It’s important to impress upon our readers how severely the Lord dealt with false prophets in the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 13:1-5) and the strong warnings given to the young church in the New Testament (2 Peter 2:1-3). Phil Pringle was exposed as a false prophet and “dreamer of dreams” when he gave the following prophecy over New Zealand – 14 years later in 2019 we see a ‘prophecy’ that never came to pass.

“I believe New Zealand is about to have in 2005 a revival that will eclipse any kind of revival it has ever had in the history of that nation.  I believe by the power of the Holy Spirit New Zealand is about to have a touch from Heaven.  A touch from Heaven and the finger of God is poised in the heavens.  I see it I see lightening bolts coming out of the Long White Cloud. I see feet running through the streets to get to meetings. I see things happening that have never happened before people running to church in New Zealand. I see them running through the streets of Wellington. I see them running down and the wind is blowing. They are pushing against the wind they are trying to get to churches. There are people running in Auckland down Queen Street to get to church. People are running They are desperate, some are full of fear some are full of faith. But they are running to church. This is going to happen in New Zealand 1000’s and 1000’s of people running to church – running It’s probably not ever happened in New Zealand before. Amen, Here endeth that prophecy –  Praise God”

As we head rapidly towards the year 2020, and armed with evidence that Phil Pringle is a false prophet, it’s time to revisit the second of five articles from our (older) C3 Church Watch site.

With Pringle suggesting God is starting a “new chapter” in his movement (link archived), is it because God has forgotten to fulfil his 2020 chapter? In this (updated) article, we continue to look at the unfinished chapters starting back in the year 2000. And with only seven months to go, let’s see if his “vision” is truly from God. Or has it all be “reinvented” as a 2020 global tour (see image below) – because the 2020 Vision never was from God in the first place.

The Final Countdown Part 2:

For a very long period of time we have seen Pringle play word games and use deceptive means in order to convince people that his prophetic ‘2020 Vision’ from God is being fulfilled. The reason why we are tackling this issue now is because of recent footage we found online. In our first article we established that Pringle had received a ‘God-given’ vision to plant 1000 churches by the year 2020. If you haven’t read our previous article, The Final Countdown: Prophet Pringle’s God-Given 2020 Vision Lie (Part 1), do so now.

In this article we examine how Phil Pringle is purposely going out of his way to convince his congregation that his church is planting churches daily to ‘fulfill’ the 2020 vision.

IS PHIL PRINGLE YOUR HABAKKUK?

Back in 20012, we critiqued a giving sermon that had Pringle twist the definition of ‘church plant’.

C3 Giving Sermon Transcript: Just Another Manic Sunday

“Let Me Just Talk To You Out Of A Scripture” – Pringle’s Use of John 3:16

In our “Let Me Just Talk To You Out Of A Scripture” article, it’s important to reiterate the following information:

56 people + 36 wanting to plant a church + 16 churches rebranded + 2 church plants ≠ 120 Church Plants

Are we to assume that Phil Pringle doesn’t have a basic knowledge of church missions and biblical terminology? Pringle is calling church planting a “group of pastors” to be “thirty six churches” and “a guy in Bulgaria who has sixteen churches” who possibly “wants to hook” into the C3 movement…

Pringle continues to make dishonest and unsupported claims by suggesting that his organisation is responsible for one church being planted every day in Jesus’ name. Pringle says, “I know you were doubting out there but it’s okay. I have my moments too. And so you and I believing together – we’ll start to see ten churches a day being planted and growing”…

Pringle begins to mix his phrases through his address so that it becomes difficult to know what Pringle actually means. Previously in his message to garner funding he only talked about the number of churches that were being added to his movement, not how many people “will come to Christ all around the world today”. We can rightly conclude he is referring to the 120 churches he was talking about previously – because he confirmed that these churches were coming into the C3 Movement, “right now in Jesus’ name. That’s just in four weeks time”.

Pringle continues, “That’s just in the existing churches. Now once these new ones are coming in. And they come into Christ, they become disciples, they become empowered and they become ministries themselves”

It would more accurate to ask whether these alleged ‘thousands’ being saved from his aforementioned C3 church ‘plants’ are, in reality, people in existing churches being rebranded into the C3 fold. This is a seriously deceptive statement – to suggest existing church members who come in under the C3 banner are those coming to salvation in Christ!  If Pringle is saying churches who join C3 “come into Christ, …become disciples,” “become empowered” and “become ministries themselves”, that would make C3 seem like a cult. That is, if Pringle believes their movement is the only true church with the right teachings and formulas for salvation then he himself has set his movement up in a way that an outsider could rightly presume such a thing.

