just what kind of session is this?
“It’s going to start popping, out of the earth, out of your heart, out of your lives.” Will this require medical attention?
13:00 Introduces daughter, Rebecca, who “works like a Trojan horse”. Odd simile. She is aware, isn’t she, that Trojan horses are made of wood and require the effort of multiple other people just to get them point A to point B?
13:17 Presenting Pastor Phil’s paintings on stage up for sale. She says anyone who things they’re in “fat city” are under a delusion. They need to sell art to pay their bills. So we’re supposed to believe that Phil Pringle is a starving artist? Really? How about selling the Rolex on your wrist, Pastor Phil? That would pay a lot of bills.
14:14 She starts engraining the concept that money is a “supernatural seed”. Very smooth little insertion of the concept here. “We sow that supernatural seed, and now it’s your turn.”
Does sales pitch for Phil’s paintings, complete with the claim that they are “anointed” with the same power that rests on Phil. That’s a bold assertion. By the way, I am an amateur artist and have even painted some through the years. In my amateur opinion, these are not particularly spectacular paintings. I mean, they’re okay. They remind me of greeting cards. And I think I remember from the review I did of the Furtick sermon that they sold one of these for about $30,000. These definitely do not rate that kind of price tag. The only way people are paying that much is because they believe the Spirit of God will somehow come with paintings. Click here to view where she’s showing them on stage.
I am thinking that the punishment for actually has got to worse for collecting money claiming to sell the Spirit than for trying to buy it. And the punishment for the latter was certainly bad for Simon the magician:
18 Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money,19 saying, “Give me this power also, so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.” 20 But Peter said to him, “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money! 21 You have neither part nor lot in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. 22 Repent, therefore, of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you. 23 For I see that you are in the gall[c] of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity.”
15:37 Chris introduces Bif and Kim Tyson, members of C3 whom I sense are about to be exploited to tug heart strings and to get emotion flowing in the room. The wife is in a wheel chair and is paralyzed from the waist down from a car accident a year ago. That is certainly horrible and sad but doesn’t it literally add insult to injury that they are about to let themselves be used like puppies are used to sell paper towels?
16:37 ”Bif’s story [the woman in the wheelchair], in my heart, has something to do with the supernatural seed” gushes Chris. She is working hard to insert that “seed” concept whenever possible. Later in the conference, Phil Pringle shamelessly uses this so-called principle to draw money from the attendees.
Chris says they are “sowing their supernatural seed” as she presents as a gift one of Phil’s paintings to the couple. Wow that’s a tiny painting! They chose one so small that I can’t recognize what it’s a painting of. Big applause though. Uh, Pastor Chris. There’s a verse I’d like to share with you:
“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 6:1)”
18:03 Soundman Jordie comes to fix mic which is rattling against earring. Did she just make a pass at him?! She was obviously joking, but ew! He’s probably a quarter of her age and she’s the pastor’s wife… or actually she’s one of the pastors.
18:49 She says, apologetically, “I’m going to get to the Bible.” Promises, promises…
19:10 Gratuitous insertion of reference to her making love to her husband. She apparently received these particular earrings while they were… you know…. Thank you so much for that image. Where’s the Ambien? I’m going to need a dreamless sleep tonight. She also decides to share that the mic is caught in her bra. It’s kind of embarrassing the antics they go through to get it untangled. Raucous laughter from the audience.
20:29 ”It’s all about this seed—this relationship”. Oh, I forgot that one. The seed is also a relationship. Got it.
20:38 Okay, this is starting to bug me. She is using Jordie’s mom as an illustration but has forgotten her name. This is the fourth or fifth time within only about 20 minutes of combined Chris Pringle/Phil Pringle footage that I have witnessed them forgetting somebody’s name among those that works on their staff or are part of their church. This is supposed to be the flock they’re shepherding and they don’t even care enough about these people to remember their names! Each time they stumble like this, they try to whitewash over it with flattery. She immediately starts to refer to Helen, whose name she forgot, as her sister.
20:46 Tells story about Wendy (Jordie’s mom) and how she had brain cancer and wasn’t a Christian. She was brought to Jesus and healed of her brain cancer. Jesus did not receive any glory for this, but these things were credited to the life-changing power present in the connect groups at C3. Not a WORD about God, about Jesus, about his healing Power! This is going to be a very long message.
