The church Benny Hinn built and singer and pastor Clint Brown later occupied. Faith World Center, known in Hinn’s days as World Outreach Center, was sold in an online auction for $1.85 million.
Evangelical Christian Credit Union laid claim to the Orlando, Florida church building on Forest City Road. Faith World Center defaulted on its mortgage in late 2013, according to the Orlando Sentinel, owing $9.7 million.
Hinn has long since left Orlando. Meanwhile, Brown is holding services in Wekiva High School’s auditorium under a new banner: Judah Church.
“Can I tell you this morning? We’ve been through some pain,” Brown thundered in his first sermon at the high school June 8, the Sentinel reported. “We’ve been abused. … We have been lied to. We have been taken advantage of.”
A former resident of Orlando, I can attest that few churches were as well known and attended as Faith World. The fact that the once budding mega-church is now having service in a school gym is beyond me. And apparently the city officials and lenders have taken notice.
Pastor Clint brown’s property was recently appraised at just over 7.5 million, but he owes 9.7 million. A fact that leads many to believe the church has been misusing funds for years, since they have been at the property for over a decade. There’s much we don’t know, but over a decade and you haven’t been able to pay down your loans principal balance? In fact it has risen considerably…
Although Benny Hinn is not directly connected to this controversy Brown has got himself into. Hinn has long been surrounded by his own share of controversy. Hinn, who was born into a Greek Orthodox Christian family and later became a zealous charismatic, admitted to ABC that he doesn’t have medical verification of the healings he performs, and said some people who claimed they were healed on stage at the events were actually not.
He later said, “These are things that I cannot explain because I am not the healer. I’m human like you.”
When confronted with the question on whether he’s taking advantage of devoutly religious and vulnerable people for his own enrichment, Hinn said, “You cannot fool all the people all the time. I think if I was fooling the people, over 35 years of it now I would’ve been caught already fooling them.”
