Hello All,

Please be advised that there is a cult operating in Vancouver Canada, going by the name Vancouver Christian Fellowship.

The Leader is an individual who claims to be a former Muslim militant turned Christian Pastor. His name is Afshin Javid.
The Bible Study leader is Gregg Jeske who was fired from Vernon Alliance Church and subsequently defrocked by the Alliance Church of Canada.
The third leader is Brian Gervais.

The leader is squarely Mr. Javid. He has appeared on a number of Christian television programs: It's a New Day, Haven Today, 100 Huntley, Trinity Broadcasting etc. He has also spoken at Missions Fest Toronto and Vancouver and the Lausanne conference in CapeTown 2010.

The Modus Operandi is described in an online posting here (www.2peter2.blogspot.com). There are numerous other blog posts about this man elsewhere on the net that can be found by googling "afshin javid fired" or "afshin javid scandal"

In short - the usual tactics are employed:
Use testimony to gain trust, meet with prospective member in his house, invite them to live near or in his house, wear down ethical mores - particularly around sexuality - but also in many other areas.
Has suffered a little loss of reputation since three women came forward in the spring of 2011 to say that he had loured them into sexual contact during counselling sessions. He then jumped around trying to find leadership that would immediately let him get back on the road. He found such leaders in Zion Church in Surrey, BC, Canada. (Parenthetically, Zion's daughter church in Hong Kong became a full-on cult and was in the news because its leader was advising members to drink hydrogen peroxide.)

Zion Church happens to be dealing with a second sexual scandal at the moment with one of their frontmen and for some reason has adopted this situation.

In any case, Mr. Javid is now back on the road speaking in churches in the USA and making bookings in Canada also. His testimony resonates very deeply with Christians because his background is in Islam. This affords him a great deal of credibility and serves as a cover for his activities at home.

Mr Javid has a very devoted graphic designer who maintains a number of websites for him:
www.afshinjavid.com
http://www.youtube.com/user/theafshinjavid
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Afshin-Javid/181064548603932
https://www.facebook.com/afshin.javid

Vancouver Christian Fellowship also has a facebook page. They currently meet in a public park having most recently ejected from the Salvation Army Church at 12th and Lonsdale in North Vancouver (~Sep 2009) and from Lion's Gate Christian Academy (~Mar 2012).

Mr. Javid has a long track record of financial and sexual philandering. Be warned. Stay away.

It is December 2012. If I had my way, I would remove this post for the sake of the closure and healing of all the people who were involved in VCF – people about whom I care about deeply – however, the policy of the Rick Ross Forum is that there are no edits or deletions to previous posts. So, the best I can do is to offer the hope that some things have improved.

For all intents and purposes, as I understand, VCF exists only as a small core of people who were and have always been adherents – notwithstanding all the terrible things that occurred.

Some of the leadership have gone off to the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, MO. Perhaps this is going out of the frying pan and into the fire but I will keep the discussion focused on the matter at hand.

Afshin Javid is someone whom I have decided to forgive and pray for. I do not know the state of his heart and probably never will. He continues to seek speaking engagements and regularly posts videos on YouTube, most often on the topic of love. Circumstances appear to have resulted in substantial improvement in his interpersonal behaviour, which is good, in principle.

Christians are somewhat divided on how to respond to him. Some argue that he should be restored to Christian leadership because he is penitent while others argue that: i) true penitence would be impossible to discern because of the history of spiritually disingenuous behaviour and ii) even if true repentance were provable, Afshin would be disqualified from leadership on scriptural grounds.

Not a day goes by where my heart is not sorrowed by how negatively the VCF and I AM Thirsty story has sullied the ministry of Jesus Christ and injured Christians I know. I guess when this sort-of thing was an abstraction to me, as it was for the stories of Todd Bentley, Ted Haggard, and Jimmy Swaggart, it did not cause me such personal sorrow. But since I know the people who have been injured and I know so well the path of my own disillusionment, I daily feel the pain of it and have to wilfully hand it back to Christ and ask him to carry my sorrow for me – because I cannot carry it on my own.

Why did this happen to us? Did we bring it on ourselves? Were we disciplined by God for not heading the warnings in Proverbs, Matt 7, Jude, and 2nd Peter. I don't know. I simply don't know. I will likely never know and the puzzle of what this episode in our lives was all about will walk with me until I die.

If in acting as the whistle-blower, I have hurt anyone, I am truly sorry. If I have spoken in anger and derision, please forgive me. Would that, in some way, the work and person of Christ would be glorified, even in this very sad story.

Dear Mr./ Mrs. Holmes,

I landed on this page looking for information what had happened to Mr. Javid after seeing his testimony on youtube that I wanted to recommend to muslim Iranian friends.
I took the trouble of registering here and awaiting its approval to reply to your open question "why did this happen to us".
Eph 6:12 KJV: For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
The first thing that came to mind to me was: a clear attack from God's opponent on a flourishing part of the Body that is too successful in preaching the near coming of the Kingdom of God. THere is indeed a clear pattern in such things happening.
I have no information nor ground whatsoever to say anything about if things involving Mr. Javid actually did or did not happen in the way described, but I can only say this: it resembles 100% the instructed way of working of the jesuits in destroying faithful churches, as testified by several ex-jesuits, among which Dr. Alberto Rivera.
Irrespective of the degree of successfulnes of their actions, in the end they achieve their goal: at least put Christians in negative light and at best destroy the community and its effectiveness in reaching people with the message that the Kingdom of God is near and we need to repent. Just like John the Baptist did, shortly before the first coming of Jesus.

I pray God may heal the wounds of everybody involved and use even this will work together for good, for them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose. (Rom 8:28 KJV).

Though far away, connected in Jesus the Messiah,
CW

C_W-partners:

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