5/16/2023 0 Comments Victory outreach san diego![]() ![]() Last year, church officials said they treated 10,520 men and women, though they have little evidence for their claimed rates of recovery. The congregations are concentrated in Southern California, with 58 churches from San Diego to Los Angeles. city and more than a dozen in South America, Europe and Africa-235 congregations and 310 rehabilitation homes worldwide. ![]() There are Victory Outreach churches in almost every major U.S. The backbone of the church is its network of rehabilitation homes-also known as special services homes-that are, typically, low-rent houses and apartments whose residents are packed five and six to a room. "I think that the souls they have reached outweigh the dirty laundry." Victory Outreach is "reaching out where no one else is. Either you want your life changed or you don't."Įven a veteran pastor who quit the church because of his concern over its financial practices defends its larger mission. It's worse than prison and boot camp, and if they don't like it, they can get out the door," said Victory Outreach spokesman Robert Alvarado, describing the regimen at the church's drug rehabilitation homes. The lifestyle demanded of followers is spartan because that's what church leaders say it takes to break the powerful grip of drugs and alcohol. The church's message is redemption through sacrifice and obedience. ![]() After only four of the 70 or so Victory Outreach facilities in California got a state license, the church withdrew all its license applications.īut what some followers call exploitation, others say is the only approach tough enough for these hard cases. State officials in the early 1990s found many church rehabilitation homes to be unsafe and unsanitary. They contend that the church flouts labor laws and encourages members to defraud the welfare system. The money, they say, is used to support a high lifestyle for Pastor Sonny and other top church leaders. They accuse the ministry of being a "spiritual pyramid scheme" that profits from the slave labor of followers, spending the proceeds with little accountability. To them he offers what few other drug treatment programs can claim: an unheard-of 85% success rate, plus community, faith and purpose.īut as with all miracles, there are reasons to doubt.įormer pastors and ex-members say Victory Outreach exploits its vulnerable followers and exacts from them blind loyalty to rake in millions of dollars at their expense. His followers are society's castoffs and dropouts: ex-gang members, drug addicts and prostitutes with nowhere else to go, people desperate for a miracle of their own. He called it Victory Outreach International and became Pastor Sonny to a flock that over three decades has swelled to 30,000. Grateful, the high school dropout, part-time purse snatcher and hope-to-die heroin addict repaid the miracle with one of his own.įrom an apartment in a Boyle Heights housing project, Arguinzoni started a Christian ministry. God himself pulled the needle out of Sonny Arguinzoni's arm, or so the story goes. But some former members say it exploits followers, a charge its leaders deny. Email Casting a Critical Eye on Church of Castoffs Using tough love, Victory Outreach has helped turn around thousands of addicts and others. ![]()
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