21:35 ”This awesome, supernatural seed is going va-va-va-va-va in the earth.” What is that word? Is that a va-va-va-va-verb?
21:53 Chris refers to the so-called prophecy regarding the filling of the Warragamba Dam.
I have to insert here that there is absolutely nothing so far that would clue anyone in that this is a Christian gathering. Chris is now talking about “God’s supernatural power”. What god? Which god? I think I’m going to stop capitalizing god (as well as her “holy spirit”) until she gives some reason to do otherwise.
22:06 She is just babbling at this point. She is making no sense, but she believes whatever she’s babbling “with all her heart”
22:26 ”You have literally been drawn here by the scent of water.” I think you need to look up what “literal” means. A few sentences later, “There’s something that happens in a seed that’s in the earth… something that’s hidden…. dark, black, possible even dead. I know that the holy spirit today is going to revive and turn things around, supernaturally as you and I lift up, look up to the scent of water.” I refuse to capitalize this woman’s holy spirit.
23:05 Chris Pringle has a severe case of A.D.D. She gets scattered and stalls and follows every possible bunny trail. For instance, she just came to an abrupt stop to address the band behind her. She realizes they had not been dismissed and wondered if they minded still being on stage. She then inquires of someone in the front row (Phil?) if the band is distracting. I have to answer for her not half so distracting as her self-inflicted interruptions! She then shows remorse for bringing up the subject, thinking they might feel unwanted and tells them that she loves having them up there because they’re her kids, all of them, and she’s “Momma Chris”. Then immediately admits to not knowing the name of the girl on the drums, which rather spoiled the effect of her little speech.
Informed of the drummer’s name, Chris is flustered as if she ought to have known her name. (Yes, she should have.) Chris then remarks on their striking resemblance to Erica and Darlene. This gives evidence that she doesn’t know any of them well or their faces would be quite distinct from one another. A brief attempt to get back on track lasted about two seconds before stops again inquire how she’s doing on time. At this point, this is a valid concern since her various self-inflicted interruptions have probably eaten up the clock. It shows a lack of respect for those in the audience who paid money for this conference. She seems quite unprepared and doesn’t seem to concerned, though, that she’s wasting the time they paid for.
24:28 Starts talking about Steven Furtick’s message and how she had a flashback to her life in the80s while Steven was preaching.
25:00 Chris asserts that that her holy spirit moves and speaks in those times our mind wanders. She’s making a case, it seems, that those with A.D.D. are spiritually gifted. She’s encouraging an undisciplined mind here and making it a virtue.
25:18 Chris says the holy spirit wants to get us to reach up to the scent of water. If this is true, her holy spirit is going to have to train me how I reach for a smell and what water smells like exactly.
25:44 Out of the blue, interrupts herself again to tell the audience that she has lost 10 kilos and not 12 as she had claimed yesterday. This couldn’t be more out of place. I think she has no ability to keep thoughts that pop into her had from popping right out of her mouth.
26:55 Another bunny trail to announce Phil’s 60th birthday is next month. Feels the need to share their vacation plans and says something that I gather is inappropriate, but she’s using Australian slang, with which I’m unfamiliar. It might be really bad for all I know, so I’m going to not quote her.
26:28 Says guiltily and apologetically, “I’ve got to get onto the message. I’ve almost read a scripture… It’s part of a scripture.” We’re almost a half-hour in. That would be nice. But is that all we’re probably going to get? A verse? Part of a verse? “Don’t worry about what I’m saying. Just pick up the good vibes. Okay?” Wow… she’s getting her theology from the Beach Boys?
26:56 ”I’m going to get to this little supernatural seed, and it’s a trick. There’s a trick in the supernatural seed. It’s actually in the natural seed as well.” This sentence makes absolutely no sense to me! I’m lost. Chris then circles back to continue to her earlier story about her flashback to the 80′s. Here, Chris talks at length about the history of C3 and its humble beginnings. ” Phil was, blah, blah, blah… and I was blah, blah, blah… and we were blah, blah, blah….” Can we have something more along the lines of “Jesus did…”, “God ordained…”, and “His Spirit has…” and pull from their story that’s already been recorded for us?
