Church urged to be open about wealth
A Maserati-driving pastor who owns $4 million of property needs to be more open and transparent about his church’s finances, former members say.
Murray Watkinson, a former carpet layer who sold his carpet business in Wellington in 1975 after ‘‘encountering God in a supernatural way’’, began the Celebration Centre church in 1990 in Aranui with about 80 followers.
It now claims to have 2000 members in Christchurch and branches throughout New Zealand, the United States and Uganda. Its Wainoni-based operation attracts $1.1m in donations and tithes from local members each year.
The church’s trustees – Watkinson, his son Kelly, Kelly’s wife Melanie, who is the church’s accountant, and parishioner Kerry Rutherford – supervise a raft of Canterbury properties and enterprises turning over about $4m a year.
While former members give Watkinson and his family credit for helping to turn lives around, they question whether the church tells its members enough about what the family earns from church activities.
‘‘I think if your congregation is a lower socio-economic one and you’re asking for money, you should be completely open about how much you are making out of it . . . Jesus says don’t make a profit out of preaching,’’ a former member, who asked not to be named, said.
‘‘Murray and his family are not very open about where all the money goes and don’t respond well to questions. It’s hard to know what’s going on.’’
Another ex-member said: ‘‘The church is not really about God. It’s more a second-hand experience of God where they say this person has got a big house so you can too . . . everyone knows Murray is rich but they don’t mind.’’
The Press asked Watkinson for an interview this week but he declined. He did respond to written questions, saying the church’s accounts were open and public, and it had made its money by investing in property and hard work.
The Charities Services register shows the church has not yet filed returns for the year ended December 2016, but Watkinson said Inland Revenue had granted an extension. The accounts would be published before Christmas.
The church’s activities are run through a series of tax-exempt charitable trusts. The trusts operate a gym, three preschools, an after-school programme and a cafe, and own five residential and seven commercial properties. The church itself comes under the Celebration Centre Trust.
Its Gateway Trust has recently branched into the car sales business employing Christchurch car dealer Nigel Thompson, who left his own company this year after allegations of fraud and misconduct.
Land records show Watkinson and his wife, Nancy, own seven Canterbury properties worth about $4m. Their sons, Kelly and Corey, and their respective families, live in properties valued at close to $1m each. Kelly and his wife, Melanie, own two properties other than their residence.
Watkinson said he and his wife were each paid $80,000 a year by the church and about $45,000 was donated back to the church in 2016. His $4m personal property portfolio carried mortgages of $3m and had been built up by buying property, renovating it and selling.
He did not reveal what his sons were paid by the church.
The Celebration Centre Trust owns a 2001 Maserati 3200GT that Watkinson drives. He is also fond of motorbikes and the church bought him a new Harley Davidson after the hat went around at a church service when he retired in the mid-2000s.
In a recent sermon he told the congregation he had a fetish for cars and loved anything with a motor.
‘‘People have said to me ‘how can you justify having these cars’. I’m looking at them thinking how can you justify drinking, drugging and womanising for the last 35 years and now you are moaning at me because I didn’t do those things and I had excess income to invest in this [cars].’’
In his written response, Watkinson said he had a Maserati that was insured for $40,000.
‘‘We live modestly – none of my family smoke, drink or gamble and we have worked very hard to get where we are.’’
The church’s biggest businesses are its preschools and after-school programme, which are managed by Corey’s wife, Renee.
The enterprises come under the Families For Life Trust.
In the year to 2015, the preschools and other programmes had a turnover of $1.6m, of which about $1.3m was government funding.
The Families For Life Trust paid rent of $297,319 in 2015 and $260,000 in 2014 to the church’s PTL Property Trust. One of the preschools paid about $34,000 rent to the M & N Watkinson Trust for
a property Watkinson and his wife Nancy own.
Much of the criticism of the church’s finances has focused on the Deep Waters Trust, which owns a water bottling plant on land owned by Watkinson and Nancy in Cust. The water comes from an aquifer-fed bore on the church’s land next door.
The land containing the plant was sold to the couple in 2010 for
$750,000 after testing showed the water was of sufficient quality to be sold. The Deep Waters Trust has paid Watkinson and his wife rent of $70,000 for the last four years.
The business does not make enough to pay the rent and other expenses so in each of the years from 2013 to 2015 the Celebration Centre Trust donated over $80,000 to Deep Waters.
Watkinson said the church had cash flow problems in 2010 and he and his family had bought the property to help out, paying well above valuation.
‘‘The $70,000 annual rental is based on the purchase price. Church members were aware of it at the time,’’ he said in his written response.
The Celebration Centre Trust’s records for 2010 show it making a profit before depreciation of
$171,809.
The Deep Waters Trust records show it owes $750,000 to Marcel Lee, an Auckland businessman, an entity recorded as ‘‘Floyd’’ and a non-existent company called Crown Champion Ltd.
Watkinson did not respond to a question about the entities.
The church’s richest trust is the PTL Property Trust, which, despite having $2.8m in the bank, still gets donations from the Celebration Centre Trust. It received
$198,000 from the trust in 2015 and
$118,000 in 2014. Although Watkinson still preaches, he was succeeded in about 2005 by his guitar playing son Corey. Corey left Christchurch and his wife and three children suddenly in 2010 and went to Australia. Watkinson took the helm again until his son Kelly became the main pastor.
After four years away Corey was back in the church as special projects manager.
In 2015 he complained council red tape was preventing the church’s sports trust from investing up to $8m in the earthquake damaged Porritt Park in Avonside. At the time the trust had an income of about $166,000, of which about $75,000 was from donations.
In publicity material the church said it was still growing and prospering, ‘‘experiencing supernatural encounters and sovereign moves of God’’.
Watkinson, who claims his church is very different from Bishop Brian Tamaki’s Destiny Church, believes the world is in a state of crisis and people will overcome dysfunctions and poverty only by bringing God into their
‘‘I think if your congregation is a lower socio-economic one and you’re asking for money, you should be completely open about how much you are making out of it . . . Jesus says don’t make a profit out of preaching.’’
Former church member
lives. In a recent sermon, he said: ‘‘We need a relationship with God. We need his wealth in our body. We need to be prospering in him because he is a God of prosperity and abundance and when you are abounding in God financially you can give, help and bolster.’’
Watkinson said the church’s enterprises employed 68 people and funded a range of social services including the Lions League sports initiative, a youth ministry and a music school.
It distributed clothes and food parcels to families in need.
‘‘This year our goal is 300 food parcels.’’
The church started establishing missions overseas about 10 years ago and supported orphanages and churches in Uganda, Myanmar, Philippines, Mexico and Thailand, he said.
The accounts for 2016 would show the church had $9.5m in assets and owed $2.1m. Revenue was $3.9m and operating expenses were $3.2m.
‘‘Our accounts for the current year will be significantly better due to earthquake settlements.
‘‘The church funds its ministry and services mainly through income from its own business initiatives and properties with all profits reinvested in the church and services.
‘‘The assets have been built up through the hard work of members, many of who volunteer on our programmes, or have have helped develop and improve the church properties through their labour.
‘‘The structure of the church and its operations are open and transparent. They comply fully with all the relevant financial and operational regulations. The accounts are audited annually and publicly available.’’