The sermon critiqued above was given on the 24th of October, 2010. We have video footage of Phil Pringle later that week repeating the same false material to his staff and C3 college students. The video clip features Pringle at the start of his sermon portraying himself as a type of ‘Habakkuk’. In the clip, Pringle stresses that leaders shouldn’t just have a vision but a ‘God Vision’. As he is the leader, Pringle attempts to establish at the beginning of this sermon that he is a ‘leader’ leading by ‘example’ with his ‘God Vision’. Pringle the ‘Habakkuk’ of C3? Is he the ‘watchman’ who knows the future of where the movement is heading? He has the ‘God-given’ vision to go forward. Heaven forbid that you question his infallible God-given direction!

“I just want to touch on a couple of things here today for all of us. As students and staff. Number one, is uh – vision: the importance of it. And how much we need that if we’re gonna change this world. We won’t achieve anything without a vision. But it needs to be a God vision. Okay? Just having a vision is really not the answer. And so in all the business manuals and coaching, training, you’ll hear about how important vision is. But that’s just a vision people are dreaming up in their own mind. We need to have a God vision on the inside of us.” – Phil Pringle, 00:16, C3 Church Sydney and C3 College combined staff and students meeting 27 October 2010, http://vimeo.com/16260821, October 27, 2010 6:30 PM.(Archived)

Later on, he recaps what he said earlier on Sunday.

Transcript:

“Empowering saints is giving. Is delegation. It’s getting people to do things for God.  And – and uh, (hm-hm!), so we – we want to release people all the time to get stuff done. And I think it’s awesome! Every – I mean, every week just about, we see a brand new musician up on the stage. And uh – to get people preaching in chapel. All these things.  But the ultimate goal is that we will get people to plant churches and grow churches all around the world.

In the last – uh – I haven’t – I haven’t done a really detailed study on this though. Well let me – let me explain this. And I mentioned it on Sunday but for those who didn’t hear, I’ll say it again.

In Bali, which was what? Four weeks ago? Four weeks ago? I think it was. One month? Yeah. [Crowd laughs] Thanks! Thanks Jake! It wasn’t four weeks. It was a month ago), and ah- In Bali, we had our South- East Asia conference, okay.

So a guy comes out. He says, “I’m joining the movement with my churches”. I said, “How many churches have you got?” He said, “Forty eight 48”. In a place called Myanmar,  Burma. So I said, “Okay”. And I really wanted to clear this up. I said, “It’s not just you joining? You’re actually – all these guys are coming?”

“Yep.”

Then another guy from Indonesia, Philippines, sorry!, he was joining with eight churches. And then we were celebrating planting two churches at that time. All up that’s fifty eight churches. Right there, okay, four weeks ago. Then, another one of our overseers, has just come back from Indonesia. And he says, uh, he’s just having, he’s got thirty six churches just on their way in as well. That’s – ah – how many’s that? Ninety – ninety four! Ninety four churches, okay?

Then, ah, in – in Africa, East Africa, the uh, the guys over there said they got about a hundred pastors and leaders. And there were thirty churches in Tanzania, Congo, bla-bla-bla, somewhere else. I thought, “I don’t know if they’re brand new or half new or whatever”. So I thought, “Oh! Just count half of them”. So that’s like a hundred and – that’s a hundred and ten. Hundred and nine actually.

Then Simon told me that he’s talking to a guy in Bulgaria. Ah – who is a really good guy. He’s got sixteen churches. And he is also hooking up. He’s got a big church, one of the biggest in Bulgaria. It’s about six hundred. That’s a big church in that part of the world. So that’s one hundred and twenty. One hundred and twenty churches in one month. That adds up to a growth rate of around about four churches a day. Okay? You know, like – I – I – I know! I know! So, what are you doing here? You’re getting ready to look after these churches. You’re getting ready to grow these churches.” – Phil Pringle, 24:16, C3 Church Sydney and C3 College combined staff and students meeting 27 October 2010, http://vimeo.com/16260821, October 27, 2010 6:30 PM. (Archived)

WHAT ARE WE SEEING?

Let’s presume that the 2020 Vision is from God. Pringle has emphatically stated that this 2020 ‘God Vision’ or ‘God-given vision’ is to plant 1000 churches. But what are we seeing? We are seeing a man trying to convince his various audiences that the 2020 Vision is being fulfilled for the glory of God.

But were 120 churches planted in his movement over one month? No.

If Pringle was following the ‘God Given’ 2020 vision, he would be planting churches and not ‘rebranding, converting or assimilating’ churches into his movement. If he is not planting churches, isn’t Pringle opposing the ‘God Given’ 2020 Vision?

What else are we seeing? Let’s say that those 120 churches joined the C3 movement. What does this mean?

It means that a third of his churches were established in one month. If anyone seriously examined his claim in ratio to the current number of churches in his movement a few months later, they’d know that Pringle was misleading them. Where are these church ‘plants’ today?