29:06 ”Some things, we can’t see but god can see. It’s hidden in the earth. We don’t know it yet. Some of your pastors and leaders are there right now.” I have a prediction that the magic trick for getting the seed out of its hiding place is to plant more seeds. In the world of rosperity preachers, “seed” always means money.
29:37 ”Every day, we were reading this book by T.L. and Daisy Osborne. A Daily Guide to Miracles.” Hmmm…. This is the title of a book by Oral Roberts. The actual title is A Daily Guide to Miracles and Successful Living through Seed-Faith. When I look up the authors she just cited, I find that T.L. Osborn was Roberts partner in street evangelistic meetings in the 1930′s. Here is my first piece of evidence that she’s making this story up. If this book had so much meaning to them, she would have remembered who wrote it. What I suspect really happened is that she pulled this quote off of Osborn’s website and assumed it was Osborn’s quote. Then decided to build an entire fictitious anecdote around the quote.
30:20 ”The holy spirit said to me ‘Go home and get that painting’” Claiming direct divine revelation, but as we’ve covered already, no reason to believe this is the Lord. She does this so many times in this hour-long message, it would make the review far too long to cite every instance.
30:44 ”T.L. had said in this chapter, ‘take your very best, the cream of your heart, and sow it to God.’” As we already covered, if this came from the book, Roberts said it, not T.L. This quote was hand-picked as words well-crafted to move the audience to take their “best” and give it away and this will unleash god’s blessing. She’s priming the pump to convince them to give away their best. She said this about the one finished painting and it really doesn’t make much sense: “Right then and there, I sowed Sydney. I sowed Sydney; I put it in the earth. I covered it up. And I shut the woodshed door.” Chris has stopped making sense. She sowed Sydney? Is Sydney the earth? Is Sydney a seed? How do you “sow” a city? I suppose Chris would accuse me of not seeing with my spiritual eyes. I don’t think that’s the problem though. This language, all of it, is foreign to the language I find in scripture.
31:50 ”I know, as I was praying this morning, the Lord said to me some of you have to shut the woodshed door. You’ve got to shut the door and trust god with that seed.” This cracks me up! I can’t help hearing now the recurring line from the movie Cold Comfort Farm: “I saw something NASTY in the woodshed!” And by the way, what she shut in the woodshed was Phil’s only finished painting, the only means by which they would possibly make any money. I have a REAL hard time believing that these people passed up the chance to auction off a painting like this. She has it up there as a prop on stage and I have a hard time believing that this painting survived all these years because of sentimentality. I’m thinking he painted this one for the occasion, or maybe to have many occasions where they use this same story.
32:50 Chris finally reads from Scripture:
John 12:24 “Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”
Now the Amplified: “I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just one grain, it never becomes more, but lives by itself alone, but if it dies, it produces many others and yields a rich harvest.”
The Message: Listen carefully. Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over.
33:55 And then, as if she’s summing up that one verse (do we really need a summary of one verse?) she says, “Even though you can’t see it, the tree is definitely in the seed”. I think she’s missed the point of the passage. This is wheat, not an acorn. It multiplies rather than grow into one big thing. But that doesn’t fit her purposes of preaching about big dreams, so she’d rather ignore that. Not to mention the whole passage surrounding this verse is about denying yourself and taking up your cross, which would sound quite foreign coming out of Chris Pringle’s mouth. Now she’s going back into their life story and talking about how attractive Phil was back then. Says something about Phil in bicycle shorts. Ugh! Please stop!
34:44 While riding his bike in 1980, god spoke to Phil and asked him to go to Littleton. The lesson here, apparently, is they let Sydney die (their desire to have the church in Sydney) and so a door opened in Littleton. This is law, not living under grace. It’s a quid pro quo.
35:30 She says that if the seed (and it’s left to your own creativity and imagination as to what your particular seed might be) is buried in the earth, “leave it dead because something’s about to happen. Here’s what I’m going to say. It’s not just about planting a church…. Growing a church… It’s the DNA, the supernatural connections of the DNA in that seed is what is going to cause that seed to go POP! Snap, Crackle, Pop in the earth!” Again, she’s speaking a foreign language.
