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Rob McCoy of Godspeak Calvary Church
Rob McCoy
-Rob McCoy- Pastor of Godspeak Calvary Church, co-chair of TPUSA Faith. Christian nationalist architect of the Conejo Valley and influencer of city council/school board candidates.
“I’m a man of faith. I’m not permitted to participate in the public square? Whoever says you can’t legislate morality has no idea what they’re talking about. Every law is based on someone’s morality.” -Rob McCoy
Rob McCoy is a far-right megachurch pastor who arrived in the Conejo Valley around 2001 to lead the declining membership at Calvary Chapel of Thousand Oaks, known as Godspeak. McCoy and his young family came from San Jose where he had been a youth pastor under the direction of Don McClure who now sits on the Calvary Chapel Association of America council. While he was outspoken politically in his version of a Christian rabbinate, McCoy was relatively an unknown and went unnoticed in the Conejo until around 2011.
Since the 1990s, American Renewal Project founder David Lane has been working to increase the evangelical voice within today’s Republican party. Lane, a onetime Bible salesman from the Conejo Valley and self-described former “wild man,” was on a mission. Lane allegedly had met McCoy some years before on a trip to Israel. Lane visualizes pastors an opportunity to achieve his goals. By connecting evangelical pastors like McCoy in what more recently was a goal of 1,000 pastors in what was coined “Pastors and Pew” a program encouraging evangelical pastors to seek public office, McCoy ran and lost for California Assembly in 2014. McCoy would successfully run again in 2016, this time for Thousand Oaks City Council. In doing so, McCoy was vocal about his agenda to “legislate morality,” and his disagreement with separation of church and state.
McCoy was rewarded not just with a city council seat for his efforts. In 2017 Texas oil tycoon brothers Dan and Farris Wilks purchased the former Miller Y building in Newbury Park for Godspeak’s future home for McCoy. It’s believed McCoy was introduced to the Wilks brothers by Lane about two decades prior on a trip to Israel.
In 2020 McCoy would abruptly resign from political office to host superspreader events at Godspeak defiance of state and local county health regulations during a worldwide health pandemic. While he has claimed it was due to the hypocrisy of which businesses were open and which were not, his arrogance was at the forefront. By creating a spectacle on the first Sunday the church was open in defiance of the rules, MAGA loving people and evangelicals, an unlikely pairing except in the Calvary Churches of America which has long sought out the misfits and the oddballs who “come as they are” filled the pews of Godspeak. As they did so, McCoy convinced himself it was because he was entitled to convene people in the public square to contend with their government and those with whom they disagreed.
Today, McCoy routinely endorses Republican extremists and fringe candidates during sermons who stand up and ask for donations. In between Sunday sermons, Godspeak welcomes anti science and cultural war public events like showing documentaries on public school policies and teachers’ unions that they believe strip parents of their rights or host talks with anti-science scientists Dr. Jordan Petersen or convicted January 6 insurrectionist, Dr. Simone Gold.
When McCoy is not in Phoenix, Arizona where he and his wife recently purchased a home after selling their home in Newbury Park in 2021, McCoy might be standing in a garish Hawaiian shirt or in a black t-shirt with his arms crossed, center stage framed by video screens and a pool used for baptisms. As one news article put it best, in the Godspeak sanctuary “he’s built a fortress for the culture wars, a garrison against what he calls the “tyranny” of Democrats. On this and other stages, he contends COVID-19 vaccines kill, critical race theory is “diabolical” and the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol is being used as a weapon against Republicans.”
It’s no coincidence he chose to leave sunny California for the deserts of Phoenix. It’s where Turning Point USA is located. While McCoy finally catapulted into the spotlight he’d been seeking for so long with his defiance of local health orders, his alignment with Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA, is where the real influence is. McCoy now serves on the Turning Point board, an organization with a net worth reported at more than $50 million in revenue last year alone. It’s created a network for his influence to surge amongst extremist and mainstream Republicans alike. McCoy and Kirk, who refers to McCoy as his own personal pastor, launched Turning Point Faith in 2021 aiming to workshop McCoy’s brand of political leadership to churches around the country. While Kirk may be the face of Turning Point, the vision and drive was visible long before Kirk rose to popularity inside Godspeak.
Today, a Godspeak elder by the name of Mikey Taylor sits on Thousand Oaks City Council for McCoy. The future of Rob McCoy himself in the community is unknown but is likely limited given he no longer owns a home locally. The lasting impact that he has created through his actions and the foot soldiers of Rob Mob he has trained will have lasting impact for decades to come.
Tim Thompson of 412 Church
Tim Thompson
-Tim Thompson- Temecula Valley/ Murrieta pastor of 412 church responsible for Christian nationalist political takeover of several surrounding school boards.
