Did you get a paper called a ‘prayer rug’ in the mail?

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The mailing is from a group called “Saint Matthew’s Churches.”

Just to be clear: it has nothing to do with St. Matthew Catholic Church in Charlotte.

The mailing is addressed “To a Friend.” It has a purple sheet of paper inside, called the “prayer rug.” It has a picture of Jesus and tells you to kneel on it and then send it back with a form, which asks what you’re praying for and if you want to enclose money.

Don Draughn never requested the “prayer rug,” but got one anyway. He was so suspicious about it that he emailed Action 9′s Jason Stoogenke, wanting to get the word out.

“I looked at it and my first thought was this is something to avoid,” he said. “It’s really not going to do anything for [people] other than, in my opinion, take their money.”

The mailing doesn’t ask for money directly. But it has at least two spots where you can fill in how much money you’re mailing back, along with your prayer request.

Plus, Draughn happens to be a pastor -- at Ben Avenue Free Will Baptist Church in Kannapolis.

“It … really disturbed me that it seemed like they were trying to kind of take advantage of folks that are in desperate situations,” he said. “Felt like someone needed to say something about it because that’s not what church is about.”

Saint Matthew’s Churches appears to be mostly -- or entirely -- a mail-based ministry. It uses a Tulsa P.O. Box address.

The Tulsa World newspaper has investigated the ministry and the man behind it. It says the Rev. James Ewing started it and that, in the ‘80s, the group was making more than $3 million per year. It says he and his associates were leasing “numerous luxury cars,” including “four Rolls-Royces, two Jaguars, three Mercedes sedans and a Ferrari.”

The article says that, by the early ‘90s, the group was making $6 million per year and that Ewing was living in a $2.2 million home near Beverly Hills.

An ABC station in Texas reported the ministry “grossed more than $26 million” in 1999 alone, which appears to be the last time the group made its tax records public.

Do the math and that’s more than $70,000 per day.

Warren Smith runs the religious watchdog group, Ministry Watch, which is based in Charlotte. Ministry Watch posted a warning about the mailing in 2014 and still stands by it.

“They may claim that they’re not directly asking for money, but the implication of all their communications is send me money,” Smith told Stoogenke. “They skate right up to the edge of what is legal, moral, and ethical. They usually don’t cross over the line, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to be around for as long as they have. They stay just this side of the line. But what they do nonetheless is … preys on the vulnerable, preys on the scared, the people that are in fear.”

Smith suggests people “throw [the mailing] in the garbage can, do not respond to it, do not send the money.”

The Attorney General’s office for Oklahoma -- where Saint Matthew’s Churches is based -- told Stoogenke it has received complaints.

The Arkansas Attorney General said in 2007 that “consumers who provided Saint Matthew’s with their contact information have complained that after doing so, they were bombarded with solicitations and harassed constantly for donations.”

Stoogenke tried to get Saint Matthew’s Churches’ side of the story. The church lists two phone numbers on its website. One didn’t go through.

The other number had a recorded message, saying, “Everything this ministry does is free of charge … we sell nothing.” But it also asks the caller to share any names and addresses of people it can add to its mailing list.

Be careful giving money to any charity or religious group. Do your homework, read reviews online, and search watchdog sites like the BBB, Charity Navigator, or GuideStar.

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