36:30 Chris is still talking about her life and of trees and seeds. She keeps producing strange sound effects to describe the rumbling seed as well as many sentence fragments and incomplete thoughhts.
36:58 ”The lord said, I’ve given you this city.” This is a grand claim indeed. Sort of the opposite of what Jesus did when he turned down being given all the kingdoms of the world. This is not biblical language unless you go all the way back to Joshua where God commanded the Israelite army to commit entire cities to destruction. We have been given a very specific kind of authority, according to Matthew 28:18: To proclaim the gospel, to batize and to teach all Jesus commanded.
37:04 Chris makes a statement you can tell she’s proud of. She utters, as if an oracle of god, “When we want to, we’re not ready. When we’re ready, we don’t want to.” This amazing insight drew a round of applause. I guess it just sounded so deep and inscrutable, the audience decided that it must be amazingly wise. Phil is in the audience grinning, as if his wife has just proven her utter genius. She follows this up with, “When we’re cocky, god’s not interested. When we’re freaking out, crapping our pants. We’re ready. When we’re hiding in the wine press…That’s when god puts our hand on us.” Crass language aside, this is again a quid pro quo. We receive from God when we have our act straight.
37:55 We need to make sure we do it right. (More law, no grace, no gospel. It’s all about what we have to do. Have you got anything for someone who doesn’t have it all together?) We must do what god wants because we have to make sure the conditions are right for the seed to go “pop”. (Wow I’m glad to have exited this religious culture full of pressure to make sure we’re “doing it right” so that we don’t “miss God’s will”. It’s very freeing to know that we do not have the ability to get in God’s way. He’s quite a bit stronger than us.)
38:05 ”We need to listen to our leaders and make sure it’s the right place, the right time.” Okay, this is a biggie. She’s asserting that she and Phil are god’s mouthpiece and the populace had better listen to them or their seed’s not going to “pop”.
38:24 Getting Veklempt again, thanking her husband for listening to the holy spirit. “Thank you, babe!”
39:12 Still talking about the story of C3. Asks C3 Pastors to stand up to be honored with applause for, I guess, letting their seed die. It’s interesting that the one verse she’s read so far happens to be one that does not mention Jesus. This is natural since Jesus was the one who said it, but we the audience doesn’t know that because she didn’t read the verse in context.
39:49 ”Look at you! This is our seed! This is our DNA!” Veklempt.
39:58 Chris has an honest moment: “My message is in sort of bits. I’m sorry. But that’s just how I am. I’m all in bits.”
40:15 Chris introduces a little gum tree prop. Still talking about the story of the beginning of C3 church.
41:20 ”The supernatural seed is protected by the power of the holy spirit…. That’s why Habbakuk says, “Wait, wait, wait… keep your expectations high. Just wait…” Habbakuk says what?? Well, it could be she’s talking about this. It’s a popular verse among those who expect special revelation from God. But what this verse is talking about waiting for is God’s judgment, which is quickly approaching:
Write the vision;
make it plain on tablets,
so he may run who reads it
For still the vision awaits its appointed time;
it hastens to the end—it will not lie.
If it seems slow, wait for it;
it will surely come; it will not delay. (Habakkuk 2:2-3)
Chris continues on to give the pastors there a pep talk. Chris says if they don’t have that “positive expectation”, then get with someone who does. This sounds like “Hitch your wagon to a star.” Again, this brings me back to my sales days, except it’s starting to be more reminiscent of my very first sales job in Mary Kay.
42:08 That’s why Habakkuk says, “Write it down. Make it real plain. Date it.” I see the write it down part, but not the “date it”. That sounds more like a quote from a book on setting goals. And Habakkuk was told something specific to write down. Is she claiming everyone there is to expect revelation with the same authority as what Habakkuk received?
42:40 Now talking about the original land purchase back in 1980. How is this not boring the audience to tears? But she’s treating it like some story that will effect life change: “The story of C3 church is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes”. Wait a minute. That doesn’t sound right.