He’s heard it all before. You’re a pastor, you’re not supposed to get political. You shouldn’t be talking about these issues, so just stay out of politics and stick to preaching the gospel. Life, marriage, sexuality, borders, ethnicity. These things aren’t political, their biblical. Gods word has much to say about the culture we are living in. This is Our Watch with Tim Thompson”
-Our Watch with Tim Thompson
Far-right evangelical pastor Timothy Roy Thompson was born in Los Angeles County and raised in the Temecula Valley. After leaving for a stint in the military, he returned with his second wife, Nicole “Nicky” Paoletto Thompson in Temecula late ‘90s. Thompson was relatively unknown until he began preparing to found 412 Church in Murietta in 2012. According to a LinkedIn page, Thompson founded the church in 2012 as Venia Church in initial documents.
Murietta has its fair share of anti-government extremist residents. For example, in 2014 the Anti-Defamation League reported on immigrant activists in Murrieta preventing buses with Central American refugees seeking refuge from violence from entering the town’s border patrol processing center. Accordingly, Thompson founded Our Watch with Tim Thompson in 2008 seeking to bring politics onto church pulpits and recruit local extremists. Fast forward a decade later, Thompson is still trying to make a name for himself as he struggles to be more popular amongst evangelical pastor pseudo celebrities.
Some might describe Thompson as a wanna-be domestic terrorist. It’s well documented he routinely holds up three fingers in a nod to “3%,” a false narrative that 3% of the population fought the British during the Revolutionary War. Photos have circulated on social media confirming his 3% membership where he sports a “battle jacket” with anti-government extremist group patches such including three percent. Further, in a 2022 speech in Riverside County, Thompson urged other pastors to “man up” and “get back to what we saw in the Revolutionary War.” In doing so, he cited the Black Robe Regiment which he described as pro-independence pastors who after sermons would reveal gun belts.
In 2022, Thompson sought to overtake the school boards of Inland Empire. He officially launched the Inland Empire Family PAC that year seemingly for the purpose of eroding trust in public schools. More recently, he’s added an anti-transgender stance to his agenda. Accordingly, in May 2023, 412 Church/Our Watch filed lawsuit against the state of California. Citing Senate Bill 107, the suit claims the legislation strips the right of parents to direct the care and upbringing of their child. Thompson is unlikely to go away anytime soon and the people of Murietta will smell the stench of him long after he’s gone.
Jack Hibbs
-Jack Hibbs- Chino Valley Calvary pastor who has ties to TPUSA and actively recruits, finances, and platforms school board candidates.
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Jurgen Matthesius of Awaken Church
Jurgen Matthesius
Pastors Jurgen and Leanne Matthesius oversee the entirety of Awaken Church. They moved from Australia in July 2005 to plant a church in San Diego under direction from C3 Founder Phil Pringle...
According to his wife Leanne’s social media, she and Jurgen met when Jurgen was a youth minister at her church in Sydney, Australia. Leanne was 16. Jurgen was 23. They were engaged a year later at 17 and 24, and had their first child at 19 and 26.
According to Jurgen’s own words, he was 22.
Jurgen was born in Germany 1967 to non-religious parents. In 1969 the family moved to Australia and settled permanently. Jurgen didn’t grow up in the church. It wasn’t until age 18 that religion became a part of his life when he had an “encounter with Christ on a beach” in Sydney. As Jurgen tells it, he met a couple that took him under their wing and invited Jurgen to live with them. The couple would talk to him daily about the bible, life and the “end of times”.
After Jurgen attended Sydney’s Hillsong college he moved to New Zealand as part of a Hillsong plant. Leanne joined him after they were married and Jurgen went on to serve for 7 years as youth pastor of South City Christian Church, Auckland. In 1998 Jurgen and Leanne “felt a strong call from god” to return to Australia and in 2001 they were appointed as pastors of C3 church Oxford Falls, Sydney. In 2005 Jurgen and Leanne moved to San Diego and C3 SD was born.
In 2014 Phil Pringle appointed both Jurgen and Leanne to oversee C3 America. That saw them involved in growing the national footprint of the megachurch brand while continuing to grow the presence locally in San Diego. It’s hard to pinpoint the date Jurgen went his own way from C3, but he was no longer in this role as of 2020.
Jurgen’s preaching became more radical as the 2020 election drew near. Jurgen’s love for Trump and all things MAGA was getting more intense. This made some members of C3 past and present raise concern to C3 leadership. There was no public statement by either party regarding this feedback, but in Jan 2020, Awaken was launched and C3 San Diego was no more. However, Jurgen and Awaken are still running the megachurch’s playbook.
On his instagram, Jurgen called C3’s Phil Pringe and Hillsong’s Brian Houston his mentors. Both men and their churches are riddled with controversies including but not limited to financial, physical, spiritual and homophobic abuse.
Phil Pringle is founder and Leader of C3 Church Global (formerly City Church International.) Under his reign, C3 extorted their pastorship by pressuring excessive tithing and a pay-for-miracles scheme that saw pastors pretend to heal health issues for money. Parishioners said they were told to attend exorcisms to “remove the devil from inside of them” and in some cases were told to come off mental health medications.
