CTMI - Activities and their Agenda
Church Team Ministries International (CTMI) operates out of Mauritius and is headed up by their self styled “apostle” Miki (Michel) Hardy and his wife Audrey. They have branches in:
- Paris, France
- Ringwood, UK
- San Diego, USA
- Durban, South Africa
- Bulawayo and Harare, Zimbabwe
- Nairobi Kenya
- Reunion Island
- The Seychelles
- Other African Countries
The church has attracted negative publicity from the start, in about 1989, when they were targeted by the Islamic community in Mauritius for making inflammatory statements that resulted in riots and violence.Since then they have been the target of a lot of negative press as they have controversially taken minors from their families, hidden them, sent them to churches outside the country and fought court battles to keep these children from their families.
The church has two agendas. The first is to proselytise new members from other churches. This is done by advocating a revelation of the “true gospel” as revealed to their accepted “apostle”, Miki Hardy. Their strategy involves the criticism and denigration of all other churches, ministries and ministers and stating that these are teaching a “false gospel”. They hold “leadership” meetings designed to encourage pastors to cut any previous associations and affiliate their churches to CTMI.
The second is to target young people, primarily committed Christians, between the ages of 18 and 30, and convince them of the error of their churches and then get them to leave their church and leave home and move in with one of the church members. They then generally convince them of the futility of school, university, or any education, ambitions, talents, goals or careers. They emphasise the need to embrace the church as their new family and to reject their biological families. The next is to subtly manipulate the convert to marry someone selected for them by the elders.
Many young adults ranging from 18 to 20 years of age have become increasingly involved in the church near Durban, South Africa, called Grace Gospel Church. This church is led by Basil O’Connell-Jones and is a “partner church” of Church Team Ministries International (CTMI) which is based in Curepipe in Mauritius.
As the involvement of the young people in this organisation has increased, their behaviour has changed - becoming obsessive, negative and destructive.
Currently in Durban there are several church leaders who have spoken out against the ministry of this organisation and Grace Gospel Church and there is growing unease among schools whose pupils have come under the influence of CTMI. At best CTMI could be described as a sectarian group, and at worst as a cult. There is justification in using the term cult as the young people exhibit the symptoms of extreme and unhealthy indoctrination.