42:50 Chris is now reminiscing about a tree-planting day C3 celebrated, which I predict will turn out to be a momentous event with great spiritual significant. Chris and Phil planted a tree which looked like it was going to die which, of course, is just like your vision which looks sick and dying.
44:07 ”He used to be a tree-hugger, my man, when he was on acid.” Niiiiiice.
44:30 Big picture of big tree put up onto the screen. This is supposedly proof that if you just believe, your dream can grow from a sickly little seed… or tree… or bad idea… or something… like… ummm… never mind.
44:54 The holy spirit said to her to get a painting and bring it today – a painting of two women fetching water. Chris assumed it must have special meaning for “someone here today” to not give up. “Draw water. Draw water from the wells of salvation.” What? Is that a verse? If it is, she must have just googled it so she could throw in a verse at this point. But she didn’t cite it so I’ll look it up. Here it is in context:
You will say in that day:
“I will give thanks to you, O Lord,
for though you were angry with me,
your anger turned away,
that you might comfort me.
2 “Behold, God is my salvation;
I will trust, and will not be afraid;
for the Lord God is my strength and my song,
and he has become my salvation.”
3 With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. (Isaiah 12:1-3)
Chris Pringle has managed to quote the one verse in the passage that implies our part in the matter. God as our savior is absent from anything she quotes.
45:17 Speaks for a while on how we should speak nice things to our little tree and hug it and don’t be mean to it and criticize our tree. Awww… poor little tree. /sigh/
46:15 Rains are coming, floodgates of heaven are open. This is really kind of boring me. This is boilerplate prosperity-speak. When did the sappy music start? I didn’t notice. But it’s apparently time for it, because she’s gotten to the “You could be here today…” part.
46:35 ”We want you in the family tree. Turn to your neighbor and say, ‘I’m in your family tree’” This is a versatile tree. She’s shifted her metaphor. The tree – it’s a dream, it’s a church, it’s everything but what was originally intended in the text.
46:51 ”Here’s my scripture, and it’s the scripture of my message.” She says in a tone of voice that says, oops, I sure got off track, because she proceeds to cite a verse that she hasn’t even mentioned yet: Job 14:7 “Even a tree has more hope.” What? Let me look up this verse:
For there is hope for a tree,
if it be cut down, that it will sprout again,
and that its shoots will not cease.
What translation is she reading from? And she only read a third of one verse. She’s talking about this as if this verse is about giving encouragement to people who have been discouraged in their dreams. How dare she compare the type of thing she’s talking about with what Job went through. He lost all his children. He’s covered in boils. He lost his fortune in a moment.
47:28 Reaching up to the “scent of water” again, then proceeds to finish reading Job 14:7 and a few more verses following. Oh, so here’s where the “scent of water” came from. The plant reaches up to the scent of water. She said the “holy spirit quickened this verse to her.” In other words, she was reading this and suddenly was filled with her own bright ideas. Here is what she read:
For there is hope for a tree,
if it be cut down, that it will sprout again,
and that its shoots will not cease. Though its root grow old in the earth,
and its stump die in the soil, yet at the scent of water it will bud
and put out branches like a young plant. (Job 14:7-9)
Here is what follows it:
But a man dies and is laid low;
man breathes his last, and where is he? As waters fail from a lake
and a river wastes away and dries up, so a man lies down and rises not again;
till the heavens are no more he will not awake
or be roused out of his sleep. Oh that you would hide me in Sheol,
that you would conceal me until your wrath be past,
that you would appoint me a set time, and remember me! If a man dies, shall he live again?
All the days of my service I would wait,
till my renewal should come. You would call, and I would answer you;
you would long for the work of your hands. For then you would number my steps;
you would not keep watch over my sin; my transgression would be sealed up in a bag,
and you would cover over my iniquity. (Job 14:10-17)
This is the gospel! She’s right on its doorstep! This is about how we are like that tree, cut down, seemingly dead, but only asleep. And Job is trusting God to call him on the last day, but after his wrath has past and that his sins stay buried, but he will rise up at his voice. This is about the resurrection on the last day.
For we know Job says later in chapter 19:
For I know that my Redeemer lives,
and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed,
yet in my flesh I shall see God,(Job 19:25-26)
Wow, she’s right on the doorstep of a beautiful gospel passage, but she has absolutely no interest in that, because that will not help her and Phil build their C3 kingdom.
