MERCY Worldwide: The ICC’s Fake “Charity” Organization

Most of the money given to MERCY Worldwide goes to salaries and not benevolence, we already know from former ICC evangelist Gabe Reed’s letter (which I covered in my previous article) that 81% to 90% of the money allocated to MERCY goes to paying their leader’s salaries and NOT to the “MERCY projects” which are supposed to be purpose of the organization. If they are pocketing 81% of the money for themselves; you can hardly call this a “benevolent organization”. Now out of the rest of their budget how much actually went to MERCY benevolent projects? Only about 3% in 2014 and a meager 0.5% in 2015.

In order to exempt themselves from paying income tax the ICC was required to fill out a 990 form where their total budget and expenditures for MERCY are listed. This is public information that is available on the internet.

 Here is the link to the 2014 MERCY 990 income form:

http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2014/264/740/2014-264740560-0b7408f9-Z.pdf

And here is the link to the 2015 MERCY 990 income form:

http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2015/264/740/2015-264740560-0c9f60ae-Z.pdf

On the 2014 Mercy Worldwide 990-EZ form; their total income was $137,541.

$100,151 of this money went to benefits and salaries.

The only expenses made toward benevolent Mercy events was $500 for the toy drive, $200 for the blood drive, and then $3500 on project supplies for the “Day of Mercy”; amounting to only a total of $4200 spent toward benevolent projects.

The way the rest of the money was used is recorded as “other expenses” such as expenditures for meals and entertainment, printing and publications, travel, and most notably $12,000 just for “advertising” (which is almost 3x what they spent on the MERCY projects themselves).

The 2015 Mercy Worldwide expenditures were even more alarming; out of their total income of $146,377, only a meager $700 was actually spent on Mercy projects ($200 for “Day of Mercy” and $500 for the toy drive) while $131,124 for their own paid benefits and salaries. $18,000 was put under “other expenditures” which included meals and entertainment, admin and travel.

What is really outrageous here, is that even though they had a budget increase of $9000, their expenditures toward benevolent projects was merely one-sixth of what is was from the previous year. Not only that, but the amount spent on meals and entertainment was 2.5 times higher than the previous year, and when compared to the scrawny budget allocated to the “MERCY projects; the amount spent for their meals and entertainment was more than double of what they spent on benevolent projects. It’s as if they have stopped to even pretend that they are a benevolent organization.

Former Evangelist Gabe Reed's Letter to the ICC

This post is not a new article of mine, but rather I would like to bring attention to a letter that was written a few days ago by the former evangelist of the ICC’s church in Eugene Oregon, Gabe Reed. His letter to the ICC reveals many of the ICC’s contradictions, arrogance, and manipulation. It also gets very specific about the stats that show the ICC’s member losses and deception concerning where their special mission’s contribution money goes. In this letter much inside information that the ICC wanted to keep hidden is revealed, and the ICC’s hypocrisy and lies are exposed. Here is a link to the blog web address where Gabe Reed’s letter is posted:

http://livinginthebookofacts.blogspot.com/

And here is a link to a PDF version that is available for download:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2e5slY-B8ZiZENxX1pqUzRNOE0

Among the most significant information in this article, Gabe reveals where the special mission’s contribution is really going, or to be more specific; where most of the the special mission’s contribution is NOT going:

“Here’s the truth: The Movement has no money. LA operates on line of credit. The money you give to Special Missions does not go to Special Missions, it goes to pay off the line of credit the LA church has ran up. Just look at the Bulletin that CAICC puts out. We raised 2.6 million dollars in 2015 to plant six churches. I know that the Sacramento church only cost $23,000 to get started. So where did the $2,577,000? It doesn’t take $500,000 to start a church. We didn’t send all that money to other churches around the world. The LA church has run up it’s credit limit and our Special Missions goes to pay down that credit. It’s shocking the kind of deceit that happens in the movement.”

The New gods of Kip McKean's "International Christian Church"

So I have seen some of the ICC’s recent sermons and then was going through some friends posts on social media and I came upon a conversation between one of my friends and an ICC leader. They were arguing about how to approach a leadership that is in sin (in the ICC’s case, severely corrupt, as my friend argued) and the ICC leader had this to say:

“As a disciple remember that we must be very careful how we speak about any authority in this world whether corrupt or benign. God takes this very seriously. David himself showed a respect toward Saul, even though Saul was corrupt. This was because David understood the sovereignty of God. When we talk bad about God's leaders whether factually accurate or not, we are calling God's judgment and decisions into question. We see examples of the outcome of this in the Scriptures.”

This was in the context of talking about people who criticize the ICC leadership. This kind of thinking is in complete ignorance of other scriptures about issues of corruption as my friend Josh soon pointed out to him; “You used David and Saul as an example but how about more clear examples that line up with prophets addressing church leaders in the old testament. Consider Jeremiah at the city gates or Jesus in the temple. God is absolutely Sovereign and all believers are ambassadors of the truth. Remember Jesus flipped tables and made a whip. Jeremiah preached at the city gates and phineas picked up a spear.”

Not to mention that Revelations 2:2 calls us to test for “false teachers”; "I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and you have found them false."