SMS competition leads to ex-communication of Pastor & his family

South Africa’s Independent Online has published a story today that caught my attention. Have a read:

What started as an SMS competition meant to financially empower members of the Assemblies of God’s Bethel Church has turned ugly.

Pastor Malcolm Jacobs is now taking the church to the labour tribunal next month to contest what he terms an unfair dismissal.

There’s not that much in the way of background information about what’s alleged to have gone on — except this piece:

He added that he believed that by dismissing him, La Foy wanted to cover his own tracks as he had “been less than truthful” about his involvement in the whole SMS scheme in which churchgoers are believed to have lost more than R80-million.

From what I can make out, the Pastor seems to have been behind creating an SMS competition… that… well, resulted in what appear to have been huge losses for churchgoers.