48:00 Getting crowd whipped up. She repeats various concepts about seeds, saplings, and scent of water and throws in some tongue babbling.
49:00 ”I’m going to tell you a little story”. Oh, goodie! It’s story time with Mama Chris. Oh my goodness, what comes next is just painful. She mentions someone in the band who she says she loves. Chris says she’s his “white mama”. And she says then that of course he’s got a mother. She proceeds to succumb to the irrational need to mention her ethnicity. She stumbles between whether to call her white or colored and you can tell Julian is uncomfortable and embarrassed for her. Why was that information even necessary? It just provided an opportunity to put her foot in her mouth. Chris goes on to explain that she has added him into her family tree and he’s now one of her sons. Julian just got married and apparently Chris performed the ceremony.
50:05 Chris says god wants us to see the invisible, supernatural seed of destiny in young men and young women. Okay… seed of destiny. Got it.
50:30 /sigh/ Now she’s talking to the little tree.
51:50 Starts singing snippet of some rain song.
51:40 She’s going to pray over Julian and he’s going to represent a seed of the future in our churches represented here to breathe upon this new seed.” She instructs all the musicians in the audience to stand up to be prayed over and she prays for god to “pop that seed in him.” She ends “In the name of Jesus.” First mention of Jesus.
53:00 Now talking more about C3 and what they do… blah, blah, blah. Then more about Chris’ life story. “God spoke to me… I had this revelation: everywhere I went, all the fruit, all the seed, all the trees, that were coming up with new life were through the church.” Scratch, scratch, scratch those itching ears. She then says she made a vow that she was not going to make Kone famous but make Jesus Christ famous. And may I say… epic fail. You are showing yourself inept at making Jesus famous. She spends the next several minutes telling Chris Pringle’s story. Also tells about some girl in Uganda with a tragic story, and C3 became her hero.
58:37 LOL! Is Phil Pringle asleep!?
59:05 Video about girl in Uganda. Apparently a testimonial of how much better her quality of life is now thanks to C3.
1:01:00 Instructing everyone to lift their hands to heaven to the “scent of water”.
1:01:25 Praying. Floodgates of heaven and more “pop, pop, pop”. “Up, up, up” over and over again. “Thank you Lord that you rebirth vision.” He does? Where do you find that in the Bible? “Let that dream flicker, flicker, flicker. Breath upon it holy spirit.” She’s apparently now seeing all sorts of things and relaying what’s in her mind’s eye.
1:03:19 Instructing everyone to pray in the spirit, then starts babbling. Making up her own repetitive song now, full up nonsense about rising and stretching and coming out of the earth. I’m so ready for this to be over. I’m pretty sure what she’s doing right now is supposedly prophetically singing, singing what are supposedly words from the lord over the people interspersed with tongue-babbling.
1:05:12 Now declaring seeds are popping and churches are coming out of oblivion. Coincidentally, I find myself wishing for oblivion at this point. “Send us to the graces of the earth.” Pardon? That sentence has no meaning. Music has been growing constantly in intensity. But soon softens. She’s getting ready for the hypnotic portion. She’s talking in that rhythmic way. It doesn’t matter what she says. It’s rocking the brain to sleep. “Paint your brush across our souls Lord, so that we’ll be attractive to others. So we’ll be irresistible.” That sounds just a bit like a description of the devil. He is covered in a disguise as an angel of light.
1:08:08 Putting in plug to register for a Women’s conference.
1:08:36 Music leader comes up. Giving instructions for stuff happening later that day aaaaand… we’re done.
Please pray for these people who have attended these conferences that they may hear the real gospel, that the Lord of the Harvest would send workers into the field. And pray for the wolves, these deceivers to be exposed.” – Cindy Stokes, C3’s Chris Pringle Butchers the Gospel In Job to Teach Prosperity Heresy, Thoughts From My Reformed Self, http://thoughtsfrommyreformedself.com/2012/05/12/c3s-chris-pringle-butchers-the-gospel-in-job-to-teach-prosperity-heresy/, 12/05/2012. (Accessed 19/05/2012.)
C3 Church Watch 