So apparently God speaks directly to Brian Tamaki

Bishop urges his flock to leave homes and jobs

Bishop Brian Tamaki has raised the stakes with his Destiny Church followers, exhorting them to leave behind houses, jobs – even family members – to join him at a "City of God" he is building in South Auckland.

At the church's annual conference in Rotorua on Friday night, Tamaki spent his entire two-hour sermon talking about how God had told him to build the city and why his followers had to lose their "parochialism" towards their home areas, even if it meant leaving behind loved ones.

Cult expert Mark Vrankovich said the speech was designed to "soften up" Tamaki's followers and the real pressure to move to South Auckland would come with one-on-one sessions with local pastors.

"Saying that the church family is more important than your physical family, that you must go with the spiritual family, is a classic cult idea. This will put great pressure on families and break up families."

Vrankovich was also concerned that Tamaki appeared to be encouraging people to sell their homes. "They'll be pressured to give the money from the house sale to the church, and they'll never see it again. He's extracting money from people for his dream, and something that he will effectively own. He wants to be mayor or king of this 'city' so he's softening them up to get them to move [to Auckland] so he's guaranteed not to be losing money on the deal."

So i guess ten percent of his dwindling - mostly poverty stricken - congregation's income is not enough.

His followers have dropped in numbers from 10,000 to 3,000 - according to recent reports in the media - so i guess it would seem reasonable that the remaining members pick up the slack and continue to keep the Tamakis in the lifestyle that they have become accustomed to.

God has spoken to the Bishop - after all.

He has told him that the congregation should now sell their properties and leave their jobs in order to fund the Tamaki Cult's multi million dollar South Auckland compound.

He was welcomed to the stage by a kapa haka group, which did a haka describing Tamaki as "the mouthpiece of God" and a "prophet".

Tamaki said God had spoken to him through the Book of Hebrews telling him to build a city. In Abraham's time people lived in tents in the desert, but Destiny members had to leave behind their "tent mentality" and aim for something "far bigger, far greater ... a City of God".

Let's all just pray that the next door neighbour's dog doesn't start giving him orders next.

Note to self; Buy flashy pair of sunglasses before starting cult.