This actually raises more questions. Is the C3 Church Movement mainly made up of church plants or rebranded churches? If the C3 Church movement fills up with ‘rebranded’ churches, does this mean that the movement itself is failing God and His 2020 Vision?

We are about to discover that the C3 movement is mainly filled with rebranded churches.

ARE CHURCHES REALLY BEING PLANTED – OR REBRANDED?

Whenever a C3 Church plant is about to take place in the C3 Church movement, the news is often huge. For example, leading up to its establishment, Phil Pringle and other leaders were repeatedly advertising, Facebooking and twittering the C3 Hong Kong church plant. If churches were being planted everyday, Pringle and his leadership would be plastering that ‘news’ everywhere. However they don’t. It’s safe to assume that the majority of C3 churches are not church plants but takeovers. To say that churches are being planted is not accurate. A ‘rebranding or ‘takeover’ is more appropriate since C3 specifically targets churches and assimilates them into its ‘collective’.

What should be evident in the transcripts above, is how C3 uses their conferences to ‘target and market’ other churches to join their movement. In the name of ‘relevancy’, a C3 conference can easily make local churches feel inadequate, unsuccessful and irrelevant. Who cares about the local church and cultural sensitivity when C3 is the answer to your church’s problem! Who could resist the relevant music, the flashy lights, and the manufactured presence of God?

Consider again what Pringle said in the above transcripts:

“In Bali, we had our South- East Asia conference, okay.

So a guy comes out. He says, “I’m joining the movement with my churches”. I said, “How many churches have you got?” He said, “Forty eight 48”. In a place called Myanmar [Burma]…

Then another guy from Indonesia, (Philippines, sorry!), he was joining with eight churches. And then we were celebrating planting two churches at that time. All up that’s fifty eight churches…”

“And then Simon came back from the European conference and he met a guy in Bulgaria who has sixteen churches. And he wants to hook in as well.”

May we remind you again what Pringle said how he wanted people to see his Presence Conference:

“We really want  to become more cross-denominational, not parochial about just being C3 … And it’s so important that we just, you know, spill the banks, go over, lower the wall, let the water run through the city and be a blessing. And not out there just to drag people into – you know – and to get people into and – many people will get involved in what we’re doing and that’s good. But I don’t want that to be the only motivation that we have. I think that if we have the motivation to be a blessing beyond us, that would be a really good – a really good idea.” – Phil Pringle, C3 Leaders Meeting With Phil Pringle – May 2011, Youtube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgTdtB-ha0s, (Archived),Uploaded by CCCOF on May 5, 2011.

So we can rule out the fact that this ‘vision’ is about ‘planting churches’. We’ve now established this to be false. While we can argue that C3 does rebrand churches, it doesn’t accurately describe the scheming and marketing attempts they use to target vulnerable churches through their conferences around the world. If what is said in the transcripts is true, then one third of all C3 Churches are ‘takeovers’. C3 certainly informs us that they have taken over more churches than they have planted.

If people are still not convinced that the ‘2020 Vision’ is not from God, this next bit of information should convince you.

THE 20/20 VISION – FAILING IN VISION:

We wrote an article back in December of 2011. In it we had screen grabs and older information on the location of C3 Churches around the world .

C3 Reports It Has Roughly 243 Churches Globally

Now the date is the 27th of October 2013. All the screengrabs you see and read below are recorded on this date.

If people visit the C3ChurchGlobal website, click ‘CHURCHES’ and you will come across to this page (http://c3churchglobal.com/church):

You will be taken to this map. You will notice links at the bottom of the right hand corner: “VIEW: ALL | PLANTS”. This wasn’t available two years ago. This is recently added. If you click ‘ALL’ you will see this map:

So why does the C3 Church Global have a link to PLANTS? When you click the ‘PLANTS’ link, you will see the following map:

Going by the newer information what are we looking at? There are only seven church plants in America? Five church plants in Europe? Three church plants in Europe? Four church plants in Asia? Four in the South East Asia Pacific rim? Four in Australia? About nine in New Zealand and a few around Fiji?

With the information given, that’s about forty churches in total that C3 Church considers ‘Church Plants’. Yet the C3 movement brags of planting anywhere between 240 to 400 churches worldwide? And what are the churches in blue? Church takeovers?

If this information is true, than Phil Pringle has failed spectacularly to fulfill his 2020 Vision. Did God truly give Pringle the 2020 Vision, or do we have the (archived) C3Churchglobal website exposing Pringle for the false prophet that he is!

NOTE: If you know of churches that C3 has taken over, please email us links, screen grabs, testimonies or other forms of evidence. 

Email all comments and questions to c3churchwatch@hotmail.com

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