St. Matthew's Churches, formerly St. Matthew Publishing, Inc.,
is an
evangelical Christian ministry. It is primarily a mail-based ministry with an address in
Tulsa, Oklahoma, with churches in
New York City and
Houston.
In 1999, St. Matthew Publishing Inc. reported $26.8 million in revenue.
In 2007, it reportedly earned $6 million a month.
Origins
The ministry is led by its founder James Eugene "Gene" Ewing, a former tent minister, who, according to the Trinity Foundation, lives in Beverly Hills, California.
Ewing, a native of
Kaufman, Texas, was born in 1933 and has written fundraising letters for other evangelists, including
Oral Roberts as well as
Don Stewart,
WV Grant
Walter Vinson Grant, Jr., who goes by W. V. Grant (born May 25, 1945), is a televangelist whose ministry has been based in the Greater Dallas area.
Career
Grant began his career in Cincinnati, Ohio, in the mid-1970s with the "Cathedra ...
, and
Rex Humbard.
Ewing operates Church by Mail Inc., which had a several decade long struggle with the IRS before being denied tax-exemption in 1992, which was appealed.
Ewing was a revivalist in the 1960s with revenue at $2 million.
He then began writing fundraising letters for
Oral Roberts. By 1971, Ewing renamed organization Church of Compassion as a "mail-order church with half a million 'members'" with income exceeding $3 million.
In 1979, he started for-profit advertising and printing "to provide printing and mailing services to nonprofit religious groups."
Then, in 1980, his business Church by Mail applied for tax-exemption.
However, by the 1990s his businesses owed back taxes to state and federal agencies.
Nonetheless, in 1993, he bought a $2.2 million, home above Beverly Hills. Subsequently, a year later the
U.S. Tax Court
The United States Tax Court (in case citations, T.C.) is a federal trial court of record established by Congress under Article I of the U.S. Constitution, section 8 of which provides (in part) that the Congress has the power to "constitute Trib ...
ruled Church by Mail Inc. is "operated for private rather than public interests" and "is not a church" within the meaning of federal tax laws.
Operations and fundraising
The ministry has been accused of preying on low-income and elderly people by using census records to target their mailings.
Although for several years the ministry operated without a church building and conducted its
direct mail donation operation through the Tulsa address, a physical location to hold services—a then-78-year-old Baptist church in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood
—was purchased in Houston in 2004. St. Matthew's Churches' lawyer says weekly services draw about 1,000 people.
According to the
Trinity Foundation, an evangelical watchdog group, the physical churches are only associated with the mail-based ministry as a cover that allows the lucrative operation to retain tax-exempt church status. The status was granted by the
Internal Revenue Service
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting U.S. federal taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of the federal statutory ta ...
in 2000 after a 17-year court battle.
One of the organization's mailings consists of a paper "prayer rug", on which recipients were encouraged to kneel and pray. This mailing, along with others, have been mentioned by the
Attorney General
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general.
In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...
of the
State of Arkansas
Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage la ...
, among others, as not providing information about their financial and fundraising practices. While the ministry does hold
tax exemption status under section 501(c)(3) of the
Internal Revenue Code
The Internal Revenue Code (IRC), formally the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, is the domestic portion of federal statutory tax law in the United States, published in various volumes of the United States Statutes at Large, and separately as Title 26 ...
, it has been the subject of numerous complaints to the
Better Business Bureau, whose evaluation conclusion was that the organization did not meet two standards for Charity Accountability.
[Better Business Burea]
Wise Giving Guide – St. Matthew's Churches
Published April 2004.
References
External links
* {{official website, http://www.saintmatthewschurches.com/
*
Direct marketing
Evangelical organizations