From the CEI website:
“Go make millions and give it to the House of God … Amen!” Phil Pringle preached at one conference, recorded and published online. In another clip, then leader of C3 Americas Jurgen Matthesius is also captured giving the hard sell to parishioners.
The Cult Education Institute names Jurgen in its report on ex-members—some of whom state churchgoers are brainwashed into donating large sums.
“God is brilliant with ledgers. God is the most perfect accountant, he knows everything you give and he makes sure it comes back to you with interest,” Jurgen said.
Jurgen’s other mentor is the Founding Pastor and Founding President of Hillsong, Brian Houston. Following a years-long investigation, Houston was charged with concealing his late father, Frank’s child sex abuse. The trial was underway in Sydney, Australia and closing arguments are expected in June. Jurgen recently talked about serial pedophile Frank Houston on their podcast, referring to Frank as “a man of god”
https://twitter.com/AwakenExposed/status/1611509675413082112?s=20
Houston himself stepped down from Hillsong earlier this year amid sexual abuse scandals after behaving inappropriately toward two women. Houston is currently trying to rehabilitate his name. On the day his trial dates were announced he released a video statement saying he will fight the charges while denying accusations of inappropriate behavior.
Despite Hillsong’s numerous financial and sexual abuse scandals, Jurgen Matthesius still invites their pastors to speak at his church. Houston spoke at Awaken September 9th last year.
Jurgen’s preaching has two flavors: prosperity gospel and hand-picking Bible verses to justify culture war grievances. Prosperity gospel is an umbrella term for a group of ideas that link Christian faith with material, and particularly financial, success. Parishioners at Awaken are encouraged to tithe 10% of their income as an offering to the church with the promise that “the Lord” will bless them with health and wealth. It’s a popular ongoing grift in evangelical Christianity. Some of the most famous examples are televangelists Joel Ostein and Kenneth Copeland, who both made themselves millionaires off donations from their congregations.
Jurgen has a talent for grifting his parishioners. In one of many examples he declares tithing/giving “a sacred thing, a holy thing,” and that “the holy spirit is your helper.” He says that large donations/tithing should still be given, even though you may not be able to afford it, as it gives God an opportunity to save you.
“Your arm won’t be able to sustain you but you release the right arm of god to be able to elevate you,” Jurgen said about giving beyond one’s means.
https://twitter.com/Katerqburns/status/1609437871542525953?s=20
But the prosperity grift isn’t Jurgen’s only routine. As Jacob Mcwhinny wrote for The Voice of San Diego:
“Vaccine denialism and political diatribes aren’t a bug of Matthesuis’ sermons, but an integral feature. Talk of rampant election fraud, globalist cabals and genocidal elites are increasingly common in his sermons and in his social media posts”
https://twitter.com/Katerqburns/status/1625678855754362880?s=20
Jurgen has been consistent in his vitriol about the COVID-19 vaccines, former COVID czar Anthony Fauci and “the pandemic of the vaccinated”. It sits back into the coded antisemitism of his overall message: “the globalists”, “WEF” (World Economic Forum), “the demonic Left” and “Soros” are evil and instructed by Satan to usher in the “new world order”.
He regularly spews his hatred on Gettr as he has been banned from Instagram and Twitter.
“Biden is NOT running America. These are NOT his policies. The WEF are in power. They deployed DOMINION voting systems to overthrow democracies in America & around the world to USHER in their ‘dystopian’ Great reset!,” Jurgen said in one rant.
https://twitter.com/AwakenExposed/status/1612874969360523264?s=20
Jurgen’s reach goes beyond his own church. He’s a board member at Chula Vista Christian University, a San Diego private school that opened in the fall of 2020. The school claims on their website it was “designed to combat the government’s systemic cradle-to-grave indoctrination in the public sphere.”
Jurgen is also involved in a number of international evangelical networks. He’s a member of the Christian Men’s Network, a 40-year-old global movement of pastors and leaders that focus on training men “as servant-leaders in their families, church, and culture”. He’s also a member of Empowered21, a “global relational network” for evangelical leaders that holds an annual networking conference. Jurgen is a contributor to ARC Churches, an organization that helps evangelical pastors and “church planters” start their own ministries.
Jurgen was at one point also associated with and spoke at ARISE Church, New Zealand. ARISE was recently at the center of a series of abuse scandals. There were allegations of rape and sexual assault within the Arise congregation. Victims’ claim these were continuously swept under the rug by pastors protecting the abusers. Former and current members claim to have experienced cult-like manipulation, burnout and emotional abuse.
Jurgen sees himself as a leader in the “spiritual war” waged by christian nationalists country wide, he’s connected, wealthy and on a mission to “take up territory”, meaning expand the churches footprint while taking over city councils, school boards and government as a whole.
– Contributing writer, Kate Burns
On his instagram, Jurgen called C3’s Phil Pringe and Hillsong’s Brian Houston his mentors. Both men and their churches are riddled with controversies including but not limited to financial, physical, spiritual and homophobic abuse.